Search - Ray Brooks :: Hollow Bell

Ray Brooks came to wide prominence as a musical thinker with his book, Blowing Zen: Finding an Authentic Life, which autobiographically chronicled the physical and spiritual journey of a young British engineer meeting up with Zen and the Japanese shakuhachi flute. Hollow Bell is Blowing Zen's sequel in a way, Brooks's attempt to make the book more palpable for readers who wondered what the blowing sounded like. As shakuhachi recordings go, this one's a delight, a series of musical explorations that take advantage of the end-blown flute's tonal ranges--which all stay in the midregister and never proceed faster than a glacier. Between pacing and the airy overtones that Brooks manages, he makes Hollow Bell an instantly purposeful recording, a set of historically important tunes and improvisations that center the ear and lay down a calm that's not so much quiet as it is a quickly enveloping sound environment. --Andrew Bartlett