Search - Shartse College of Ganden Monastery :: Tibetan Buddhism

Barely music as the West knows it, but this is scary stuff

Gavin Wilson | 07/10/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you can imagine thirty or so of your colleagues gargling in unison after a particularly heavy night out, mixed in with the low growl of a large, bad-tempered lizard, you might get some idea of the sonic impact of these chanting monks.David Lewiston captured the chanting of the monks of the Ganden Monastery in 1987. The monastery was in exile from Tibet and re-situated in Karnataka province in southern India -- hence all the birdsong in this marvellous outdoor recording.According to the sleevenotes, only mature adults can produce the weird, harmonically rich "one-voice chording" that these monks have learnt to produce. It is certainly something to impress your friends with. It is the strangest thing you will hear all year, and it is wonderfully hypnotic.You realise how deep a trance you've been lured into when the percussion suddenly crashes in on track #3. Topped off with the sound of the very long bass trumpets the monks call 'dungchen', this is a brilliant climax. This is not techno, jazz or classical -- to my ears, it is barely music at all. But everyone needs to hear it at least once in their lives."