Search - Various Artists :: Trance Planet Vol 5

The latest edition of this series isn't the revelation of earlier volumes. The ethno-techno, world-fusion sound the series propounded has become part of the mainstream. In fact, it's become corporate. Nevertheless, producer Tom Schnabel still unearths some hidden gems and makes his case for a global music. Among the CD's standouts are bansuri flute player John Wubbenhorst's probing "No Mind," Elena Ledda's Mediterranean meditation "Anninnare," and Irish singer Aoife Ni Fhearraigh. For some inexplicable reason, Aoife didn't catch a ride on the Celtic wave of the last decade and the stacked chorus of her "Seacht Sualici na Maighdine Muire" will have you wondering why she didn't. Hungarian composer Istvan Marta takes a gothic avant-garde turn in a scary piece with singer Marta Sebestyen. That track stands in contrast to American soundtrack artist Jeff Rona's corny, spoken-word soundscape with the idiosyncratic Italian astrophysicist and synthesist Dr. Fiorella Terenzi. Schnabel even finds gold in the otherwise hopelessly derivative M Path with the forlorn, raga-based "The Longing." Although no longer novel, the original message of Trance Planet remains potent. The world is getting smaller, and as long as musicians like Tunde Jegede want to mix the kora of his African heritage with the classical cello, as he does on the haunting "Song of the Waterfall," cross-cultural pollination isn't going away. --John Diliberto