Paul watched Baraka over the weekend, and it inspired him to put together some beautiful time lapse footage edited to The Enigmatic Smile Upon Her Lips of Beauty
Settle in for a pleasant ride along the New Age/jazz/world highway as Cass Anawaty and Paul Russell (the former in Oregon and the latter in Singapore), along with a host of guest musicians, conjure up some Caribbean-flavored grooves. Monjour is admittedly right on the cusp for a Hypnagogue review, much more of an acoustic work than electronic, but while it shows its late-harvest Windham Hill roots it’s also a varied, nicely constructed and overall engaging work.
Anawaty/Russell’s Monjour is all about texture. Imagine a big Jackson Pollock splotch-fest refracted through James Cameron’s 3-D Avatar technology and you’ll get some idea of the kind of deep, teeming aural pool in which these guys invite you to swim. This is intelligent music created by sound artists who aren't just gifted players and composers but inspired technicians as well.
Now that Monjour is being downloaded and or purchasing the CD, we're getting some lovely feedback. Here's what some very nice people are saying about it.
'Nice fusion of World, Jazz and modern synthesis. Love the vocal expressions and ambient textures, overall arrangements flows beautifully. Superb polished production and performances throughout :-)' - Greg Stevenson
'It's a beautiful album, highly recommended' - James Griffith, Scotland
'You guys are an inspiration' Jonbuoy, UK
'This is all very impressive...' Frank Tanton, USA
'You have some tasty textures going on with very cool grooves. The voices sound real nice too.' - Jose Cabrera, USA
See that red sky in the sunset? That's Cass blushing!
I just finished listening to the Monjour album in its streaming version. It’s really good. Seven tunes that flow in and out of each other with crystalline production values. Monjour to my ears is a yin/yang dance of both the sparkle and the tidal. The playing and instrumentation provides sparkle, bubbling and popping as guitars, pianos, winds and horns hand off to each other, moving the focus in and out, back and forth
by John Shanahan, 
by Myles Marlow