 Kitaro According to the official Kitaro website, Tenjiku (aka India) was recorded for a 1980 filmed voyage through desolate places along China's "Silk Road," with Kitaro composing the music while traveling with the film crew. The crew faced many obstacles, including blistering heat, but according to the crew: "It was Kitaro's music that kept us going through all the hardships we encountered." Same with me. When the metaphorical film crew traveling the China of my mind is beset by desolation and heat (?), it is only Kitaro who can be counted on to see me through to the other side. (??) His music has the same instant calming effect of a floatation tank … were I to listen to Kitaro while actually in a floatation tank, I would probably dissolve instantly. India doesn't stand out much from the rest of Kitaro's late-70s/early-80s music, but it's as soothing and as good as pretty much everything he did back then. A bit more sweeping and "soundtracky," perhaps, but still the dependably catatonic chord progressions, swooshy laser-synths, gentle but strong acoustic guitars, jangly windchimes, and that faux-flute synth sound that is his trademark sound. It's robot heroin that produces an instant epiphanal light show in your brain, helping you to traverse whatever Silk Road you happen to be on, letting you know that all will be well if you stay true to your heart. The album was one of Geffen's mid-80s reissues that initially brought Kitaro to a bigger audience in the US, and this is when I jumped on the bandwagon, hence my affinity for this particular era. These records made the harshness of my high school years safer and more hopeful than they otherwise would have been, offering mental massages whenever I needed them. And they still do the trick when my mind is filled with too much crazy rock music, dissonant jazz, or just my run-of-the-mill koo-koo thoughts, crippling self-doubt, and paranoia. Also according to Kitaro's website: "The music Kitaro was producing was not unlike the sounds from the 'pure organ sound' Dr. Tanaka had discovered over 100 years ago. (Kitaro was around 27 years old at this time)." Do they mean that Kitaro was "around 27 years old" when he was making Tenjiku in 1980, or that he was "around 27 years old" over 100 years ago? Either seems equally probable.
Review by Henry Lee Winklerley |