PLANETARY PEACE

(1993 & 2,000)

Duration 77’ 33”  

BEL CD 011 (CD only) £10

(post & packing extra in the UK - £2 First Class Recorded Delivery)

 

 

Volume One of Frank's "Planets Suite" featuring music inspired by the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon even though, strictly speaking, the Moon isn't a planet.

This is the fully revised new version of the deleted album Belovodye that originally appeared on the now defunct ISIS Records label. Initially, this was supposed to be something of a collaboration between the owner Mike Trim and myself. However, having set up my instrumentarium in the recording studio (converted barn) in the event of asking Mike Trim what he had in mind for us to do: I received the response "I thought you could do a gong piece"! I knew from that moment on that I was on my own. I went to sleep that night and visited in spirit my elder spirit brother Anthony - so it was that when I awoke a gong piece revealed itself to me. That piece is track 4 - "Re-incorporation." 

Mike Trim had intimated that my music was rather difficult for people to approach and suggested making an album where each track progressively brings the new listener closer to the essence of my work. As each track unfolded, we rapidly filled one CD and so I realised that it would need two CDs and the vast majority of the second CD (largely featuring Tibetan Singing Bowls) was also recorded during these few days of recording. This second volume comprised five tracks for: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Vulcan and the Sun. Eleven pieces and just under 160 minutes of music. This was finally released in 2001 as Volume 3 of the Series: Tibetan Singing Bowls and retains its original title - Ancient Tibetan Initiation Bowls (click on highlighted title to find out more about that CD).

 

SOUNDBITES:

 Track 3: AN ANCIENT PATHWAY. Click HERE for sound clip.  My music features little repetition and unfolds more like a conversation or poem . This clip is but part of a larger whole. Unfortunately, some of my sounds do not faithfully reproduce into MP3's.

Track 4: RAYS FROM THE TOWER PENETRATED OFTEN THE MISTS. Click HERE for sound clip.  My music features little repetition and unfolds more like a conversation or poem . This clip is but part of a larger whole. Unfortunately, some of my sounds do not faithfully reproduce into MP3's.

 

PLANETARY PEACE

Subtitled 

Belovodye - Land of White Waters. 

Part 1 The Illumined Road.

Additional Musicians:

Martin Brunsden - yidaki and Tibetan bells.

Chas Dickie - cello.

Christine Perry - Tibetan bells

Rose Perry - Tibetan bells

Gabriel Perry - Tibetan bells

 

Belovodye (bEll-oh-vod-yer) means Land of White Waters. This is the Russian Legend of Shambhala. The six tracks follow the planetary river of Light to the source. Sacred percussion instruments from huge gongs through countless bells and bowls to the tiny Tibetan invocation cymbals join with Mongolian overtone singing, yidaki (dijeridu) and cello harmonics to create a deep journey through a garden of beautiful sounds.

 

                    Total Time       77:33

 

Photos by John Miles taken at Wytherstone Studios at the time the original recordings were made in 1993.

 

VENUS is for bowed Tibetan Singing Bowls and Planicerv, overlaid with struck Indian Noah Bells and gentle tinkling percussion. The bowed bowls and bowed discs are a kind of 'music of the spheres' with their starting points derived from two astrological charts cast for significant times in the Venus cycle - for more on my use of astro-numerology in my work click here and read the Appendix. 

Spacious, gentle and hanging-in-the-air, this music is intended to represent the harmonious and peace-loving nature of this planet. Of all the planets, the orbit of Venus most closely approximates a perfect circle. Hence it is concerned with Values and the Ideal. Upon the spiritual Path, Venus is also concerned with the cosmic principle of balance or equilibrium. Because of this, in the music there is a certain stillness and delicate balance between the various musical layers. Another piece dedicated to my late Taurean composer friend 'Jack' (Samuel). Although primarily a Serialist composer, Jack was very interested in the deeper and more philosophical aspects of music and often attended the meetings of KAIROS where Keith Critchlow expounded upon his ancient Greek studies of musical symbolism. Jack composed a piece titled 'Turning Worlds' wherein he incorporated his interest in such extra-musical matters.

MARS begins with a Djembe drum playing a 9-beat rhythm accompanied by other shaken percussion suggestive of the animal realm and then moves into another section for rolling Petalumines, rolling cymbals and gongs and ends with the single sound of a rare and extremely powerful Tibetan Singing Bowl called a Panic Bowl. 

Mars is known as the planet of energy and, perhaps because of the inclinations of humanity, is known also as the God of War. This music is representative of an ascending journey through three different archetypal levels of manifesting Energy up to the highest - Pure Light.

MOON opens with Tibetan Bells soon joined by a selection of Tibetan Water Spirit Bowls then Frank begins with Tibetan Tantric undertone chanting which is then joined by the Yidaki (didgeridoo) which is then accompanied by Frank's Mongolian-style overtone singing.  

The Moon has been linked down the ages to all spiritual rituals or other means of communing with the inner realms. Apart from being the first appearance on record of this combination, Martin and Frank commune together in this deep and powerful trance-like piece truly moving with the Tao of inspiration. Martin and Frank had met but once before, at Frank's suggestion, to try improvising with this combination. Although that first meeting was with all of Frank's equipment, he decided upon this particular combination for this context.

            Track 3: AN ANCIENT PATHWAY. Click HERE for sound clip.  My music features little repetition and unfolds more like a conversation or poem . This clip is but part of a larger whole. Unfortunately, some of my sounds do not faithfully reproduce into MP3's.

 

SATURN is the longest track on the CD and is for Gongs only - albeit 40 different gongs played in a wide variety of ways. A symphony for gongs! (for more on Gongs see Frank's article GONGS) Described by various listeners (including contemporary classical composers) as being truly magical! 

Whilst Saturn represents the Lord of Boundaries for astrologers (and one such boundary is our solar system wherein each planet can be experienced as producing a gong-like tone), for occultists it is the antakharana or the bridge between our own egoic realm and the universe. Whilst listening to the sounds of cosmic gongs we are invited to cross over this bridge into other worlds - the Fiery Realms of the spiritual Omniverse.

            Track 4: RAYS FROM THE TOWER PENETRATED OFTEN THE MISTS. Click HERE for sound clip.  My music features little repetition and unfolds more like a conversation or poem . This clip is but part of a larger whole. Unfortunately, some of my sounds do not faithfully reproduce into MP3's.

 

MERCURY features the home-made Boo Flute, a four foot six inch end-blown overtone flute with no finger-holes, accompanied by cello harmonics, Tibetan Singing Bowls and South American Indian Rainsticks. 

Intended as something of a short breather, or rest, from some of the more intense tracks. Mercury is the fastest moving planet and relates to both the element of air and thought.

JUPITER utilises many of the instruments invented by Frank from the PAISTE 2002 bell metal alloy. These are Sunray (Bell Plates), Petalumine, Pyrahermeezees and Trianguhermeezees - all richly resonant and ringing on for several minutes. 

To astrologers, Jupiter is the planet of expansion whilst it is also linked to religion, philosophy and higher thought in general. Accordingly, in this music we enter a universe full of richly resonant and vibrant ringing tones. This is a powerful piece with very centering sounds, yet paradoxically richly harmonic and ringing on for eternity, and therefore suggestive of the vast and expansive spaces of this (inner & outer) universe.

 

Each piece is a journey in itself - as expressed through each part of the poem below, which featured on the original CD. Each track also reflected the response of the planet to the original cover painting by which adorned the CD cover (shown below). Deep inner journeys wherein these sacred sounds transport us into other realms far away from the cares of this materialistic society where we can be inspired with the energies from this ancient City of Light - Belovodye / Shambhala. 

 

Whilst listening to the Tales from the Heart 

A Higher Way Opened 

An Ancient Pathway 

Rays of Light from the Tower Penetrated often the Mists 

A New Rhythm Unfolding 

The City of Light

 

Frank's original titles for the pieces at the time of recording were:

Having listened with Eyes of Love to the Tales of Shambhala.

I decided to take that hazardous journey for the benefit of all beings

Signposts along the Way inspired and Comforted me

Rays from the Tower of Light Penetrated often the mists

Like a Fiery Breath cleansing the Mirror of Silence in Pure Simplicity

Suddenly, the Singing City of Light flooded All Space - Blessing All Beings with Its Love Supreme.

 

SONG OF SHAMBHALA by Nicholas Roerich.
by kind permission of the Roerich Museum, New York.

 

 
 
"Paradoxically, his music is something very ancient, yet never heard before, a glimpse of what music might become in a future spiritual culture. 
"However, all is pervaded by a tremendous silence, which in some of his work can lead the listener into cosmic and angelic dimensions of creation. The title suggests a kind of Shambhala, a Deity of Light, and the six tracks are stages of a voyage to this place, both a physical location and a state of Being...... all suggested and created by a staggering array of tone-colours. These landscapes blossom vividly in the imagination; valleys, canyons, caves and high mountains; all connected by this winding road as a luminous thread.
"The last track brings luminous revelation and we see, at last, the City of Light. Deep gongs create tall columns of golden vibration, a majestic resonating sound pervades all, and we feel the presence of Great Beings. Light and sound descend into form, form continually ascends the ladder of vibration, spirit and sound are irrevocably fused."

Andreas Bettray - Caduceus

 

 

"Frank creates a totally absorbing universe of sound that extends far beyond the idea of the percussive and plugs your imagination directly into his. If ordinary music is like painting, then this is sculpture. Frank's music is created in part from an immense number of gongs, whose sonic richness does for me what Keanu Reeves does for young women, Tibetan bowls whose clarity creates a sound you seem to be able to walk right into, and other vibrational exotica. This record shares that unique property of truly great art of communicating both on a very direct emotional level but of reserving an esoteric depth, for those who care to apply their minds as well as their senses." 

Max Steer - Catalyst

 

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Frank Perry,

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Hants, BH24  1UG

United Kingdom.

Telephone: 01425-470168

 

 

© Copyright by Frank Perry 1993. All rights reserved.  Revised 2001. 

© Frank Perry, 1993. All of these articles are copyright. They may individually be copied and shared with others in a spirit of knowledge-sharing and fair play, but they may not be sold, printed or reproduced in quantity or changed in form without the permission of the copyright holder. None of this material may be reproduced in workshops or lectures of any kind unless quotes are credited or properly attributed.  

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