''The Garden of Mirrors'' is an album by
Stephan Micus
Stephan Micus (; born 19 January 1953) is a German musician and composer, whose musical style is heavily influenced by his study of traditional instruments and musical techniques from Japan, India, South America, and other countries. With the exc ...
recorded between 1995–1996 and released on
ECM
ECM may refer to:
Economics and commerce
* Engineering change management
* Equity capital markets
* Error correction model, an econometric model
* European Common Market
Mathematics
* Elliptic curve method
* European Congress of Mathematics
...
the following year.
Background
Like his previous efforts, Micus plays every instrument via overdubbing: he also provides all of the voices for the 20-man chorus in three of the tracks.
Micus's inspiration for this album was two traditional low-range
West African
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
s that he studied in
Gambia
The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...
: the ''
bolombatto'' and the ''sinding''. When playing these two instruments, Micus claims to have identified with early
African American music, which they influenced, claiming that the
bassline
Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched Part ( ...
in
jazz was influenced by these harps. Other instruments used by Micus include
steel drums and four different flutes: the
Japanese ''
shakuhachi
A is a Japanese and ancient Chinese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo.
The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the . '', the
Balinese ''
suling'', the
Irish tin whistle, and the
Egyptian ''
ney''.
Track listing
#"Earth"
#"Passing Cloud"
#"Violeta"
#"Flowers in Chaos"
#"In the High Valleys"
#"Gates of Fire"
#"Mad Bird"
#"Night Circles"
#"Words of Truth"
Personnel
Stephen Micus
References
1997 albums
Stephan Micus albums
ECM Records albums
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