New! Lama

The 14th Dalai Lama is marking his 85th birthday by releasing his first ever album. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who celebrates the milestone Monday, hopes "Inner World" – an album of mantras and Buddhist teachings – will provide some tranquility amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic and global protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

Life Space Death is an exciting set of music and wisdom from Bill Laswell, Toshinori Kondo and His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Laswell and Kondo provide the music. The Dalai Lama provides the wisdom through spoken word messages. The messages are about peace, love, serenity, compassion, kindness, acceptance, and any number of hopeful and desirable traits. Laswell and Kondo provide a gentle background with processed sounds and gentle atmospheres. Smooth rhythms accompany the Dalai Lama's words. The instrumental passages are deep and hopeful space music. The spoken messages are printed on the inlay card. This is an essential learning and meditation CD.

Over a period of many years, filmmaker Mickey Lemle set about capturing a portrait of His Holines the Dalai Lama, now in his mid-80s, as he travelled the world talking about his life, compassion, his disciplines, and his work. The film commissioned original music from Philip Glass and Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal. The score is performed by Glass and Michael Riesman on pianos, Tenzin Choegyal on vocals and various Tibetan instruments, Tim Fain on Violin, Robert Black on double bass, and the Scorchio String. Quintessential traditional offering, "Om Ma Mi Phad may Hum" can be heard in "Heart Strings," sung by 150 Tibetan children. The album ends with Philip Glass's own live performance of Mad Rush, composed for the Dalai Lama's first public address in New York in 1978.

Released to coincide with their 25th anniversary, Grandes Exitos is a two-CD collection with accompanying DVD from the influential Spanish synth pop trio Mecano. Its 30 tracks include early singles "Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar" and "Barco a Venus"; material from their critically acclaimed final two studio albums, Descanso Dominical and Aidalai; and several unreleased songs.

This CD invokes the presence of the divine mother. I listend to this CD while at a week long silent meditation retreat. It filled me with a gentle joy, peace and immense loving kindness. It is very calming, gentle and nurturing. It features the following songs: Ganesh Invocation, Devi Prayer and Lalitha Ashtotram, which is a Sanskrit mantra of the 108 sacred names of the mother divine. ~ Brad VanAuken