Sacred Alliance by Anima

There are all kinds of new age music and occasionally I hear some that makes feel like I am sailing through space on a rocketship, or drifting in the ocean. the new album by the group Anima, titled Sacred Alliance, is a bit like that but the floating feeling is more like simply lifting off the ground. I envisioned one of those giant clear plastic bubble balls that you get inside and people push you or lift you over their heads at a concert or whatever. But imagine if, like a regular bubble, it simply began rising and floating over the landscape. That is the closest description I can give you as to how the music of Anima makes me feel.

The music is mostly made by an English gentleman named Ali Calderwood (with some help from his partner, the vocalist Daniela Broder). Their sound is somewhere between ambient and melodic space music with world-fusion overtones. I suppose the main instrument is synthesizer, but Calderwood uses a lot of two ethnic instruments -- the woodwind-like duduk (originally from Armenia) and the stringed guzheng (from China) -- which, with a touch of digeridoo, gives the world flavor. Then he sweetens the pot with Western instrumentation, especially violin and cello, but also guitars, piano and a string section. Daniela sings gently and sweetly on “Surrender” and there is some Tibetan chanting on “Ancestral Father of the Stars.” There are some drone passages followed by subtle, lovely melodies.

This group is very much into the Earth, sacred spots, indigenous cultures, healing and spiritual expansion. If you are too, let their music help you with your journey to betterment.