The subtle sounds of Himalayan bowls and Chinese gongs create a beautiful tapestry of harmonic overtones and turn this album into a highly meditative experience.

Himalayan bowls have a very rich bouquet in overtones. The first moment one strikes a bowl, a chaos of simultaneous sounds arises: the fundamental tone together with all kinds of harmonics (and disharmonics). The first few milliseconds a kind of battle is fought , a severe selection is made to sort out which tones will take the lead. After a few seconds only three or four tones survive. Among each other they will strive for the most harmonious relation as long as the resonance of the bowl persists. In some cases this process can take several minutes.

If one combines two or more bowls together, a rich pattern of sound comes into existence in the air. When playing my bowls in a concert, I feel like waving an ever changing and evolving carpet-like structure around me, filling the entire place where I play. It is as if the bowls do not release their sounds in a straight line from the performer to the audience, as other instruments do; it is more like playing with effect on the balls at a billiard-table, or like throwing a boomerang. The sound departs, bulks together, comes back, mingles with new sound making new tone-intervals, producing spots of "thickness" and rest, and areas of "lightness" and speed; peaks and valleys, ventral segments and nodes. Sometimes I strike a bowl below on my left side and I hear its sound coming from above on my right.

Because of this carpet-like metaphor, I have called this record "The Art of Tapestry" and I gave each number the name of an eastern carpet (which names in fact relate to their places of origin). Himalayan bowls have a highly relaxing and trance-inducing effect. Often this process can be followed in the body: a tone strikes a certain spot in the body (e.g. the heart) and enlarges to other areas (e.g. the head and the belly), whereby a flow of energy can be felt. Himalayan bowls are excellent tools for relaxation and the removal of all kinds of internal stress.

What about the Chinese and Balinese gongs ? They deepen the effect of the bowls. Chinese flat gongs contain all the notes of the scale, and they have a centrifugal effect, going from a centre opening towards the peripheral. Balinese gongs (which have a bulb in the middle) are tuned and have a centripetal or concentrating effect, thus complementing the Chinese gongs. You can make the gongs sing, just as the bowls. Most people react strongly to the sound of the gongs: they can provoke anxiety, but if you let go, they make you float into... Into what? Into some personal cosmic experience... (Guido)

1. Ghoum 9:57
2. Tabriz 11:09
3. Bokhara 7:27
4. Kars 9:40
5. Ispahan 11:59
6. Khorassan 7:43
7. Agra 9:03
Total time: 67:17

All compositions made and all instruments played by Guido Martens
Recorded, mixed, produced and mastered by Ivan Candaele.