CHI NO HIBIKI HIGASHI YUROPPO WO UTAU

With their album "Chi no Hibiki Higashi Yuroppo Wo Utau", roughly translated to "Reverberation of Earth" for the CD release from 1994, this magical collective, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, presents listeners with an incredibly beautiful, all vocal album of Eastern European singing styles. At times, we're presented with large choirs singing, sometimes with solo/featured voices, but never at any point is there anything which could be labeled as progressive rock, rock, or indeed even progressive here (for that, look to their stunning "Osorezan" album).

That's not to say the music presented here isn't masterfully crafted, beautiful, and a great listening experience every time I decide to put this album on. It's incredibly peaceful and full of emotion, and definitely recommended to fans of choral music. Last time I checked, though, this isn't the ChoralMusicArchives, it's the ProgArchives. Thus, even though I listen to this one more often than Osorezan and consider it on an equal level of quality, I can't give it the same rating - this one gets 3 stars from me for PA, it's a good (actually very good) album but not prog at all.

I'm going to rate an excellent album with two stars only. The reason is that the music inside is not progressive or prog so the "fans only" definition applies, but this doesn't mean that the music is poor or bad.

It's a very interesting listening experience. The whole album is a collection of choral music and what makes it amazing is that even being sung in Japanese (I assume) and with some oriental harmonies appearing here and there, the final effect is not different from the western music of the same kind.

Some songs are very close to the Christian anthem, other are similar to the traditional choirs of the Alpine area and "Watashi No Ama Hatake" could be taken from a musical. What does it mean? Probably only that the roots of melody and harmony are common to all the cultures. A major chord is always a major chord regardless if its' played by SouthAfricans zulus, Japaneses, Alpines or Catholic priests.

In terms of pure enjoyment, it's everything very relaxing and very good to comment images, I think to National Geographic stuff.

In the end I wold consider this album as classical music and this is the only reason of the low rating. However open minded listeners and lovers of classical music can find a lot of goodies inside. An example is the short "Odori Jouzu Na Poetorunko" whose harmonies and high pitched accents are close to Bulgarian traditional choral music and the following "Hassanbedda No Uta" that is hardly comparable to anything, even Japanese.

Forget the rating and enjoy it.