At-Ma World Music group and CDs

tel/fax: 01730 895635 email: info@russell-stone.co.uk web: www.russell-stone.co.uk

At-Ma - for At-Ma's website, click here A magical collaboration between vocalist / composer Russell Stone and multi-instrumentalist / composer / producer Craig Pruess. This is contemporary music expressing an exciting fusion of Western and Eastern influences, that weaves the wonderful voice of Russell Stone together with the sympathetic accompaniment of Craig Pruess on sitar, zither and percussion. Aided by superb musicians from different traditions this music explores the relationship between voice, instruments and the soul.

Russell brings 30+ years of experience to the project as a singer and composer, ('We Do It' in the '70s with R & J Stone) and insights from his yogic practice.

Craig's experience as a film composer 'Bend It Like Beckham', 'Bride and Prejudice' and 'Bhaji on the Beach' give these unique performances high aesthetic and professional values.

This is an opportunity to experience music as you have seldom heard it before, literally mind and heart expanding.

Soul Made Audible CD (sound clips) With the exception of 'There's A Book', all the material on this CD has been generated through the practice of Sounding*, a vocal technique discovered during my MA research in Transpersonal Counselling and Psychotherapy. While I was involved in developing musical forms and ideas that appeared in this process, I was also engaging in daily yoga practice and breathing techniques. I believe that in addition to aiding the compositional process, the combination of Yoga and Sounding brings a quality to the voice that while difficult to define (in that it can mean different things to different people - including myself), it is unmistakable. I feel this is particularly noticeable in Quietitude, the first track I worked on in this way. I recorded a repeated chord sequence, and then sung on top of this. The vocal on this track was recorded in one take with no edits and shows a developmental sequence that I was completely unaware of in the rational mind as I sang. Something else was at work here, beyond and unnoticed by, the normal ego-state consciousness. I then worked with Mark Johns recording two tracks of acoustic guitar. The result is a sound of simplicity and emotion, a passion emerging without will or ego attachment. I felt for sure I was on the right path. I continued developing my own tracks such as In the Hall of a Thousand Kings, while still collaborating with others such as Steve Higgins with Awake or Asleep, and Susan Nares with Love Is ... (to hear a 30' clip of tracks, click on the title). It is interesting to note that the lyrics to the above-mentioned song, 'There's A Book', were written when I was very much locked into ego-state consciousness. I was in extreme emotional distress in response to the death of my late wife, and this was further exacerbated by prolonged alcohol abuse. And yet the lyric content would indicate that even when I was apparently furthest from my heart, my soul was busy at work, always trying to bring me back. It just took 26 years to flower, that's all, and that's OK. *Sounding is a vocal technique that allows spontaneous and improvisational expression of sounds that may or may not involve musical structures and words. I hope for 'Soul Made Audible' to be the first in a series, and to make tracks available, in the near future, as downloads.