Sounding more like a missing Talking Heads session than anything remotely like David Byrne's 1990s-era work, The Catherine Wheel is at root a display of funky, off-time rhythms and vamps with Byrne involved at every level. The music was composed and produced to accompany a Twyla Tharp-choreographed dance event, and for program music it's brilliant enough to stand alone. The 73 minutes are almost seamless, weaving ambient soundscapes with loopy percussion-backed bass runs with guitar strumming across the top. Byrne shows his command of dramatic scoring here, spreading his wings across a huge range of styles and doing so in a way that sounds both like his old band and entirely different from them. You can hear in The Catherine Wheel where Byrne was heading (i.e., heavily rhythmic music) years before the Heads were disbanded and he ventured into life as a Brazilian- and Latin-music impresario. It's the sound of a young genius having free reign, and as such it's exceptional. —Andrew Bartlett

Engineer = David Baker; 10 tracks; trio with Sunny Murray and Byard Lancaster; recorded 1980-1981

Tracks: Acholi bwala dance, Call to prayer, Egyptian wedding, Islamic prayer school, Reed pipe & grass cutting, Courtship dances, Four men on the prayer mat, Zebaidir song with Rebabah, Hadandua cattle boys song, Hadandua love song & bells, Zande song of flight & frogs, Tamboura song, Edongo dance, Busoga fishermen, Bowed harp, Teso fishermen, Acholi Enanga, Dingy dingy dance, "Rain song" of Latigo, Bunyoro madinda, Bwala dance, Rowing chant of the Samia, Song of lamentation, Masai milking song, Karamajong childrens' slong, Turkana cattle song, Luo ritual burial dance, War drums, Call to prayer, Acholi warriors & Bwala dance, Aluar horns

Windhorse Riders by David Hykes & Djamchid Chemirani

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A single low note resonates. A second gradually becomes perceptible, then another, slowly swirling sounds that shift and pulsate from some unknown force, chords so ethereal they might be supernatural, or perhaps the vibrations of the universe. They are the voices of David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir. In Current Circulation, David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir expand beyond the scope of the traditional tantric Tibetan Buddhist chant, in which the singer holds one steady note and one unmoving harmonic. They also expand beyond the traditional Mongolian Hoomi singing, in which the singer projects soaring harmonic melodies from the overtone series of the steady fundamental. In Current Circulation, the singers create new melodies and chords by simultaneously moving both the harmonic and fundamental notes, sometimes in converging directions, or by holding the high harmonic while varying the fundamental. This kind of harmonic chanting is very demanding for the singers, and can be for the listener as well. The listener may choose to focus on the complicated tunings between harmonics and fundamentals, and the chords between the singers as they move among the notes of the inverted harmonic scale. Or, the listener may choose to let his mind soar through the architectural spaces created by the intangible energies emanating from the Harmonic Choir. The vibrations both define the space and inhabit it, shimmering through the air in a timeless dimension.

A single low note resonates. A second gradually becomes perceptible, then another, slowly swirling sounds that shift and pulsate from some unknown force, chords so ethereal they might be supernatural, or perhaps the vibrations of the universe. They are the voices of David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir. Hykes performs in architectural spaces as inspiring as his music. Harmonic Meetings was recorded in Le Thoronet Abbey, whose remarkable features grace the cover of the release. The music itself; however, sprang from a traveling art exhibition called The Tent of Meetings. Hykes composed the music for this project, which was based on the sacred art of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. And for the first time, Hykes incorporated actual words into his harmonic chanting, sacred words common to those three religions, words like Hallelujah and Kyrie Fragments. Hykes says, "It is the harmonic content of the words which interests me. The harmonic content in a word can be brought to life; it comes from the same place as a pure vibration."