Lumari: “Emerge Dancing”

Filed under: Music Reviews

New Age lady bearing a concoction of world, chant and Joe Satriani that’d probably work as clear-your-head background for ashtanga class if the students were told the lyrics are in Sanskrit (they’re not). Going by Google, Lumari is the only person on earth spreading the “Alawashka” language, billing it as “the mother of all languages,” which could be true for all we know - if everyone were a kook there’d be no normal ones. The material here is meditative and relaxing although there is the matter of opening track “Shanta May” (translated as “within my dreams,” it’s claimed) which, given its wolf-woman tribal drumming and Warrant guitar solo, is a little too B-horror-movie for wide consumption. The second, acoustic-guitar-driven track will only satiate Yoko Ono fans who don’t see why “Kumbaya” has such a bad rap among normal people, but from then on the songs - sounding Japanese in some places and Middle Eastern in others - are reverent, prayerful and very easy on the timpani. Order from Amazon.com