Pearls of the Soul

Album Review

Stephen Van Handel is a musical visionary exploring in sound the various moods of the soul. This expressive music draws on global styles, interpreted through cutting-edge electronic technology to sketch these vignettes of the soul. Elements of Oriental, South American, and tribal musics come and go in fragments, jostling one another, rising and falling out of the silence that is so important to this music. This is a journey through some of the more exotic and bizarre areas of the human psyche, a neo-primitive initiation full of subtleties and nuances. Each piece is inspired by a different image: crossing a bamboo bridge suspended over a mist-filled gorge, a tribe celebrating the passing of a thunderstorm, a foggy beach in the early hours before dawn. By turns jubilant and introspective, impressionistic and lyrical, this is experimental music at its strangest and most alluring, a music of paradoxes perfect for the spiritual adventurer. After journeying around the world and through the psyche for 70 minutes, all is resolved in the poignant simplicity of the final piece, where wistful piano mingles with the sound of falling rain. For those daring enough to take it, this is quite a journey. ~ Backroads Music/Heartbeats, All Music Guide