FFWD Weekly
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| Music by FFWD Staff URBAN TRIBE This ain’t a CD for "headphones only." The Urban Tribe’s Removing the Mask is a recording that combines meditation, dance and aromatherapy. The producers intend for the listener to be actively involved. Roger Duncan is the engine behind Urban Tribe, a group that came into being from a school of hand drumming called The One World Drum Company. The musicians range from musical veterans to students who have had four years experience. Within the CD liner notes are directions on how to fully appreciate each song. They are all based on the Hindi tradition of Chakra, which is similar to Chinese acupuncture, but instead of needles, the body parts from the Chakra are energized through the tracks on the album. Urban Tribe also adds a few other helpful hints to get in touch with particular parts of the body. They suggest colours, smells and sounds to include in the listening experience. Starting at the bottom, or the root, they work their way up throughout the album toward the Third Eye, or intuition. So if you’ve smoked too many cigarettes or can’t put your thoughts into words, go to the fifth track, "The Call," for the throat Chakra. Put a blue bulb in the lamp, boil up a little Chamomile and, while you’re dancing around the living room, keep saying the sound "Eh." (Or if you’re an American, "Huh.") Then tomorrow your boss will make you VP of communications. Well, maybe you won’t see that pronounced a change, but there are thousands of years of study backing this stuff up. The CD itself took three years to create because the group is made up of people ranging from veterinarians to theatre managers who can’t take too much time out to jam with the band. When Urban Tribe first started to create the CD, no one had done anything like what they were planning. But that soon changed. "The day after we finally go into the studio I went to the music store and found two brand new CDs based on the roadmap of the Chakra," says Duncan. "They were a little different, being strictly drums and being more specific to meditation. "But for ours we wanted it to be both a vehicle for counselors and psychotherapists doing emotional release work and, on the flipside, you felt like you could put it on to do your housework to." Removing the Mask is full of a wide array of instruments, ranging from ancients like didgeridoos to new world sounds from keyboards, and the music itself comes from many traditions like African and Middle Eastern. "I drew from my experience in The One World Drum Company and the real traditional rhythms we use," enthuses Duncan. "It’s important that the music comes from somewhere. It has deep roots that provides us with a real foundation." |
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