Shankar's Vision is an ethereal tour-de-force -- an oxymoron, perhaps, but an appropriate description of the otherworldly visions he conjures with his manipulations of his 10-string, stereophonic, double-necked, electric violin.
The lengthy title track is a solo space journey on his massive instrument, with lots of phasing undercurrents and an aural experience of weightlessness that is rather pleasant.
On the other tracks, Shankar is flanked by the hot, piercing Jan Garbarek on saxes and the cool Palle Mikkelborg on trumpet and flugelhorn, who contribute heat and ice to Shankar's textures.
"All For You" is a no-man's-land of sound that uses Indian scales and minimalist repetition.
"Psychic Elephant" finds Garbarek and Mikkelborg revolving around Shankar's pizzicato violin, and then the two horn players provide percussion for Shankar's dialogues with himself and Garbarek's growls on the rare bass saxophone.
Exotic pan-cultural ingredients and all, Vision is reassuringly easy to listen to, undoubtedly aided by ECM's sweetly reverberant sound.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All For YouLakshminarayana Shankar | Shankar, Jan Garbarek, Palle Mikkelborg | Play | 06:33 | 15 MB | 28 MB |
| 2 | VisionLakshminarayana Shankar, Shankar | Shankar, Jan Garbarek, Palle Mikkelborg | Play | 13:42 | 31 MB | 56 MB |
| 3 | Astral ProjectionLakshminarayana Shankar | Shankar, Jan Garbarek, Palle Mikkelborg | Play | 05:43 | 13 MB | 22 MB |
| 4 | Psychic ElephantLakshminarayana Shankar, Shankar | Shankar, Jan Garbarek, Palle Mikkelborg | Play | 11:48 | 27 MB | 52 MB |
| 5 | The MessageLakshminarayana Shankar, Shankar | Shankar, Jan Garbarek, Palle Mikkelborg | Play | 07:21 | 16 MB | 30 MB |
| 45 mins | 103 MB | |||||
| 45 mins | 190 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manfred Eicher | Producer |
| 2 | Jan Garbarek | Guest Artist, Percussion, Primary Artist, Sax (Baritone), Sax (Bass), Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor) |
| 3 | Jan Erik Kongshaug | Engineer |
| 4 | Palle Mikkelborg | Flugelhorn, Guest Artist, Primary Artist, Trumpet |
| 5 | Petra Nettelbeck | Cover Photo, Photography |
| 6 | Shankar | Composer, Performer, Primary Artist |
| 7 | Lakshminarayana Shankar | Composer, Double Violin, Percussion, Primary Artist |
| 8 | Barbara Wojirsch | Design |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |