April 19–26, 2001

music picks|electronica

James Johnson/Baird Hersey and Prana

This installment of the Gathering — a meeting of maelstrom-making electronicist James Johnson and the morbidly meditative vocal choir of Prana — sounds more like a gathering storm of slowly layering sound. Johnson’s twisted trail mix of acoustics and sample based electronics — on CDs like Entering Twilight (Hypnos) and Live At The Ambient Ping 2000 (Zero Music) — swells, blurs and balloons with suspicious energy. Though it’s trancey and ambient, Johnson’s music creeps and slobbers like the wallpaper in Barton Fink. Baird Hersey’s eight-member Prana makes a Greek choral sound that’s referred to as a "higher voice" on Waking The Cobra: Vocal Meditations On The Chakras (Bent). These oozing overtones are created by eight mouths and throats working as one, producing clear reverberating sound in one sonic gulp. The process is utilized in holistic healing, and the effect is as mesmerizing and perplexing as a Gregorian chant.

—a.d. amorosi

Sat., April 21, St. Mary’s Hamilton Village, 3916 Locust Walk, 610-734-1009, www.thegatherings.org, $20, $10 for full-time students with proper ID.