Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #158

03-26-15  “Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #158 was recorded at Singing Brook Studio and features Mariam Massaro on lead vocals, ukelele, acoustic guitar and percussion, Craig Harris on congas and Bob Sherwood on piano and percussion.  First up today in a program of all-new songs by Mariam is “Nowhere Like Home”, a calm, contemplative ode to the pleasures of home.  We pick up the pace with the upbeat but delicate “Morning Of The Golden Sun”, a folky prayer of gratitude for the coming of spring featuring Mariam’s driving tenor ukelele that breaks into an interesting modal improvisation before returning to the refrain and retreating in a beautiful curtain of repetition and electronics.  “Circle Around The World” grows steadily from the denouement.  A beautiful, wistful song that weaves improvisation around Mariam’s vocal, “Circle Around The World” is a prayer for love and peace.  We expand outward into “Oh The Milky Way”, an ode to dreams and the night sky that opens into a series of bluesy extrapolations.  After the break we return with the lovely and evocative “Dancing Fingers Of Light”, a beautiful and mournful ode, again in praise of the winter night sky.  This lovely, improv-heavy piece grows into a classically-inflected sonata movement before returning to a restatement of the original theme and drifting away on clouds of piano.  “The Coldest Winter Ever” is a journalistic travelogue of this difficult and long winter of 2014-2015 that starts minor, drifts into blues and arrives at a place of veiled mystery driven along by Craig’s driving percussion and Bob’s mysterious, circular theme.  “I’ll Cross The Ocean For You” is a pretty, minor-key ode to love and devotion that builds to a dramatic climax before fading back to support some lovely and deeply-felt lyrical extrapolations from Mariam.  Today’s final piece features a recitation from Mariam from her new book “Light-Filled Love:  The Divine Teachings Of Ashento” featuring mysterious 12-string acoustic guitar from Mariam.”