Metastation Records: Meditation Music, Ambient Music, Yoga Music, Relaxation, Meditation and Inspiration

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Ustad Sultan Khan > See other albums featuring this artist

Renown sarangi player, sultan khan, first came under the international spotlight in 1974 during the dark horse tour with ravi shankar and george harrison. he also worked on the soundtrack to gandhi. currently sultan khan is a very significant influence in the world of Indian fusion. he is featured prominently with talvin singh on zakir hussain's tabla beat science (axiom records)

Ustad Sultan Khan is one of the foremost sarangi players of India, renowned for the emotional depth of his playing, and his extraordinary technical and melodic control over this difficult string instrument. He is one of the representatives of the Indore Gharana, made famous by Ustad Amir Khan. A scion of illustrious lineage of sarangi players, beginning his training at age seven, he learned the rudiments from his father, Ustad Gulab Khan who was both an accomplished sarangi player and a vocalist. A little wonder then that the Ustad like his father, always punctuates his concerts with vocal Amir khani nuances. When he picks up the sarangi to lilting Sargams where he has left off vocally, the succeeding notes emerge in continuation as though the sarangi sings. His systematic Badhat, exquisite Gamaks, and intricate Tans make his performances unique and soulful.

Ustad Sultan Khan gave his first performance at the All-India Conference at the age of 11, and since then has become to be recognized on an international scale, performing along with Pandit Ravi Shankar on former Beatle, George Harrison 1974 Dark Horse World Tour. He has won numerous musical awards, including being a recipient twice of the Sangeet Natya Academy Award, also know as the President's Award, as well as being a recipient of the Gold Medalist Award of Maharashtra, and the American Academy of Artists Award in 1998. In 1997 he had the honor and privledge of playing for Prince Charles' 50th birthday celebration.

Ustad Sultan Khan also has composed and recorded music for films, such as In Custody, and Ghandi. But, his true devotion and love lie in playing the classical music of India.

Zakir Hussain > See other albums featuring this artist

Zakir Hussain, son of the late tabla player Alla Rakha, is the foremost tabla player of his generation. He has contributed enormously to the world-wide popularity of Indian music with is percussion-led albums and fusion work. Zakir has worked continuously with Ravi Shankar, Kronos, Shakti and countless of other artists. His most recent solo album, Tabla Beat Science, can be found on Axiom Records. India has called Zakir Hussain a living treasure and given him the title of Phenomena.

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Artwork

Albert Watson
Album(s): Spiritual Beauty
Albert Watson has shot countless television commercials, print ads, movie posters, magazine covers, editorial pieces and music videos. Born and educated in Scotland, Albert did post graduate work in film and television at the Royal College of Art in London before beginning his photographic career in the U.S. in Los Angeles. Working closely with his wife and partner, Elizabeth Watson, he spent six years on the West Coast before relocating to New York in 1976, where he continued to build his client base, shooting regularly for the major fashion and style publications based in the city. While working on a Levi's assignment for FCB, Albert and Elizabeth met Mike Jurkovac, with whom they would soon partner on the formation of cYclops.

Albert's advertising portfolio includes multiple shoots for such brands as Levi's, Rocawear and Nissan (indeed, while known for his fashion work, he's worked with every automotive nameplate from Acura to Volvo), as well brands like Miller, International Paper and NASDAQ, for which he captured some of the top CEOs in American business.

In the entertainment realm, Albert has become one of the preferred imagemakers for clients like Paramount, Miramax and HBO. His worked has appeared on posters for such films as "THE HOURS", "CHICAGO", "Kill Bill," "Cold Mountain," and "Remember the Titans," while the list of celebrities who've posed for him includes Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Uma Thurman, Al Pacino, Jude Law, Elizabeth Hurley and John Travolta. He's also photographed the recording artists Jay Z, Sean Combs, Mary J. Blige, 50c, Destiny's Child, Keith Richards, and the fashion models Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and Adriana Lima. His work as a fine art photographer has been exhibited at museums in Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Cologne and Rostok, and will be shown this fall in Milan. He has published three hardback collections of his photography -- "CYCLOPS", "MAROC" and "WOODSTOCK '94" -- as well as catalogues to accompany several of his museum shows.

The holder of two honorary doctorates from universities in Scotland, Albert has lectured on photography at the Smithsonian, and will present his work this spring at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Avinash Veeraraghavan
Album(s): Asana 4: OHM Shanti
During the post-school programme at the Centre for Learning where he studied, Veeraraghavan was given a chance to spend a year with Italian artist Andrea Anastasio. It was one entire year spent helping Anastasio, but also instrumental in shaping Veeraraghavan's own sensibilities as he soaked in the myriad influences present in the wall-high stacks of books, music and art in the Italian's study. This exposure to international influences helped him contextualise and locate the art he later saw while travelling in Europe.

Avinash runs his design studio Beetroot from home in Bangalore, and as he says "the work is good". Apart from that he works as assistant to a famous Italian designer and does decorative finishes on walls. And of course he continues his philosophical questing.

Graciela Iturbide
Album(s): 30 Hertz Compilation
Graciela Iturbide was born in 1942 and was already married and the mother of three children when she decided to be a film director. She switched to still photography after a course with Manuel Bravo, MexicoХs first modernist master, and she worked as his assistant for a year and a half. Her work finds visual moments that, cut off from the circumstances that produced them, acquire a metaphorical charge. She devises tableaus that pay homage to ambiguity and owe a debt to poetry. These are not pictures to be deciphered but to be savored for their mournful pungency and whispering allusions. Mujer Angel, or, Angel Woman is a picture of a woman in a long skirt and veil working her way to the top of a high cliff leading to the route across the desert. In one hand she carries a boom box. She belongs to a group of Indians who sell their crafts to Americans, earning enough to buy themselves music that blooms in the desert silence.

Shirin Neshat
Album(s): Spiritual Beauty
An Iranian-born artist who has lived in the United States since 1974, Shirin Neshat portrays the emotional space of exile in her photographs and films. She questions the role of women in Islamic society, recognizing the tensions between a collective cultural identity and one driven by individual concerns. Neshat uses the chador, the head-to-toe Islamic covering that is mandatory for women in Iran, as an icon for repression and female identity.

Russell Mills
Album(s): Hear No Evil, Electric Tears, Asana 1: Soul Practice, The Finest Thing, Asana 3: Peaceful Heart
Multimedia artist, Mills is known primarily for his influential, award-winning book and album covers for Brian Eno, Samuel Beckett, Nine Inch Nails, Michael Brook, Bill Laswell, Ian McEwan, David Sylvian, Harold Budd, Peter Gabriel and Milan Kundera, amongst many others. He has exhibited in the UK, Japan, Ireland, USA and Europe. Since the early 80s he has created many site-specific, contextually anchored multi-media installations. Recent installations include Hold (2004-5) Palazzo della Papesse Centre for Contemporary Art, Siena, The Space of a Door (2004) for Futuresonic 04, Urbis, Manchester, Blue Tears (2005) Silo Espaço Cultural for the Fundação de Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Oporto, Skin (2006) Elephant Yard, Kendal and Head (2006-07) Armitt Museum, Ambleside. With collaborators Tom Smyth and Mike Fearon he has released two CDs as Undark; a third is imminent. Live work has included performances with Nils Petter Molvaer, Bill Laswell, Wire and Dome and set designs for Sylvian, Siobhan Davies Dance Company, John Surman, Jan Gabarek and the Hilliard ensemble and the Visual Music Festival in Lanzarote. Mills is Visiting Tutor at the Royal College of Art, Honorary Professor at Glasgow School of Art and External Examiner at University of the Arts London. Mills lives and works in Ambleside, Cumbria.

Mark Nauseef > See other albums featuring this artist

Mark Naueef

Kudsi Erguner > See other albums featuring this artist

Kudsi Erguner

No Matter - Various Artists

No Matter - Various Artists

Bill Laswell, Mark Nauseef, Kudsi Erguner, Markus Stockhausen > See other albums featuring this artist

Bill Laswell, Mark Nauseef, Kudsi Erguner, Markus Stockhausen

Markus Stockhausen > See other albums featuring this artist

Markus Stockhausen

Paul Bowles > See other albums featuring this artist

Paul Bowles (1910-1999)

It is Paul Bowles's flamboyant life that most fascinates people -- his friendships, his appetites, his controversial marriage, his leftist politics, his voluntary exile to Morocco, and his stature as a countercultural and gay icon. Novelist, composer,expatriate and rebel – Paul Bowles is one of the most compelling and mythologized figures in twentieth-century American culture. Remarkably gifted, Bowles entered the vibrant art and literary world of the late 1920s and early '30s as a poet and composer. He studied music with composer Aaron Copland and was a friend of Gertrude Stein, W. H. Auden,Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Ned Rorem, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs. After he moved to Tangier Bowles began writing fiction: The Delicate Prey, The Spider's House, Let It Come Down, and The Sheltering Sky, which he wrote in 1947, and which was immediately hailed as a classic. Bill Laswell legendary bassist and producer went with the Metastation team to Tangier, recorded Bowles, and set his words to ambient landscapes. This collaborative effort resulted in Baptism of Solitude, which contains excerpts from his novels and poems. Baptism of Solitude is the only record this great American writer has allowed of his poetry to be recorded.

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