Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour with Mariam Massaro

Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #529 is an hour of acoustic visionary improvisational music played live by The Gaea Star Band featuring Mariam Massaro on vocals, Native flute, 4- and 8-string ukulele, harmonica, kalimba, sitar, acoustic guitar and shruti box, Bob Sherwood on piano and tabla and Craig Harris on Native drums and congas.  Recorded live at Singing Brook Studio in Worthington, Massachusetts, today’s show begins with the bucolic, spiritual “Express Yourself”, a gospel-flavored piece with a fine vocal from Mariam.  “Oh Life, You Enrich Me” is a driving, funky blues with the band overdubbing tabla, low drum and more vocals and harmonica from Mariam to create a powerful, thick wall of sound.  “Feel Mother Earth” is a beautiful, melancholy prayer to our home with powerful vocals from Mariam and “Let’s Share Wispy Words Of Wisdom” is a slowly developing, powerful minor groove with congas, piano and acoustic guitar weaving an evocative tapestry under Mariam’s affecting, plaintive vocal.  “Let’s Keep On Dreaming” begins as a delicate whisper of piano and Mariam’s chiming kalimba that grows into an inspiring, open-hearted piece of minimalism.  “This Is The Way” is a fine rock song from Mariam’s “Release” album, here given a psychedelic, driving reading with major-minor ambiguities and a fine vocal from Mariam.  Mariam tunes up her sitar for the raga song cycle “The Easy Way”, a rich drone with tense, expectant piano, soaring Native flute, powerful vocals, lushly astringent sitar and Craig’s ever-present heartbeat.  

Learn more about Mariam here: http://www.mariammassaro.com