We hear the term “world music” bandied around a lot these days, and to a large extent, the term is so vague that it doesn’t have much real meaning. But that is, arguably, true of all genres. Usually, such a term is applied to everything from Bulgarian folk singers to Cuban jazz bands and Tibetan flautists to Afrobeat township guitarists, music which is as separated by genre as it is by geography.
But “Tierra,” the latest single from Michael Beck is a song that truly gets to the heart of what the idea of world music – music for, of, and about the world we call home – actually means. After all, what could be more worldly and connective than a Danish artist singing a song that blends Spanish, English and Portuguese as a dedication to an Andean goddess, with the help of regular collaborator, Chandra Lacombe, a Brazillian musician who has mastered the African Kalimba?
“Tierra,” taken from the forthcoming album Surrender,is less a song and more of a chant, a hymnal offering or mantra woven from gently cascading guitar, that unmistakable Kalimba sound, and some beautiful vocal blends, plus the subtle and subtle sonic interplays of Txai Fernando on vocals and flute, Moussa Diallo on bass, Uriel Seri on percussion and shaker, and Sudha on backing vocals.And offering is precisely the right word as this song feels otherworldly from the very beginning, a song destined for other realms, raised up in celebration and dedication designed to resonate and remind us of our connection with the earth, the spiritual plane and the universe itself.
As the song rises in pace and intensity, as it adds additional tones and textures around it, the listener is carried with it across those divides to a place where we are reunited with everything and become part of the one, if only for the duration of the song.
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