Description
Aquarius Records
September 2010
“With past releases including Acid Mother’s Temple and Yahowha 13, we can always count on Prophase to deliver a lysergic dose of psychedelic awesomeness. Gypsy Woman is their latest offering of psych-folk bliss, a free-flowing cosmic epic from Oakland’s tarot warrior Janina Angel Bath. With the help of some friends and a wide array of world instruments, including bansari, tamboura and flute, Ms. Bath gently crafts an otherworldly escape into ethno-drone solace. While Gypsy Women is heavily decorated with exotic instrumentation and dizzying effects, the majority of the album revolves around Ms. Bath’s vocal work. “Mystic Lady”, a favorite track of ours, probably because it features Kazem Zia Ebrahimi on electric sarod, unfolds like a hazy desert dreamscape. Somber gestures from the sarode weave in and out of Bath’s vocal croons, swells of reverb fade into the distant horizon as the many layers fall into place like a leaf onto water, so mysterious and elegant.”
Terrascopic Rumbles
August 2010
“… housed in a magnificent gatefold sleeve, “Gypsy Woman” is a timeless and meditational album from Janina Angel Bath, whose voice is layered like silk over eastern percussion and slow motion droning strings. Slow and mindful, it takes a while for your brain to settle into the album’s delicious groove, but once the magic of “Everyday is Different” takes hold, there is nothing left to do but relax and dream, allowing the minimal and haunting psychedelia to take you away. Moving on to the title track, the addition of a faraway flute adds another layer of beauty to the music, the mystical, quest-driven lyrics perfectly in sync with the drifting ambience of the arrangement. Opening side two, “Mystic lady” has echoes of Quintessence, or classic Gong, deep rooted eastern psych, with some rippling guitar twinkling throughout. This ambience continues for the rest of the side, sitars coming to the fore, creating music for late-night visualisation, the flicker of a candle the only light you need. Included in the album is a bonus 10” disc that contains six more songs, all wreathed in the same perfumed bliss, each as perfect as the previous song, including the lovely flute and drum happiness of “Roaming Song”, whilst “Life, Everlasting Flowers” is a light and airy drone that sings of summer. Highly recommended. “
