Reiki Shaman

by Ashron

Visit Ashron's website

This German import features the work of Ronald Hoth also known as Ashron.  Published by BSC music Germany, this is the third CD by this artist, previous works being "Inner Peace" and "Reiki Mantras".  He also has two CD’s with his group “Aschera”.   

The artist is a Reiki Master whose works focus on building an atmosphere for working Reiki.  This work also focuses on working on a Shamanic level.   The addition of more forceful drumming than your usual Reiki CD’s appears to be his addition of the Shaman flavor to the Reiki music.  This CD also has a very definite Japanese flavor in all the tracks.

To quote his website: “The new Ashron album "Reiki Shaman" is once more based on an underlying topic: suggesting the listener to focus his inner powers and his will and to use both for the creation of a positive "Here and Now".” (http://www.ashron.net/html/reiki_mantras.html )

There are eleven tracks on this disk, ranging from a little over four and a half minutes to almost six and a half minutes.

The first and second tracks "World of Harmony" and "Sundance of Love" feature Japanese style drumming, flute and female vocals overlaid on an electronic background.  The pieces are very prominent, energetic and are not your usual soft and mellow type of Reiki background music.  A soft chant of “Sundance of Love” is repeated throughout the second piece.

The piece "Crystal Mountain" again features electronics with vocals and again, the strong drumming. This piece is a bit softer that the previous pieces. "Shamanic Drive" is a more powerful piece, with a lot more intense drumming, male vocals, and more percussion with light electronic fill in.  "Father’s Son" is a spoken prayer put to music, featuring guitar and electronic background with female vocals.  The prayer is in English, so you can understand and meditate on the piece. The sixth track "Golden Eye" is a more electronic piece, with more drumming but softer than some of the other drumming tracks and again features flute and vocals. "Saya" returns to the power drumming and lots of chanting.  Electronic flute accents the piece, again with electronic backfill.

The track "Ngorongor" brings us jungle animals and drumming.  Probably the most off piece of this CD, the elephant trumpeting and monkey calls mixed with the chanting did not sit well with me.  It just seemed out of place here.  While it had a Shamanic feel, it did not say Reiki to me. We return to something more subtle with "So Many Souls", a prayer again set to music and drumming.  "Courtship Flight" is again very Shamanic, chanting, drumming and bird sounds filling in the background over the electronic fill. The closing track "Heavenly Fire" starts with a struck match and a crackling fire over an electronic fill that turns into a prayer about the Reiki Shaman.  Drumming is slower than previous pieces and chanting fills in over the music.  The piece closes as it began, with the crackling of the fire.

While most of us are accustomed to a softer, non-intrusive style of Reiki music, this CD tends to be a bit more overpowering than many will prefer.  This is, as I said, because the artist appears to be working a Shamanic angle to the Reiki practice and the use of more forceful drumming and chanting in Shamanic practices is common.  While this CD may be good for personal Reiki practice if you like this sort of thing, I found it too pronounced to use as a backdrop for working Reiki on clients.  There were also a couple of tracks I thought would not work well for Shamanic practices either.  But I believe this would be a personal preference.

However, do not let this deter you from listening to this CD.  It is a very different look at music for Reiki, and if you also have a Shamanic lean in your practice this may be a CD to look at for your own use.  Ashron presents us with a different look at Reiki from the aspect of a Shaman in this CD.  This is a stronger than usual Reiki CD and should be explored for it’s uniqueness of style and the quality of the compositions

Reviewed by Boudica