Cymbalennium

Editorial Reviews
Butch Vig / Musician Magazine
"Unbelievable harmonic resonances"

Carl Stone / Mojo
"The way Masley plays is completely unique ... glowing, angelic, celestial..."

Album Description
The cymbalom is a modern Hungarian version of the hammered dulcimer. Its trapezoid shape & tradition of playing with two hand-held hammers have traveled world culture without missing a beat for 2500 years. Michael Masley plays with an original technique and instrumentation he developed, including "bowhammers" attached to eight fingers, plus two thumbpicks, enabling plucking, striking, and bowing of strings almost simultaneously.

Cymbalennium

Cymbalennium

Average customer rating:

Like Holographic New Age but with a bit of step and pep

Cymbalennium

Manufacturer: Artist General Productions
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

General | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music

General | New Age | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Cymbalom Solos

ASIN: B0007VDF6S
Release Date: 2005-02-19

Tracks:

Kubrick's Tube
Tip of the Icebird
Stringfed Stream
Hubble Kaleidoscope
Longshot Zoom
Jig in the Parlor
Burying the Dead
Humanly Possible
Meltwater Falls
Either Oar
Eyes Wide BUT
Nearer to Chi
Heard Instinct
Table of the Sun
Certain Birds
Hal in a Handbasket
Blue Flamingo

Album Description

The cymbalom is a modern Hungarian version of the hammered dulcimer. Its trapezoid shape & tradition of playing with two hand-held hammers have traveled world culture without missing a beat for 2500 years. Michael Masley plays with an original technique and instrumentation he developed, including "bowhammers" attached to eight fingers, plus two thumbpicks, enabling plucking, striking, and bowing of strings almost simultaneously.

Customer Reviews:

Like Holographic New Age but with a bit of step and pep.......2006-08-30

Thankfully, Cymbalennium delivers the goods. I wanted more of what I have been enjoying in Bells and Shadows, and Mystery Repeats Itself.

Somewhere around 1990, I was wandering around some San Francisco neighborhood wasting a couple hours as my (at-the-time) wife was attending a bridal shower (no boys allowed). Wafting down the street came this unbelievable music. I mostly like classic rock, but I like some spacey New Agey stuff too, and had been listening to a little Vollenweider. Most of that New Agey stuff is lousy, though.

But there that day in SF was a street musician who was playing music that was unbelievably different, wonderful, and musical.

Now, I had seen a lot of live music - at that point I had seen a lot of classical music, seen Ravi Shankar, lots of rock shows (Clapton, Page, Fripp, SRV, and others recognized as music masters), seen Vollenweider, etc., but this guy was just making music like I had never heard just there on the sidewalk with the funky Koto-looking instrument and these claw-bows on his hands.

So I bought a cassette - Bells and Shadows - from him there on the street. Mike - thanks for taking a break to let me hand you the $10. I was worried about getting a cassette that had just what I was hearing live, and I was not disappointed.

I played it while driving along the foggy Cal Hiway 1 - cool.

A few years later, Al Gore invented the Internet. I looked up M Masley and sent him a note, asking could I order a cd. I got Mystery Repeats Itself. Wonderful.

I just got Cymballenium. It is more of the same, thankfully.

Don't you hate it when you love an album, so you go get another album from the person or band, and it just is not the same?

Anyway, listen to the samples. If it appeals at all, spend a few dollars and give it a try. The closest thing might be the lyrical, engaging, meandering dulcimer of Maggie Sansone, but more improv-holographic-trippy.

If you want to play something that will make people notice something they really like AND have never heard before, go for this.

Be careful if you are playing it while driving down a treacherous foggy coastline cuz your mind will wander to wherever M Masley's mind goes when he writes these hilarous song titles.

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