Henry Wolff & Nancy Hennings - Tibetan Bells II (1979) [Celestial Harmonies - 13005-2, ca.1990]
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Honestly… I kind of like this one. And I sort of hate myself for liking it.
On one hand this album is literally just simple resonant bell textures, and reading the names of some of these track titles (see below) and just the overall impression I get from this album, I can imagine these people thought they were being oh-so original and so spiritually deep with this album.
However, there’s a certain appeal to this album’s atonality: you have to turn up the volume a lot, but the drones these bells make get surprisingly abrasive. They’re nearly comparable to some Onkyokei-style noise music, albeit less intense in the hi-range and more intense in the mid-range.
And to be fair, the compositions do get more complex and interesting later on in the album, especially with the track “Through The Void,” which takes up roughly the last quarter or so of the album.
Aside from that, I can’t point to any one track as sounding intrinsically ‘better’ than the rest, though I am amused by the pretentiousness of such titles as “Leaving The Body,” “Astral Plane” and “The Seven Sounds Of Dissolution.”
Overall, though, I ultimately can’t hate on it because I didn’t leave the experience any worse for wear.
I’d say give it a shot. Hell, I think now I’ll be on the lookout for the original Tibetan Bells for comparison’s sake.
Note: there's a pretty abrupt transition from the first track to the second that really put me off guard, so if you plan on listening to it on high volume (which I honestly recommend since this album is mixed fairly quiet) just keep that in mind.
There’s also some awkward fade-outs here and there that hinder the album’s immersion.
hear a sample on youtube