Review - Shamballa self-titled EP cassette
Shamballa is a creative outlet
for Music Writers' forum founder Ron Ragel and one of his most
outstanding fellow forum members gillian
moon. The music on this new cassette-EP sells itself and absolutely
no hype is needed to sell this to A&R and radio people who have their hands
out of their pockets!
Calling You opens the
offering with a tune I remember most from the Alliance Concert from late
January 1996: Tribal Pop I would call
this, and very (2CCRfm 90.5)
Sound-of-Style friendly. Timeles Land
follows, giving the sequencer a work-out but to great effect, with vocal
overdubs creating a choral backing feel in a 10CC
sort of way. Reach Out features a
didge and is co-written by gillian:
a little cliched but like all of the tunes here overly accessible and extremely
radio-friendly. The closing track Shine
On seems to continue on from track 3 as far as the didge is concerned, with
more ambient didge throught the bridge, and so accessible... well - what can I
say?!
Doubtlessly a studio-only project for Ron and gilli, but headed for huge things
nonetheless as soon as it comes out on CD: Top Marks!
Reviewer’s note, December 2000 – this
review was written in March 1996 and the Writers’ Forum has since folded. gillian moon now lives in Los Angeles
where, among other things, she is the US representative of songsalive! which was founded late in
1997. Ron
Ragel is still involved in music, details of which can be found at http://www.thredbo.com.au/summer01/globalmusic.html