Album Notes

HARC is "beautiful and nutritious!" HARC is Ruth Cunningham and Ana Hernandez. Ruth is a founding member of the acclaimed women's vocal quartet Anonymous 4, with whom she's made ten recordings, while Ana, formerly of the vocal duo The Miserable Offenders, is author of the The Sacred Art of Chant: Preparing to Practice, from Skylight Paths Publishing (read all about it at www.anahermusic.com). Ana and Ruth have been collaborating performers and sound healers since 2001. HARC: Inside Chants is their first recording. Their music makes use of texts from Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Jewish sources and combines them with musical traditions as far-flung as the joyous repetition of Indian Kirtan, the simple harmony of Irish folk songs and the pure sound of medieval chant. In addition to newly composed and traditional tunes, they enjoy creating improvised counterpoint. They have facilitated experiences of healing sound and chant at conferences, workshops, and concerts, and are often called upon to create innovative liturgies. They have done workshops and liturgies for the American Guild of Organists and for the Foundation for Universal Sacred Music among other organizations. The work of HARC comes out of their individual practice and experience with chanting and sacred sound, and their desire to share with others the potential of sound and music to transform lives. Review on Daily Om website, Feb. 2008: Harc is Ruth Cunningham and Ana Hernandez, two gifted "song healers" whose work with voice and music brought them together for these rich collaborations in vocal counterpoint and improvisational liturgy. Inside Chants is the gorgeous result of this partnership, a mix of Eastern- and Western-influenced spiritual chanting, music, and tradition. Listening, you can hear the reverence and mystery in every bar, note, and passing moment. A highlight is the elegantly simple call-and-response harmonizing of "Kosi R'Vaya," which finds the two women blending their voices in an achingly perfect folk style that connects the earthy beauty of the Indigo Girls' harmonies and the more ethereal music of Kirtan singers like Deva Premal and Krishna Das. "Om Mani Peme Hung" opens on a softly played Celtic harp, with the title words sung as vaguely Christian-Celtic liturgy. The lead vocal is slowly joined in a haunting harmonic, And their two voices slide together to electrify and heal all who would hear them. Some of the album's best singing can be heard on the aching English language "Open My Heart," which finds the ladies' voices coming together in such a nakedly loving and graceful way as to melt even the staunchest resistance, as if all the boundaries between folk, pop, rock, secular, spiritual, East, and West were all being broken gently and slowly down in surrender and benevolent celebration. Simply put, no heart can stay closed. Over a quiet piano-accompaniment, their voices fade in and out of each other's frequencies. This is an album for those nonspecific times when the soul needs support, love, and healing but may be afraid to ask for it. Even in the more urgent tracks, like the racing "Om Shanti," there's an element of nurturing calm that no amount of good-time rhythm and energy is going to dispel. What that calm connects to, of course, is the witness, the inner subjectivity of the soul beyond pain, death, desire, joy, despair. As Harc weaves their simple but profound harmonic spell, the sense of complete and perfect stillness that is created is the sound your inner witness will recognize as home at last. Review in Chronogram Magazine, May 2005: One God, many names...this is the thread that runs through HARC's ethereal CD, Inside Chants, which reverberates through the air with the vibrations of gossamer wings. Ruth Cunningham and Ana Hernández have woven a serene disc of eclectic music using Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Jewish traditional chants set to both traditional and nontraditional arrangements. Hernandez and Cunningham are both musicians and "sound healers." Their voices are light and lilting, seemingly residing in a higher plane than our earthbound selves. The chants bridge the gap between the mundane and the divine, using exquisite vocal harmonies, as well as piano, medieval harp, tongue drum, flute, and guitar to allow us a little glimpse of heaven. I found myself chanting the soothing chants as I went throughout my day, even if I didn't understand the words. My favorite is "Om Shanti" (Om, peace) which, while familiar to me from the yoga world, is presented in a unique tapestry of multilayered vocals. - Dina Pearlman (http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2005/05/backbone/earwhacks/cd.php) Praise: The pure voices of Ruth and Ana, woven in a musical tapestry of simple melodies and spirited flowing harmonies, are so stunning that the listener's heart cannot escape feelings of peace and deep healing. - Pat Moffitt Cook, author of Shaman, Jhankri, & Nele and founder of The Open Ear Center. There is something about the way your two voices interact that is so beautifully complete. The arrangements for the chants presents each one true to its essence (I don't know this, I just feel it), and in a way, they all strike me as musical mandalas - the circularity of the chant brings forth an energy in the improvisation that creates a world of its own. - Peter Sykes, Keyboard Artist