Album Notes

Tribal Spirit - An Inspired collaboration with Helm and Phil Thornton - The seeds for this project began with Carolena Nericcio of FatChanceBellyDance having the idea of bringing together Helm's expertise in acoustic, folkloric music and Phil's distinctive world fusion sound to create something really unique. The concept opened the way to explore the many facets of Tribal Spirit throughout the world. Helm traveled to Rajasthan in India and, with the contacts of Colleena Shakti, was able to record with musicians from the Sindh desert. Helm twice stopped by Phil's studio, Expandibubble, in the UK to brainstorm and record as well. Phil's personal contributions are a result of his travels to Egypt and the USA, hearing soundscapes within cacophonies. Phil has also created special "FatChanceBellyDance" remixes from his album, Nexus Tribal, at Carolena's behest.

This flexible format enabled Helm to record many songs that we've performed for years and to tap into the vast SF Bay Area network of musicians, including Dan Cantrell, Djordje Stijepovic, Robin Petrie, and Aryeh Frankfurter. With Phil, we were able to explore very different realms for us. The end result is just what Carolena envisioned: a very unique collaboration.

Tribal Spirit starts off with two of the Langa musicians we recorded, then moves into seven tracks by Helm. Helm and Phil Thornton collaborated on Seventh Void, Sella Fina, and Lashir Spirit. Phil's personal contributions are Sunrise over TriBeCa and Raqs Rhodope, the two FatChanceBellyDance mixes.