Janel & Anthony – Where Is Home – Cuneiform Records Paul Avgerinos – Lovers – Round Sky Music

Janel & Anthony – Where Is Home – Cuneiform Records Rune 338 ***½:
(Janel Leppin – cello, loops, electronics; Anthony Pirog – guitar, loops, electronics)
Paul Avgerinos – Lovers – Round Sky Music RSM 1015 ****:
(Avgerinos plays fretless bass, guitars, keyboards, percussion & vocals)
Again, difficult-to-categorize albums. Cellist Leppin and guitarist Pirog put together some intuitive music that altho only involves the two of them often sounds much more lavish. At first I heard it as a sort of New Age approach and thus put it with the clearly New Age Avgerinos CD, but now I feel it is more in the area of new music and ambient electronics. There are some dronescapes as well as less electronics and more acoustic numbers. Some of them make use of a type of distortion that I don’t care for, but I suppose is easy on the ears for those who are deep into distorted electronic guitars in rock. The interesting duo comes from backgrounds in jazz, rock, classical cello, Hindustani and Persian music, and this is their second CD together.
TrackList: Big Sur, The Clearing, Leaving the Woods, Symphony Hills, Lily in the Garden, Auburn Road, Mustang Song, Stay With Me, A Viennesian Life, Broome’s Orchard, Cross the Williamsburg Bridge, Where Will We Go, Finale
[audaud-hr]
Avgerinos is one of the leaders in today’s New Age Ambiance music. This CD follows on his previous winner, Bliss, with a flowing tapestry of space music combining interesting textures and unusual rhythmic flows. As with many New Age artists, he creates all the sounds himself, and this one is somewhat more electronic-sounding than was Bliss.  Therefore it seemed appropriate to match it up with the above more experimental album above. As with his other CDs, this should be a standard for massage, spa, yoga, and meditational uses. It’s unfortunate such enveloping sounds are not distributed in one of the surround sound forms such as SACD or Blu-ray.
TrackList: 
Bliss, Law of Attraction, Love, Garden of Delight, gratitude Joy, Gnosis, Phos Hilaron, Words Touch, Sky of Grace, Muse of the Round Sky, Balancing Spheres, Maya
—John Henry