Seventh Wave by Michelle Qureshi

Seventh Wave is Michelle Qureshi's highly anticipated follow up to her award winning album Scattering Stars.

Award-winning Artist Michelle Qureshi is a composer, multi‐instrumentalist, and classically-trained guitarist. Believing in the power of music and its great potential to unite, connect, and touch us all, Michelle performs at various concert venues, festivals, yoga studios, healing centers, and special events. Her work is inspired by her curiosity of sound production, both acoustic and electronic. Her albums are heard globally on new age and ambient music programs as well as programs and playlists devoted exclusively to guitar music. Discography: Seventh Wave (2017) Scattering Stars (2016) (published by Heart Dance Records) Margalla Hills (2015) Meditations (2014) Flow (2014) Suite Beats (2014) Illumination (2012) Of Light (2012) (published by her label Music as Metaphor)


REVIEWS:
Seventh Wave is the latest album from guitarist and composer Michelle Qureshi and follow-up to her excellent 2016 release, Scattering Stars. Known for creating uniquely characteristic soundscapes that incorporate an eclectic blend of contemporary and global instrumentation, Michelle further perfects her sound and style on what is arguably her most accomplished work to date. Comprised of thirteen compositions which span a little over sixty-seven minutes, Seventh Wave relies on the sounds of stringed instruments (both plucked and bowed), flutes, didgeridoos, idiophones, membranophones, occasional vocals and synthesized textures. Difficult to pigeon-hole, the album’s overall style could be equally classified as ambient, minimalist or avant-garde.

“Shift” is a mesmerizingly languid opener comprised of warm synthesizer washes and drifty piano notes, which soon introduce a caravan of suspended strings and beautiful electric guitar in a subtly cinematic fashion. Many of the album’s compositions follow in this gently understated mode, while other pieces, such as “Each Good Rain” and “Angels”, are distinguished by more pronounced acoustic guitar melodies. Michelle also employs experimental rhythmic elements on some of the compositions, such as “Reason”, which is characterized by percussive pulses that underscore minimal glitches and a kaleidoscope of sound textures. Acoustic and electric guitars alternately emerge to the forefront of many pieces, although essentially all instruments – and thereby the melodies that they collectively express – mostly retain a somewhat inconspicuous and perfectly understated quality. In what could perhaps be described as an intermediate detour off the beaten path, Michelle lends Indian flavors to “Radiant Ones”, a subtly rhythmic piece that weaves sitar, tabla drums and mantra-style vocals among electronic programming and synthesized effects. Another notable highlight, as well as my personal favorite, is the nocturnally mysterious, “Of the Night”. Deeply introspective, the composition beautifully weaves minimal ambient with classical textures into a nocturnal soundscape, which seemingly evokes that of observing city night life in black-and-white slow motion. Additionally noteworthy is the closer, “Dreaming in Color”, a softly undulating and atmospheric piece with psychedelic touches, which features didgeridoo, processed vocal sounds, guitar loops and slide effects.

Always intriguing and thoroughly rewarding, the experience of listening to Seventh Wave could be likened to being immersed in the many fluid colors and freeform textures of a beautifully abstract work of art. Essentially having created a musical sub-style of her own, Michelle Qureshi’s latest sound collage is mostly free of clearly defined boundaries, rendering these lovely compositions open to many welcome interpretations!

~Candice Michelle, Journeyscapes Radio

The award winning Michelle Qureshi is back with another stunning album after her amazing success with her last release Scattering Stars, which achieved a huge victory for the artist, by capturing the ambient album of the year award for 2016 in the One World Music Radio awards.
The expansive qualities of Qureshi’s composition can be really felt here, by listening to the opening piece entitled Shift. In my view this is some of the finest work I have ever heard from Michelle, this is true ambience and I can see this one being a real fan favourite, the gentleness of performance, especially on piano and guitar is quite moving.

Page of Cups is also a favourite of mine, perhaps some may know of the title through the Tarot, so from this creative new beginning, we can listen to this work as a simple moment of instrumental bliss. Qureshi has grown this vast and wondrous ability to manifest works of art that leave us the listener with so much room to explore, listen to the lightness of performance and the calming backdrop of sound, while the guitar very softly weaves the narrative of tone along with us.
As we arrive at track three, we come across the longest offering on the album that’s just short of eight minutes, it’s called Velvet Rains. Qureshi is an artist in the true meaning of the word, and seems to paint with musical brushes that must have been dipped in genius. Velvet Rains contains a delicacy that is so rare in music these days, and flows with the same energy as you would expect from an Al Gromer Khan album. This is a piece that truly emphasises the artist’s skill in creating ambient soundscapes; it wouldn’t have mattered to me if this piece had gone on for an hour.

Now if ever a title was prophetic this would be it, we’re crying out for this right now, it’s called Each Good Rain. The production quality of this album is amazing, and gives us a really enjoyable texture to allow us to enjoy the compositions further, this one especially so, its fluency and melody are quite harmonious and tranquil, we can almost sit by the window and be grateful for the rains that fall from the sky above.
Reason is a piece that slightly raises the tempo, mainly due to the soft but natural percussive beats contained within. However there is so much in this track, you’re really going to want to revisit Reason many times over.
As we draw nearer to the half way point of the release we come across a composition called We Were Once like This. The piano starts our sojourn here; the moody nature of this track is sublime and draws us into a piece that is so deeply emotive. As a listener, I loved the flow in this track, always controlled and always so very peaceful, the resonance of the guitar latter on is absolutely memorable.
The borderlands have been crossed as we move to, Radiant Ones, however the artist has mixed quite cleverly the dark and light, the radiance and shade, once you arrive at around the minute and a half mark, you may well recognise the land you are within. Om Namah Shivaya calls across the musical divide and the percussive cleverness of the tabla creates that lush eastern feel to the arrangement.
Of the Night is next up, and the almost ethereal quality at the beginning here is a total treat. We can feel the classical influences and can sense the electronic interplay with them as well. Michelle Qureshi keeps on pulling musical and magical rabbits out of her hat and this slice of slightly dark ambience is simply perfection. Through the music we can imagine walking the halls of house in a dimension that has yet to come into existence, moody, mystical and very powerful, all in one basket of brilliance.
We now find ourselves deep within the weave of the release and dear reader and listener the piece Never Odd or Even is upon your table, the deepness of this offering is balanced perfectly with the lightness of touch on performance and tone. We are almost being lifted out of a place of darkness and laid down gently in a realm of a quite blissful nowhere.
Stars Seen is a piece that raises the energies with a quite breath taking repeating ambient melody, that doesn’t impose a pattern in the mind, but reassures us with an uplifting Brian Eno styled performance, this so reminds me of Always Returning from
the master, here Qureshi explores further, she creates a whole universal theme through this quite outstanding offering and is one of my many favourites off the album.

We continue this rise through our musical energy centres with this next charming opus called Angels. The creation of this piece is akin to floating on musical clouds and gazing down with safety, on all that is below. The performance on guitar here and the melody structure is among some of the best I have heard for decades.

Our penultimate offering is entitled, There Lightly. Ambient, but almost space styled in build, through the electronic essence of this piece we could easily imagine drifting through a region of deep space. There is a careful and soft nature here though that adds a colourful dimension to the element of this composition. The inclusion of the flute is clever and adds even more to what is already a quite beautiful opus of sound.
So we arrive at our last port of call and this final musical doorway is called Dreaming in Color. A resonating base sound is preceded by an incredibly subtle electric guitar that seems to hover in the distance like a summer haze in August. The mix of floating new age sounds and keyboards mixed with the guitar brings a very classy conclusion, to an extremely sparkling arrangement.

Seventh Wave has not just lived up to all I hoped it would do, it has gone far past that, and then some, this is without doubt one of the best ambient styled albums I have heard this year, and for a long time, and easily Michelle’s best so far. If you liked Scattering Stars, you’re going to be blown away with Seventh Wave, her ability to hold the tone and ambience of each track on the album and create some very emotive and moving musical images along the way, with some quite creative but luscious melodies, is outstanding, and as such I would be more than elated to recommend this release, this is an album of outstanding natural beauty.

~Steve Sheppard, One World Music Radio

Tripping daintily across the ether Shift is a delicate and light piece to introduce the latest album from the delightful Michelle Qureshi as she once again uses her imagination, as well as a varied collection of instruments to create a series of beautiful blends and harmonies created to sooth, heal and simply be enjoyed.

Electronic introduction sifting into a rhythmic tapping and electronic range of sounds creates a slow, otherworldly piece in Velvet Rains, which both teases and enchants as it leaves the space open to interpretation – to dreamtime, to before the earth was formed, to a journey into the far reaches of space. Almost eight minutes in duration it makes a lovely piece for a quick meditation.

Each Good Rain opens with plucking of guitar strings backed by a synth played in a gentle and almost unobtrusive manner, saying Yes, I am here but pay me no attention – focus on the guitar. Mellow and dreamy this is one for simply enjoying the delicate notes and overtures set to sooth and relax.

The ting, tong of what can be easily envisioned as a xylophone leads onto the full-bodied synthesised sounds of Never Odd or Even leading you into a deeper relaxation which is followed by Angels a lovely, up-tempo piece that awakens the listener as it slowly, carefully, shifts dynamics into a more care-free minute or two.

Drifting lightly into the final piece in this innovative and totally enjoyable collective, There Lightly wafts the peacefulness of the meditative state, into a slightly less deep element but also encourages a slow return to everyday life, with the introduction of higher, sharper notes of the flute wandering across the soundscape.

The final piece Dreaming in Color is exactly that, as the colours of the spectrum are transcribed into music leaving it to the listener to select the colour, select the mood, as well as the moment chosen to return from the Seventh Wave to the everyday world.

As with all of her albums, this being the seventh album, she has created a wonderfully soothing blend tied together with love which will appeal to anyone seeking that special music for meditation, relaxation, yoga or background ambience.

Once again the Qureshi has created a wonderful, heartfelt offering of love and pleasure to be shared.

Janet Mawdeslay, Blue Wolf Reviews

Award-winning Artist Michelle Qureshi is a composer, multi‐instrumentalist, and classically-trained guitarist who brings a contemporary yet timeless aesthetic to her music, which includes 17 albums 33+ singles/EPs.

michellequreshi.com
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