RIP Lucette Bourdin

The late Lucette Bourdin was a visual and music artist who was a native of France, having grown up in the villages and towns near the Doubs River in the eastern part of the country. The childhood phase of scribbling and coloring never ended for Lucette nor could several years of law school diminish her desire to become an artist. So, when she married an American and moved to the United States she felt her life was going to start over and her art would begin. Always an independent and self-disciplined individual, and feeling that the art programs available would only limit her expression, Lucette embarked upon a rigorous study of artists, color and design which eventually resulted in her own unique style.

Using watercolor/gouache as her media, Lucette developed a painting style which both expresses and evokes the subtlety of the soul. The outer landscape is a metaphor for the spirit that seeks expression as the light of transformation and redemption.

As accomplished at visual art as she was, Lucette was also a master of the ambient music genre, producing a wide ranging collection of albums that can only be described as masterworks. Lucette saw an interesting duality between the two forms of art, where the practice of one reinforces the practice of the other.

Lucette once said: "The closest analogy to how I experience both the act of painting and a finished work of art is music. While I am painting I feel like music is streaming through me on to the paper. It is difficult to say whether I am playing the music or the instrument being played. My experience is the reverse of music however, because the performance is done privately in my studio while the completed score in its entirety is what I show the public. There is another interesting distinction between the two mediums for me as well. Music is played in a line, it is linear, but it creates an atmosphere that continues after it has been played. A painting is a whole piece of music sounding all at once and which the viewer replays by looking at it. As the eye wanders around a painting the colors, forms, textures and their relationships are "sounding" within the viewer creating an experience or mood or atmosphere."

Lucette passed away in February of 2011, but her unique perspective on music and art lives on. Earth Mantra is very proud to have brought Lucette's music to our listeners and to have helped ensure that her music continues to inspire for many, many years to come.
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Lucette Bourdin and Phillip Wilkerson - Coast to Coast (Earth Mantra, 2011)

1 Sojourners in Transit
2 Miles to Go
3 Dream Berth
4 Vales and Shadows
5 Part Memory, Part Distance
6 Destination: Daystar

The ambient music genre possesses many strengths, among them the willingness of so many artists to collaborate together, blending their oftentimes different styles and creating whole new directions and perspectives that had never existed before. One of the many pleasures of running a netlabel is being in a position to introduce artists to each other, to encourage a sense of community amongst them, and of course, to release the fruits of such teamwork to the world.

Today, we celebrate the release of another such collaboration, this time a brilliant new work by two of the most talented musicians active today: Phillip Wilkerson and Lucette Bourdin. We confess that the mere thought of these two ambient powerhouses working together on new music had us quivering with anticipation and lofty expectations -- imagine the possibilities that could come of such a duo! Well, folks, we are very happy to report that Lucette and Phil not only cleared the bar, but vaulted clean past it into the stratosphere. Wow, what an album this is.

Their new release, entitled Coast to Coast, contains a broad variety of lush and exotic electronic ambient music. Pieces with sleek and semi-rhythmic tapestries evolve dramatically into intense dynamic textural passages, and then recede again into exquisite lightness and repose. The depth and breadth of the kinds of music that these two artists have created here simply astonishes us. The music hits on all cylinders; immediately approachable, fascinatingly diverse, evocative enough for profound contemplation, and composed beautifully. This is the kind of album that listeners will want to hear again and again, just to make out all the new details that can be heard on each successive listen. Just an amazing piece of art.

So we are deeply honored and very excited to bring to our listeners Coast to Coast, the first collaboration between Lucette Bourdin and Phillip Wilkerson. Surely among the best releases of 2011 so far, and one we strongly recommend to all of our listeners.
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Lucette Bourdin and Darrell Burgan - Prasantih (Earth Mantra, 2010)

01 Tisro Divah 11:59
02 Nyati 13:06
03 Jyotimsi 11:11
04 Sama 11:23
05 Dhira 11:07
06 Okas 14:27

Lucette Bourdin and Darrell Burgan return to Earth Mantra with their second collaborative release, an album of soothing ambient electronica entitled Prasantih.

Sometime in winter 2009-2010, Lucette and Darrell began working together on some cross-composed music, to see what sort of results might emerge from such a collaboration. Living thousands of miles apart, face to face recording was impossible. So instead they embarked upon a free-form style of composition, where each artist recorded bits of solo material called doodles, which were then shared mutually and remixed and reworked into whole new pieces. The result was a set of lovely ambient tracks that often bear little resemblance to the individual doodles that went into them.

The music they created is an interesting blend of their unique styles, a collection of light ambient compositions that the artists thought turned out nicely. During these sessions, Darrell and Lucette recorded so much material that multiple albums worth of music was the result. Their previous release from this collaboration, called Samhata, is also available here on Earth Mantra. Like Samhata, Prasantih came from the same set of sessions, but contains unique unrelated pieces with a slightly different feel and aesthetic point of view.

Lucette and Darrell sincerely hope that everyone enjoys listening to this release as much as they enjoyed making it. And Earth Mantra is very happy to be releasing the second set of music by these two artists. Highly recommended.
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