Spirit Wheel
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley February 23, 2018
Artist – Terra Guitarra
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Imagine, if you will, bathing in a pool of sublime bliss; the beauty of the experience surrounding you, feeling the deep relaxation beginning to permeate your very heart and soul, bringing with it a feeling of joy and pleasure, and you have not left that favourite place, that comfortable chair, that meditation space.
Bruce Hecksel and Julie Patchouli, otherwise known as the sublime acoustic group, Terra Guitarra have in Spirit Wheel created what surely have to be their most amazingly beautiful album to date.
Created out of a desperate need to become grounded, Hecksel found that he had been caught up in a cycle of stress and, ‘that the insanity of material culture’ was bringing with it fear, anger and insecurity. He retreated to his music, unintentionally creating what he refers to as a ‘meditative rhythm track, which transported him powerfully inward, back to himself’, and so the basis of this album was formed.
Each day he created another piece, based in beauty, and as always containing a certain element of relaxation, healing and joy, creating an elixir that needs no prescription, but brings with it the gift of healing.
The tracks have been named accordingly to the feel of the moment, the element of life. Autumns Breeze is reflective of one of the most majestic periods of the year, when the summer has withdrawn its heat and the gentle relaxing warmth of the earth beginning to settle is felt all around.
Cloud Caravan offers the feeling of relaxing on a soft cloud, surrounded by a lovely light and yet deep feeling of never ending peace and relaxation. Mountain Lake follows paying tribute to the mysterious nature of mountains and lakes, which in their still majesty and deep depths hold mysteries untold; their pristine nature timeless, pure and unchanged.
The music comes from a ‘stream-of-consciousness’, the cover of the album created by Hecksel in the form of a mandala is also a beautiful reminder of the everyday gifts of life, each item with its own symbolism, another of his works which now form a component of what he refers to as his ‘series of guitar based paintings’.
To listen to this album is to enjoy a rare treat in world of spiritual, meditational, new-age relaxation music as it offers something for everyone with the rhythms shifting and changing over several styles and offers nothing other than pure, sublime, medicine for the soul, the heart and the spirit.
Hecksel says, ‘The music on this album was really just an unplanned surprise’. Thank you so very much, Bruce Hecksel and Julie Patchouli for sharing your surprise.