Shambhu
Lilac Skies is the fourth release from guitarist, composer, and producer Shambhu. This instrumental album features Shambhu’s relaxing guitar magic on 10 new songs in a dazzling album with jazz, blues, and New Age roots. Each of Shambu’s albums is truly a gem, a magically grounded journey, and a doorway to deeper feelings and inspiration. Not only is Lilac Skies no exception, it’s another pinnacle of composition that traverses brilliance and vision coming fully into form, acoustic six-string bliss.
Lilac Skies means Infinite Love: lilac the color of love; sky the infinite and endless possibility. Shambhu (pronounced SHOHM-boo) transforms stillness and silence into calming sounds. He’s an acclaimed jazz guitarist and composer who has been called “a consummate guitarist.” Shambhu is at once precise, skilled, sensitive, and inventive way beyond the norm.
A who’s who of talented musicians joined Shambhu (guitars, e-keyboards, e-bass) for this live studio recording: Frank Martin (keyboards), Celso Alberti (drums), Kai Eckhardt (bass), Premik Russell Tubbs (flute, EWI and lap steel guitar), and Kristin Hoffmann (voice). Shambhu recorded two additional acoustic guitar songs at Magic Cottage Studios (Sebastopol, CA) with Todd Boston, who also mixed the album.
In recent years, Shambhu has been featured on Whitney Houston’s Whitney, Jeff Oster’s Next, Ricochet – The Echoes Living Room Concerts (Vol. 20), and two Will Ackerman compilations, The Gathering II and The Gathering I (ZMR Award for “Best Album of the Year”). Shambhu also played or recorded with Carlos Santana, Paul McCandless, Eugene Friesen, Tony Levin, Jeff Haynes, Ravichandra Kulur, George Brooks, Premik Russell Tubbs, Grammywinning producer/drummer Narada Michael Walden, and E Street saxophonist Clarence Clemons, among others. shambhumusic.com
—LLOYD BARDE (LLOYDBARDE.COM)