In 1997, Choying Drolma and Steve Tibbetts (a guitarist from Minnesota) created an international stir with a remarkable album of Tibetan Buddhist chants paired with atmospheric soundscapes of guitar and percussion. The guitarist was Steve Tibbetts, and while he'd built up a bit of a reputation through his critically acclaimed albums for ECM Records, he created something profound, and profoundly different, in his collaboration with the Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma. Rather than a slick piece of Western dance music with appropriated Eastern melodies, this was a carefully produced, deeply felt sonic environment built around and in response to an ancient practice of visualization and meditation. The Tibbetts/Drolma album was unlike anything else that was happening at the time, and it's taken seven years for anyone to follow in their footsteps. Finally, in their Six Degrees Records debut, Steve Tibbetts and Choying Drolma have released a new recording, called Selwa, which expands on the work they began in that first groundbreaking album. —Courtesy Calabash Music
