Desert Dance is R. Carlos Nakai's musical interpretation of his experiences in the sacred place of his ancestors, Colorado's San Luis Valley. Like his critically acclaimed 1988 release, Sundance Season, the Navajo-Ute musician's latest album was recorded in the Lindisfarne chapel, a uniquely resonant structure situated within this dramatic expanse of holy ground. Many tribes, from the early pueblo dwellers to the Kiowa, Arapaho, and Comanche, have inhabited this alpine valley over time. Near Alamosa, Colorado, where the Great Sand Dunes lie, is the site of the Navajo's eastern sacred mountain, Blanca Peak, and the center of the Ute world. Nakai weaves his improvisations on the native American wooden flute, nose flute, drums, rattle, and voice into poetic meditations on the land and its history. During Ancient Voices, he delicately plays a Southern Plains war dance drum with finger taps and brushes to reveal a hidden palette of sound, much like the whisper of spirits within the valley. The joyful spectacle of desert birds frolicking upon waves of transparent air currents is depicted on Turquoise Swallows Dance, while the wind's daily moods are choreographed in temperate summer breezes, dust devils, and cloud formations on Wind Dance. Other selections deftly combine the plaintive, yet, potent sounds of Nakai's heritage to explore the mystery and unique beauty of this sacred territory.
