"Ashera" is an Australian artist whose ambient productions are very much in the "classic" spirit of Brian Eno. You will hear the by-now-familiar sounds of Ambient in Cobalt 144: rhythm-less floating synthesizer or electric guitar tones, sighing and whispering wordless female voices, tinkling or rattling percussion accents, heavily filtered electric piano notes, bells, and environmental sounds. All the tracks are soft in volume, designed to be a kind of "audible incense" to perfume the environment.

Even though the style of these pieces doesn't offer a lot of variety or change, and they are (as it were) designed to be ignored, it is worth listening more closely to one or two of the tracks, because Ashera has added some smooth and pleasant tone-colors to his delicate mix. His chord choices are an ultra-diluted tincture of modernist jazz. Track 6, "144," which is longer than the others at about 13 minutes, is especially pretty. It drifts along on sonic shimmer with a few moments of heavier percussion and gongs, and at some points actually gets loud. Another longer track, number 8, "Ultima Thule," has a slightly "darker" feel but is also good listening. (Note: I think these are the titles; this album has the most unreadable type I've ever encountered on a CD cover.)

Like a lot of the more successful "soft ambient" sounds, these pieces give the feeling of gazing into a reflecting pool of water, which is occasionally stirred by wind, or by fish just below the surface. Ashera's music certainly does its job of calming the listener down; in fact, it can get downright sleep-inducing. It's best to listen to this album late at night, or at least at some time when you don't mind slipping off into dreamland.

Reviewed by Hannah M.G. Shapero 1/14/2001  

"Temple" is quite possibly the standard bearer or flagship release for the evolution of the Hearts of Space signature statement of "Timeless Music for a Changing World".  The byline reads "Ambient, contemplative, and cross-cultural music via syndicated radio and a family record label" and is indeed fully realized and embodied by this polished, "pop" laced entry.  My usage of "pop" is meant to characterize the state of the art mastering and presentation techniques utilized throughout to create an entirely engaging and satisfying soundscape of reverent space.

Introspectively solemn keyboards underpinned by, dynamic and tactile, layered percussion elements that drift in and out of the foreground propel the harmonic singing of Thomas Barquee through layered veils of a non-somatic sojourn.  The main "voice", besides Thomas Barquee's, is that of an acoustic piano possessing magnificent timbre enhanced by richly glistening reverb.  The entire disc for that matter is an exacting blueprint for exercising saturation, yet never drenching and achieving a dripping quality, through reverb and delay treatments.  There does appear to be some additive textures, that at times runaway sonically, but are nonetheless quite fun to try and follow, or ascertain their origins, as just about every instrumental voice in each track is "enhanced" by either delay or reverb treatments.

There are six tracks, all in excess of nine minutes, with titles of "la-buddha", "guru", rasa", "maya", lama", and lila".  The roots of the world of musical influences lie within and are manifest in unique and pleasing implementation for Barquee's vocals.  Though entirely capable of inducing trance like states the listener is now forewarned that there are startling dynamic levels here as well.  " Temple " contains many pertinent Shamanesque qualities that reward the listener with a new space for one's own introspective contemplative and enlightened journey, via the soulful vocals of Thomas Barquee, through his Ambient Visions.

Reviewed by BEAR  01.14.01 

Audiophiles Note: 

An extremely resonant and pleasing top to bottom feast for the ears carrying rich timbre and weight in the lower octaves.  The vocals are presented in a rainbow/halo effect that at first struck me as an odd presentation for the artists featured vocals.  Especially since the percussion tracks are the only instruments offered any stage placement and depth perspective as the balance of the tracking spending its placement hard panned left and right or cross fading.  The skin effect of the percussion is dynamically captured and results in glorious liquid reverb tales. The rainbow effect on the vocals bore itself out as being an excellent vehicle for the twin point source of the harmonies and overtones proffered in the soulful urgency of dynamic swells of emphasis as they contrasted the breathy quieter passages.

The listening sessions were performed in the following systems: 

(1) Electrocompaniet EMC-1 CD player, Electrocompaniet ECI-3 Integrated, Magneplanar MG1.6QR, &  Sunfire True Subwoofer speakers.

(2) Linn Classik into Stax Electrostatic SRX MkIII, Sennheiser HD600, & Sony MDR-7509 Professional headphones.

(3) The Holo-System: Rega Planet 2000, Belles XLM preamplifier, Belles 200 power amplifier and Altec Lansing 510 A speakers.  ( A relatively large system in an extremely small room with only one small holographic listening sweet spot