Sacred Spirit is a musical project by Claus Zundel

Claus Zundel

Claus Zundel is a German composer, songwriter, producer and pianist. He has created several worldwide successful musical projects, most notable - Sacred Spirit and B-Tribe , as well as more Indie projects such as "Moroccan Spirit", "Classical Spirit", "Divine Works", Ancient Spirit and his latest...

, Ralf Hamm and Markus Staab. The music is of electronic

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

, new age

New Age music

New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...

, world

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, ambient

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

, house

House music

House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...

, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 genres. Sacred Spirit's total worldwide album sales estimated to be over 15 million copies. For each album sold, a donation was made to the Native American Rights Fund

Native American Rights Fund

The Native American Rights Fund, also known as NARF, is a non-profit organization that uses existing laws and treaties to ensure that state governments and the national government live up to their legal obligations...

, the non-profit American Indian

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 organization devoting all its time to restoring the legal rights of the native American people.

History

The first album - Chants and Dances of the Native Americans was released in 1994. The album was nominated for best New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

 album Grammy award.http://www.greengalactic.com/sacred_bluesy.html In keeping with the Native American theme, Zundel adopted the pseudonym 'The Fearsome Brave', and on his many other projects he is simply credited as 'The Brave'. The music conveys the stories, legends and plight of the Native Americans by combining sampled chants of the Navajo, Pueblo and Sioux tribes and Sami people

Sami people

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

 yoik

Yoik

A joik, , luohti, vuolle, leu'dd, or juoiggus is a traditional Sami form of song.Originally, joik referred to only one of several Sami singing styles, but in English the word is often used to refer to all types of traditional Sami singing...

 with synthesiser backings, all driven forth by a combination of traditional drumming and electronic dance-beats. The first single released off the album was "Yeha-Noha

Yeha-Noha

"Yeha-Noha " is a song recorded in 1994 by the German musical project known under the name of Sacred Spirit. It was the first single from the album Chants and Dances of the Native Americans. Released in 1995, it achieved a great success in various countries, including France, where it topped the...

" (Wishes of happiness and prosperity) which was largely responsible for catapulting Sacred Spirit into the limelight. The single reached #1 position in number of countries, including 6 weeks at #1 in France. In the US, "Yeha Noha" sung by Navajo

Navajo people

The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...

 elder Kee Chee Jake of Chinle, Arizona

Chinle, Arizona

Chinle is a census-designated place in Apache County, Arizona, United States. The population was 5,366 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Chinle is located at ....

 reached top 20 in Billboard Hot 100. The album is arguably one of the most successful enigmatic projects ever, garnering sales of more than 7 million albums worldwide. It reached top 10 and charted for twenty seven weeks in the UK Albums Chart

UK Albums Chart

The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

.

A second album was released by Sacred Spirit, but it was a complete divergence from the original. The focus this time was around the blues singing of America. In keeping with the change of theme, the American release saw the group name also being changed, to Indigo Spirit.

Virgin Records released the third Sacred Spirit album in 2000. The album was nominated for best New Age Grammy award in 2001.http://theenvelope.latimes.com/extras/lostmind/year/2001/2001grammy.htm This time the project's name was slightly altered to Indians' Sacred Spirit (and in some areas even that was abbreviated to Indians' Spirit), probably to inform listeners that it was different from the second album. The sub-title is More Chants and Dances of the Native Americans. The album continues the mood and production of the first, influential album. However the album is distinctly more instrumental. Although all the tracks do feature chants or speech, each song is composed of many short samples pieced together, unlike the first album which tended to use one extended sample per song.

In 2003 two Sacred Spirit albums were released on Higher Octave music label. The first one - Jazzy Chill Out features the vocal samples by legendary blues masters Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins

Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...

 and John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

, in addition to tracks spiced with the warm, inviting tones of Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...

 and Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

.http://www.greengalactic.com/sacred_jazzy.html
The vintage vocal touch adds an extra emotional resonance to the cutting edge texturing of The Brave’s innovative sonics with the jazzy piano melodies and improvisations of Eric Harmsen. Harmsen’s ensemble—including a DJ, rapper, drummer and vocalist—performs regularly at the club Teatro Perera on Ibiza island off the coast of Spain where The Brave makes his home.

On the other 2003 album - Bluesy Chill Out Zundel collaborated with fellow Ibiza resident Dave “BK” Jeffs, a Northern Ireland native and former street musician who plays regularly at a local club named Teatro Perera. Each track was created organically, with Jeffs (who also sings and plays flute and harmonica) composing improvisational slide and steel guitar riffs as a foundation for The Brave to build his trademark synthesis upon.

“I wanted to create a contemporary recording which would draw on classic blues traditions but combine them with the Sacred Spirit tradition of chill out groove and ambience,” said Claus Zundel. His goal was to offer a fresh perspective on the blues, thereby, as he said, “dragging it out of the ghetto” of the past and into the present.

Controversy

In the first album, the song "The Counterclockwise Circle Dance" is presented as a native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 chant, however the main vocals are an authentic Sami

Sami people

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

 yoik

Yoik

A joik, , luohti, vuolle, leu'dd, or juoiggus is a traditional Sami form of song.Originally, joik referred to only one of several Sami singing styles, but in English the word is often used to refer to all types of traditional Sami singing...

 ("Normo Jovnna" by Terje Tretnes), recorded in 1994 by Dutch Channel 4 during an interview as an example of a yoik. The recording, despite Channel 4's denial of having sold it, then mysteriously ended up in a Virgin Records studio in Holland. The Sami organisation Sámi kopiija have demanded royalties from Virgin Records but this has so far been unsuccessful. (NRK Sami Radio 21.12.2007)

Discography (Albums)

1995 - Chants and Dances of Native Americans (sometimes labeled Indians)

• 1. Intro & Prelude (How the West was Lost) 3.00
• 2. Tor-Cheney-Nahana (Winter Ceremony) 6.58
• 3. Ly-O-Lay Ale Loya (The counterclockwise circle dance) 5.14 "Normo Jovnna" remix
• 4. Ya-Na-Hana (Celebrate Wild Rice) 7.05
• 5. Dawa (The Cradlesong) 4.18 (Unknown Sami female yoik)
• 6. Gitchi-Manidoo (Advice for the Young) 6.01
• 7. Yeha-Noha
  Yeha-Noha
  "Yeha-Noha " is a song recorded in 1994 by the German musical project known under the name of Sacred Spirit. It was the first single from the album Chants and Dances of the Native Americans. Released in 1995, it achieved a great success in various countries, including France, where it topped the...
  
   (Wishes of happiness and prosperity) 4.02
• 8. Ta-Was-Ne (Elevation) 2.38
• 9. Heya-Hee (Intertribal song to stop the rain) 7.37
• 10. Shamanic Chant No. 5 (Heal the soul) 1.31
• 11. Yo-Hey-O-Hee (Brandishing the Tomahawk) 6.16

1997 - One Little Creature - Music of Fading Cultures (Pieces of Time)
Released only in Japan

• 1. Intro / Prelude 0:56
• 2. One Little Creature (Bulgarian gaida bagpipes (large ensemble) & a Korean folksong

from the kangwon province) 4:13

• 3. You've Gotta Learn (three kingdoms japon) 3:54
• 4. Talk to Me (throat singers from tuva meet tibetian monks) 3:53
• 5. Interlude-what is aloomné? (copper eskimos of Canada's northwest territories) 1:24
• 6. Mêdunya - dancing naked in the summer rain 4:12
• 7. Aloomné - the inuiit salute the daylight 4:04
• 8. Final call (statement of the noble warrior) 4:45
• 9. Silent prayer (o´eh´bee´eh) (mouthmusic from northern island) 4:33
• 10.Interlude - love's not time's fool 2:07
• 11. É souber son (7 days of songs & dances with nomads of the desert) 3:37
• 12. O jamboo - the mirror of the great void 4:20
• 13. Don't be afraid (with love from the mekong delta) 4:55

1997 - Culture Clash (Sacred Spirit 2)[] ( Belgium #42, Austria #43, Sweden #53, Netherlands #59 )

• 1. Intro 1:55
• 2. Culture Clash 4:32
• 3. Lay Down 4:40
• 4. On the Road 4:14
• 5. Legends 7:02
• 6. i. No More Cotton, ii. Interlude To Be a Slave 3:45
• 7. The Sun Won't Talk no More 7:46
• 8. Black Progress 3:18
• 9. Roots 6:38
• 10. Babes in the Juke House 3:20
• 11. i. Brownsville, Tennessee (instr.), ii. Interlude To Be a Slave #2 5:14
• 12. Slow and Easy 3:15
• 13. Sonnet XVIII 4:07

2000 - More Chants and Dances of Native Americans (Sacred Spirit II)[] ( Italy #14, France #37, Netherlands #88)

• 1. Intro: Gods & Heroes 1:31
• 2. Looking for north 4:18
• 3. Dela Dela 4:41
• 4. Land Of Promise 5:47
• 5. The State of Grace 4:26
• 6. Yane - Heja - Hee 4:49
• 7. A - la - Ke 4:42
• 8. May you walk in sunshine 3:57
• 9. The Spirit 3:03
• 10. O - Loa - Ki - Lee 3:18
• 11. That Noble Dream 4:51
• 12. The Sad Eyed Chief 4:03

2003 - Jazzy Chill Out (Sacred Spirit Vol.8)[] http://www.greengalactic.com/sacred_jazzy.html

• 1. You're Gonna Love (feat. Tampa Red) (Theme from Vangelis
  Vangelis
  Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
  
   Ask The Mountains
  Voices (Vangelis album)
  Voices is a 1995 album by Greek electronic composer and artist Vangelis.Its music was used in the soundtrack for the 1998 documentary Deep Seas, Deep Secrets co-produced by The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel, together with music from Vangelis next album, Oceanic.The track "Ask the...
  
  )
• 2. Bad Luck (feat. Lightning Hopkins)
• 3. Da Cool (feat. Anita O'Day)
• 4. The Roots
• 5. A New Dawn (feat. Carla Rums)
• 6. 03.1 Last Nite (feat. Lightning Hopkins)
• 7. The Last Unicorn (edit)
• 8. Love Comes My Way (feat. Ela Fitzgerald)
• 9. The Sun (feat. John Lee Hooker)
• 10. Chillin'
• 11.Some Like It Easy (feat. John Lee Hooker)
• 12. That "rive gauche" - Vibe

2003 - Bluesy Chill Out (Sacred Spirit Vol.9)[] http://www.greengalactic.com/sacred_bluesy.html

• 1. Driftin'
• 2. This Earth
• 3. Interlude: The Wide Open
• 4. Black Rain
• 5. Love Is Blind
• 6. Down In Louisiana
• 7. Interlude: The Loneliness of the Slide Guitar
• 8. That's Right
• 9. My Mother Told Me
• 10. Oh Yeah
• 11. Wasteland
• 12. Why

External links

• Sacred Spirit official site
• http://www.nrk.no/kanal/nrk_sami_radio/1.4364954
• http://www.virginmusic.de/xml/5/3250950/index.html
• http://archive.greengalactic.com//sacred_jazzy.html
• http://archive.greengalactic.com//sacred_bluesy.html
• http://home.global.co.za/~jvd/right_n.htm