Wings of an Angel (Sound Alchemy & Production/Mix):
For this amazing adventure, I thank you Ms. Achishena; especially for your openness and creative freedom.
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Tziona Achishena (Vocals, Instruments, Recording, Original Songs) -
Creating music in collaboration with Wings of An Angel was like singing in front of a magic mirror that reflected to me only my beauty and mystery, leaving me surrounded with angel choirs and newly opened caves and pathways inside of my heart. And so many questions. I wondered: Is this really happening? And every song sparked more and more songs and poems, that are pouring out of me like clear clean waters from the belly of the earth, and from the center point of my soul. Perhaps we can know the holiness of others, to the extent that connecting with them, through an act of kindness, a prayer, or a song, brings back to us lost parts of our souls, awakening our hearts with love, and an awareness of our own preciousness. A holy man, or woman, in recognizing us, gives us back what is actually ours, inspiring us to sing our own songs, which then heal us. I have experienced a great awakening, an embracing love of all creation, and, in a way, have fallen in love with the reflection in the magic mirror. But rather than being entranced by a vision of self, I see within me the whole world. Because that mirror reflects a deep place inside of me. You could call it my soul, or even, where my soul meets all souls...and so I expand and contain within me ever increasing space, inner space in which to travel to hidden, private lands beyond the sight of the human eye.
The Water Castle, part of a story written by Rebbe Nachman of Breslav, has also been a cosmic reflection of my life, especially in recent years. In this story, a princess flees from the evil king who captured her will, to a castle made all of water. I have thought, sang, dreamed, and lived the Water Castle for many years. The image of a mystical "place" that exists out of time and space, where a wounded soul could go for sonic healing, gave the challenging circ*mstances of my life hope, meaning, and mystery. I imagined the Water Castle as a place where all of my songs intersected, forming a timeless sound structure that could be a refuge for me at any moment. In that story, there is a Beggar With No Hands, who has special powers to enter the Water Castle, and is able to heal the princess through his knowledge of the 10 pulses coursing through human blood-flow, all 10 types of song, and his giving of 10 all types of charity. Perhaps this Holy Beggar is present in any real connection between two people in this world, especially when there is true and generous giving, beyond personal gain and interests. And so "The Water Castle" is the title of the album that I was working on when I discovered Wings of An Angel. I was looking for someone, thing, instrument, to take my song into the water castle. After hearing his music, which seemed to take me right to the meeting point between consciousness and subconscious, sleep and thought, where hearts awaken, I had hope to try once more for the realization of my vision. I had tried many approaches to get the sound I was imagining, include recording in an ancient cistern, but had nearly given up when I asked Wings to use my song, which layered voices and flutes, to create a kind of sacred sound space that surrounds the listener and makes her feel that she has entered a sonic healing chamber. When I received the alchemized version "I have witnessed the miracle that is you in the water castle" back from Wings, the immediate experience was simply, being brought inside the water castle. I was now listening from the inside. And that perfectly describes this music...because I would layer the voices, cellos, pianos, flutes, etc..., all the while imagining the spaces needed for the resonation alchemy to come, send the mix to Wings of An Angel, and receive back a sound experience that is basically giving to you, dear listener, and to myself as well, a full being experience of what I feel like when I sing. I feel the resonating chambers of my head, my heart, and soul, a connection to a deep place inside of me, and an infinite expansion that encompasses but reaches far beyond my physical body, connecting heaven and earth, physical and spiritual, in a harmonious wave that contains first darkness (my eyes are closed), then hidden light, and changing, endless colors and landscapes of feeling and insight, finally to a place beyond color, beyond darkness and light...of ONENESS. An inner space is created, with room for all my love, hopes, longings, pain, conflicting emotions, to be reborn in the oneness of song. And thus sparked a creative explosion of songs and musical alchemy, which has become Disc Two of The Water Castle, an unforeseen twin birth. I call Disc One: Awakening from Below: my efforts to arrive at the Water Castle, a struggle to give birth to my soul after a kind of spiritual death. Disc Two: Awakening From Above, with Wings of an Angel, is a pure gift from heaven, no struggle, just an ecstastic entrance into the Water Castle, an awakening to the ability to feel an influx of Divine Love, which blasted through the scars and wounds I carried, with a burst of raw life force energy; and with a deep longing to never leave. A present from the Treasury of Unearned Gifts, that comes with being seen, witnessed, not with physical eyes, but in the prescene of a listening heart. So in a way, I have become the Water Castle, and to listen is to dance, travel, or float within the hidden chambers of my soul: and yours. Thanks and Praises to the One who creates all, the Giver of All Songs. And to Wings of An Angel, eternal thanks for a priceless gift.
Almost Forever: Rebirth of the Divine Feminine
now i have wings
in circles, i flew with one
and now the song has a breath
a bigger breath
bigger than one body
The Great Breath breathes through it now.
A voice is released. in a grand mirrored hall, nearly infinite. but the walls are seaweed, underwater feathers, the unfurling of a breathing dance. the glass is water, reflecting almost forever. ever
beyond space. beyond one certain woman. who happens to be at the center of my being. But when I turn to the center, I see moving space, a delicate dance of being in the vast space, not quite emptiness. I am released. her song is now her dream. she finally gets to be, as vast as she suspected some infinite fragment in herself might be.
In the center echos a Great Voice. Mother. Me. EloIma. She embraces the empty spaces between and within us. in me.
i am floating in a vast expanse.
on a cold cold night, a warm ember expands through me. still feeling my self, I know I am here, because she is happy. I have to have a me to smile from. The smile is soft, spreading warm lava wax, rocking me to rest. Half asleep. What is awakening now?
the vastness is big enough for me. My expansion is my flight, but I've no need to go, anywhere, now.
the movement dancing is within.
Maybe later I will be a person again, the kind that says thank you in two words, the kind that writes, shalom; lila tov; sweet rest; and sweet dreams. The kind that signs her name.
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Featured @ atwatersedge.fm/wings-of-an-angel & vimeo.com/channels/atwatersedge/119023223
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"It’s fair to say that you’ll need to be in a spiritual mood to completely give yourself to these tracks done by Wings of an Angel and Tziona Achishena. It isn’t pop music and even though there is Tziona’s singing involved, it’s a far niece from the more commercial road that the likes of Enya had been sailing on.
It’s a treatment like angel delights that you can imagine an official church spokesperson would describe as the music that could be found in text book versions of ‘heaven’. You know angels in white sitting on clouds in the sky, eating cheese sandwiches while talking about the things angels talk about. No idea what that would be, as what’s there to talk about in such a ‘perfect’ state? Perhaps they gossip about the shapes of other clouds? Or they simply brush each other’s hairs and wash each other’s wings to kill the time? Rumor goes that they play harp, but that’s not the case in this heaven like music done here by Wings of an Angel; no harps!
No harps? No harps. But there is this angelic singing, drone-ish ambient, sweetness with a flute, sometimes a piano spaced out floating in the emptiness of perfection. It is simply enough to not really miss the harp, but if the harp had been included; gates of heaven might have been rolled out open for everyone to jump in, so it’s perhaps better that the artist had left them out. Still, you can always pick up a harp and start to jam on top of the angelic output that comes out from this album, just to see if it is indeed the shortcut hack to enter heaven without following the rules.
The collaboration of Wings of an Angel’ and Tziona Achishena is the stuff you can hear for relaxation, or perhaps because the perfect you want fitting music for that role playing goddess dress you want to wear, or something you would like to hear while wearing a blond curly wig and acting out as if you are Cupid. Personally I think to give this one to a biologic shop close to my home, a place that always rely on ‘Enya’ to get that healthy atmosphere in the shoppers air going. Buying products that have not gone through the genetic modifications process is an act of bliss and self-love, so with this album It will make my shopping experience a lot more comfortable than when ‘Enya’s sail away’ meets my ear for the billionth time.
Get in touch with your angelic side and hear this heaven-like (minus the harp!) music... "
[[[ yeahiknowitsucks.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/wings-of-an-angel-tziona-achishena-the-dialogues-of-longing/ ]]]
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"I have had the opportunity to listen your album "The Dialogues Of Longing" and it is simply unearthly… It sounds like it comes from another dimension/afterlife or the far future. Your production with Tziona’s voice are amazing!!! Your production schematic is so intriguing to me. How you create your introduction and then bring us on a journey is a technique I have never heard before. It is as though you are teaching us in a secret wisdom that words cannot express… A special wisdom which, in the earthly dimension, the only medium that comes close to sharing it is music. Something so esoteric and beyond humanity can only be expressed through your polyphonic and epically soul embracing productions. Honestly… I would expect to go on these adventures only at the moment of death as I am catapulted into the unknown... So for you to reach into the core of your own journey and bring it to us is a true blessing!"
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"A transcendent journey to the heart of the world, soul expanding sound alchemy by Wings of An Angel"
