Bliss - designed especially for relaxation, massage, meditation, and all the holistic arts, Bliss flows for 75 minutes of graceful soothing serenity.

Like Liquid Mind and Deuter, Bliss is a deeply expansive space of unconditional peaceful love. Without obvious melodies, bass and drums, Bliss helps you to release resistance and open more fully to your own inner natural state of Bliss.

In the rich soil of Peace
grows the Sacred flower of Grace
Breathe Deeply
its aroma
is Your Bliss

"Grammy Nominated, Avgerinos is one of the Giants of New Age Ambience..."
- All Music Guide

Paul Avgerinos ~ Bass Violin, 12 String Guitar, Keyboards, Sound Design

Carrie Grossman ~ Angelic Diva of AH and OM

Special Gratitude to Carrie Grossman for helping me to envision and encouraging me to make this album. Thank you Carrie! Please visit her at www.thelightinside.org

Bliss has won Best Relaxation / Meditation Album for 2011 from Zone Music Awards!

Advances in horn technique during the eighteenth century created an era of virtuosi whose talents moved composers to write for them. Austria, and in particular Vienna, attracted a great number of these artists and the nineteenth century saw a new generation of musicians who composed and collaborated on works that promoted the instrument in fascinatingly new ways.

Krufft was a prolific composer who wrote a number of sonatas including one for fortepiano and horn. On his early death in 1818 he was described by the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung as "a pianist of rare talent and precision, a composer of study and spirit". Like many other Viennese musicians of this time, Krufft studied law at the University of Vienna and then combined a career as a musician with a post in civil service.

The life of Jan Václav Stich has been described as "resembling that of a novel" (H.Kling). Born into a family of serfs, his early talent caught the attention of the local count who arranged for him to have specialist training. The high quality of wind musicians emerging from Bohemia at this time led Charles Burney to describe Bohemia as the "Conservatory of Europe". Stich later absconded and, going under the name of Giovanni Punto, became one of the biggest names in music, travelling the length and breadth of Europe. Beethoven's Sonata Op.17 for fortepiano and horn, thought to be the first composition for this combination, contains highly characteristic writing for both instruments.

Punto's fame is reflected in a review of an early performance of the work in which a critic asked "Who is this Beethoven? His name is not known to us. Of course, Punto is very well known". Juxtaposed with the three sonatas on this disc is something of a curiosity. Arrangements and transcriptions of works were incredibly popular in Vienna during the early nineteenth century. Though the combination of horn and fortepiano might not be the most obvious choice for an arrangement of the Largo of Haydn's String Quartet Hob II;74 (the "Rider" quartet) the range of colours and the flexibility of both instruments chosen by the anonymous arranger suits the movement's elegant melody and subtle nuances.

The final composer on this disc, Leidesdorf, shared with Krufft and Beethoven the guidance of Johann Albrechstberger as a teacher. Haydn rated Albrechtsberger's skills highly describing him as "the best teacher of composition among all present-day Viennese masters". Sadly, today Leidesdorf is remembered mainly for his publishing house Leidesdorf und Sauer but was well known as a composer, pianist and guitarist during his lifetime. Schubert described him as a "truly deep and good being" but also "hugely melancholic". Unusually this "Sonata pour pianoforte et cor concertans", published in 1824, includes two names on the frontispiece; "Bellonci und M.K.Leidesdorf". Camilla Bellonci was an Italian horn player who settled in Vienna where he played for the KärntnertorTheatre and the Imperial Hofkapelle. The highly virtuosic writing for both instruments suggests a great deal of collaboration in the compositional process which may justify the "equal billing" of Bellonci and Leidesdorf on the frontispiece.

While temptation, redemption and transformation always provided source material for the Philadelphia based trio, Sins of the Past creeps across new musical ground and showcases the bands quest for sonic exploration and songwriting maturity.

Twisting in new, unique ways, The Young Werewolves return to deform with Sins of the Past, their third studio recording and second on Magnatune.

The release follows the bands 2008 recording Cheat the Devil, produced by horror film star Sid Haig. In recent news, their music was featured on Showtime Television in their series "Shameless" starring William H. Macy.

Her debut album Daydream is a sleek collection of a dozen original jazzy, bluesy numbers that immediately sound like comfortable standards. The melancholy title track "Daydream", the only co-write on the album, was written with Chris Whiteman at the University of Miami. The album's other originals were written over a six-month period while Robin rebuilt her home in the wake of Hurricane Ivan. "These songs are very personal. They were gifts from 'the muses' of genuine emotion, faith and hope-and they're my gift to the world."

Her opening track "Don't I Know" is a playful tune about finding happiness within, which according to Robin is "Something that most people struggle with in life, but the only way to enjoy it." The album also features the bittersweet tune "Half My Heart", a song she wrote about being separated from the one you love, while the flirty "Sweet Blossom" is about love's anticipation. "Never Say Goodbye" is a sultry tune where Robin conveys by her own admission, "Life can be more fun if you let yourself be naughty sometimes."

The third album release from internationally-renowned women's choral group KITKA, The Vine represents a further excursion into the musical traditions of Bulgaria, Russia, Hungary, Bosnia, Albania, Ukraine, Macedonia, Croatia and Georgia. This American 8-voice ensemble, based in the SF Bay Area,, performs the enchanting harmonies of the Balkan region "with flawless intonation, rhythmic precision and consistent beauty of tone...The melodies' unusual harmonies, rooted in village cultures ancient and earthy, include striking juxtapositions and rhythmic sophistication." (Jason Serinus, Bay Area Reporter) Recorded in the sublime acoustic environment of Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California, The Vine also features well-known instrumentalists Peter Maund (percussion), Shira Kammen (rebec and vielle), Linda Tillery (cajon and djembe) and Cheryl Ann Fulton (lever harp).

The Vine begins with a beautiful arrangement of a Bulgarian song Subrali Sa Se Subrali , which tells the mysterious story of a group of young women spinners who lie down to sleep. Upon awakening, they discover various pieces of clothing and jewelry missing. An interplay between the quotidian and the symbolic, the particular and the universal, haunts many of these songs, bringing a poignancy that is heightened by KITKA's haunting harmonies. The songs express the range of women's experience, from love and heartbreak, healing, motherhood, a deep connection to nature and spirit, as well as women's particular experience of wartime strife, as in the Bulgarian lament Dor Tri Mi Pushki Pukama:

Three rifles fired, three heroes fell.
Three heroes fell, three mothers wept.

Recorded at Skywalker Sound, San Rafael, California in March 2001.

Kitka: Leslie Bonnett, Shira Cion, Catherine Rose Crowther, Deborah Dietrich, Juliana Graffagna, Janet Kutulas, Ann Moorhead, Lily Storm.