One God, many names...this is the thread that runs through HARC's ethereal CD, Inside Chants, which reverberates through the air with the vibrations of gossamer wings. Ruth Cunningham and Ana Hernández have woven a serene disc of eclectic music using Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Jewish traditional chants set to both traditional and nontraditional arrangements.

Hernandez and Cunningham are both musicians and "sound healers." Their voices are light and lilting, seemingly residing in a higher plane than our earthbound selves. The chants bridge the gap between the mundane and the divine, using exquisite vocal harmonies, as well as piano, medieval harp, tongue drum, flute, and guitar to allow us a little glimpse of heaven.

I found myself chanting the soothing chants as I went throughout my day, even if I didn't understand the words. My favorite is "Om Shanti" (Om, peace) which, while familiar to me from the yoga world, is presented in a unique tapestry of multilayered vocals. More information about HARC can be found at www.ruthcunningham.com/harc.htm.

Rich Goodhart breaks the boundaries on his fifth CD, Earth Spiral Water Sound, which seems more like a trek than anything else. He's taking us somewhere, and it's terra incognita.

On this progressive, world beat recording, he brings a few familiar names into his tribe from the Hudson Valley and abroad: Steve Gorn (bansuri bamboo flute), Gong's Daevid Allen (glissando guitar and vocals), Ray Jung (bass), Bar Scott, Amy Fradon, Liana Turner, and Katy Taylor (all vocals), and a few others. He even snagged Grammy-nominated Native American songbird Joanne Shenandoah for one track. To create his unique musical story, Goodhart himself, on top of lead vocals and chants, plays 25 different ethnic instruments, including dulcitar, dousongoni, clay pot, jaw harp, bendir, bazouki, melodica, and udu. The result is a dozen diverse tracks—some with vocals, some with chanting, a few strictly instrumental—and it's multi-textured, organic, tribal, and uniquely Goodhart, fluctuating among Native American, Middle Eastern, and American acoustic sensibilities.

Goodhart's artistic talents don't end there; he also paints his own CD covers. This triple-fold digi-pak case is vibrant, visionary, warm, and earthy. www.richgoodhart.com.

If you've seen Doug Elliot's band Wet Paint more than once, you grasp what he means by "the paint is never dry." No ensemble is the same twice, but the hues on his palette come up with something beautiful nearly every time. His home page (www.wetpaint.net) sums it up best by describing the music as "real time composition,"—the lyrics are not improvised, and the songs have structure. This is due  to the ultra-high caliber of musicians Elliot (vocals/congas) puts together. In No Name records five gigs on two discs, from either Kingston's Forum lounge or the Hickory BBQ restaurant. The first disc is one entire set with keyboardist Pete Levin, bassist Charlie Knicely, guitarist Jimmy Eppard, and drummer Mike Kimmel. Disc two adds flutist Steve Gorn, drummer Harvey Sorgen, and others in various configurations. Every note and rhythm shines thanks to the bright recording of engineer Hans Ten Broeke. The mood changes slightly from disc to disc, the first straight-ahead and the second more experimental, but both succeed in pinpointing the art in Wet Paint's music, and vice versa.