Meditation on Grace CD

.. Drums and visual art seem to me to go together. Many great drummers are also painters. Do we paint like we play or do we play like we paint or does it even relate? With two drummers playing together then drawing together does this help me understand the incredible process of creation? I embarked on the road to find out. I contacted Rakalam Bob Moses in Boston to see how his powerful drum language and expression with his intriguing visual art style would interplay with my sound and images iconographies. These are conceptual ideas and the real creative experience was beyond concepts. What a day! I arrived in Quincy late morning, just south of downtown Boston. I rang Rakalam's doorbell. I had driven a couple days before from Montreal and that morning, left my family behind in an hotel in rainy Old Orchard Beach hoping the sunshine would finally show up. We were in mid summer, July 15, 2004. Rakalam had already prepared two well furnished drum sets. Soon after, PJ showed up with his portable recording studio. We played non stop for quite a while….took a little break and then back at the drums again. Once I had stepped into Rakalam's door, I had entered the raw unknown, a world so magnificent! While playing, I was busy working with the multiple layers of sounds, creating, sculpting, conversing. Only later on did I realize the proportion, this encounter had taken. Much later, dark outside, we sat down and worked on a couple of small paintings together… In contrast with the afternoon work, our drawing session was very calm and playful. Late that night, we drove down the street to a small Asian restaurant and had some food, hung out little more. In the car, Rakalam played me a, then, recent tape of his and while listening, a clear vision came to me, one of galactic luminosity rising straight up from his drums. I will never forget this and, as you, Rakalam, express it so well, "To my brother in sound healing," …Hu Rakalam, "love always"… Michel