Mantra mix. . - Music - sound recording review

New Internationalist, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Louise Gray

Various Artists

(NARADA WORLD 72438-50294-0-0 CD)

Not many CDs have personal endorsements from the Dalai Lama himself, so Mantra Mix -- a double CD compilation intended to raise funds for Tibetan refugees -- has, before you rip open its wrappings, what ad executives call a unique selling point. So far so good. It's all in a good cause and Mantra Mix's existence is not that surprising: one only has to spend a little time around New York's music business to realise how Tibet has really been taken to the collective bosom of musicians as a campaigning issue.

All of which makes Mantra Mix's ropey old collection all the more surprising. So there's Madonna's 'Shanti' and Fatboy Slim's 'Right Here, Right Now'. Both good tracks, but slightly past their sell-by dates. Likewise Moby's 'Everloving' and Massive Attack's 'Angel'. Nothing wrong with any of them, but if Mantra Mix is the product of the good will of the music community, it'd be more gratifying if they could show it with some better or exclusive tracks. There's one -- one -- unique track, and even then one's heart sinks: I mean, how many more versions of Peter Gabriel's 'Games without Frontiers' does the world need? (And what would the Dalai Lama, no great friend of gay rights, make of Shirley Bassey's magnificently camp performance on the Propellerheads' 'History Repeating'? We may never know.)

The second, bonus CD offers, inter alia, a few words of inspiration from His Holiness, various links and a nicety thought-out meditative piece, 'Compassion in Exile', from Philip Glass. Charitable releases often forget that raising money is not an end in itself; there's that small, and possibly unenlightened, factor that involves satisfying the punters to consider.

RATING **

www.mantramix.com

STAR RATING

EXCELLENT *****

VERY GOOD ****

GOOD ***

FAIR **

POOR *