Alan Watts - 1967 - The Sound of Hinduism

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.75 out of 5

On this album, spiritual scholar Alan Watts' limits his focus on Eastern religions to the sphere on Hinduism. To be perfectly honest, there's not a whole lot of music of note here. Basically the album features a drone in the right channel, Watts' spoken word in the left, and some percussion taking up the entire sound field here and there. I'm not sure how accurate or not Watts' thoughts about Hinduism are (I'm assuming that he is not full of poo), but these recordings are perfect to put your mind in a meditational state.

The first track, "Om," consists of Watts' treatise on the basic tenants of Hinduism. The man definitely has a fine way with words, and I'd say the artistic/poetic component here is several notches higher than your typical spoken word performance. "Readings From Hindu Scriptures" is pretty self-explanatory, but once again Watts' spoken word stands out. Sandwiched in between is an instrumental track where we get a touch of sitar melody. It's not up to the standards of Ravi Shankar or anything, but it serves its purpose in allowing the listener to zone out.

I suppose that this is one of those albums that I feel becomes more than the sum of its parts. There is some nice, if a bit light, Indian instrumentation for those of you that dig that, and I feel that Watts' presence is of significant note. It's a fine way to turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream with.