‘Otherness’ new album by AO Music, label Abbeywood Records, in Peaceful Radio Show 1588
9 April 2024 Uncategorized
Scroll down and click on photo for AO Music website.
AO MUSIC – A JOURNEY INTO UNCHARTED OTHERNESS
Otherness, AO Music’s seventh studio album, incorporates hybrid blends and textures from South and East
Asia, Africa, Ireland, Wales and Native America, all spun with contemporary elements for a fresh, immersive,
AOrrific experience! In otherness, our sense of possibility and beauty reveals a more inclusive and diverse
human story, and we are reminded to keep exploring beyond belief and conclusion, to supplant knowing
with understanding. AO Music chose this theme for the album, because now more than ever, tolerance and
kindness can proliferate as we begin to ponder the infinite scape of otherness. AO Music believes that the
single inherent, human gift of playful imagination is the ever-present, poised, and ready way to peace, and
the twelve songs on Otherness celebrate this gift in each of us.
AO Music (also known as AO) is a pan-cultural world fusion group, known for an exotic blend of ethnic
texture, rhythmic energy and crisp harmony. Their compositions feature refrains and multi-layered vocals
by South African born Miriam Stockley (acclaimed solo artist, and voice of Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus), and
children’s choral ensembles from around the globe. Song refrains are a hybrid mixture of English, ancient
languages, and made-up phonetics. The four core members are augmented by a growing, international cast
of contributing artists.
Founding members Richard Gannaway and Jay Oliver were born and raised in St. Louis Missouri. Gannaway
co-founded the indie rock group Tiger & the Helix, and Oliver worked with jazz musicians Maynard Ferguson,
Chick Corea and Dave Weckl. The two shared a passion for authentic world music traditions, and were
inspired by the hybrid sounds of Peter Gabriel, Värttinä, Bill Whelan and Deep Forest. They began working
on the AO Music project in 1996 using Oliver’s diverse sample library and several of Gannaway’s song drafts.
The release of their debut album Grow Wild in 2000 marked the official formation of the group. Grow Wild
was promoted to NPR radio across North America with much success.
In the following years, Gannaway and Oliver travelled extensively throughout Southeast Asia. During their
travels, they were approached by the Beijing Olympic Committee to compose music for the 2008 Summer
Olympics. Miriam Stockley had her first encounter with the group when Gannaway and Oliver asked her to
sing on the song “On Jai Ya” along with Beijing’s renowned CRC Children’s Choir. In 2004 Mumbai-based
Bollywood film composer Sandeep Chowta arranged the group’s first live concert at the Habba festival in
Bangalore, India. Since then, Chowta has continued to bring fresh musical resources to the group from that
region.
2009 marked the release of AO Music’s second studio album, Twirl. The award winning …and Love Rages
On! was released in 2011, followed by the group’s fourth studio album Hokulea in 2013. In 2017 AO Music
signed with Toronto-based Abbeywood Records. The group’s fifth studio album, Asha was released that
same year. Kutumba, AO’s 6th album, was released in 2021, distinguished by brilliant artists from Bangalore.
All six albums garnered rave reviews from radio and media and held strong international chart positions.
AO Music’s excursions to record children in remote villages around the globe inspired them to establish AO
Foundation International (AOFI), a non-profit for children orphaned by natural disaster and conflict. AOFI
hopes to become a sustainable model for other successful artists to wage hope and promise for
impoverished youth everywhere
Benno Veugen Abbeywood Records, AO Music, Otherness, Peaceful Radio, Peaceful Radio Show