MICHAEL HEDGES
Torched
(p) (c) 1999 Windham Hill Records
15tks/63mins

Torched is a posthumous album by a very famous musician Michael Hedges. He is one of the persons, without whom one just can not imagine the Windham Hill Records and modern music in general. The artist has tragically died in a automobile accident in 1997. Many unfinished works were left after his death. Here I need to say, that Michael Hedges was not only a very original guitarist, but he was also a poet, a composer, an arranger, a producer and a sound engineer. His talents and hobbies were mostly various. And, maybe, the main thing is that Hedges was a real spiritual seeker, a person who practiced various spiritual techniques. His favorite books, among which are Tao Te Ching and Tibetan Book Of Living and Dying evidence this quite clearly.

And so, after the death of Michael Hedges, the stuff of the Windham Hill studious collected and mixed his unfinished works. With that, they did their best to leave them in the form, as Michael has left them. That is why sometimes the compositions are a little bit "rough" and "not polished". But this is what Michael has left, these are his original ideas and thoughts. Various songs are collected in the «Torched», performed by a large number of vocalists. And it is a mystery, in which compositions Michael took part as a sound engineer, in which ones he made the arrangements, and in which ones his guitar sounds - the compilers of this collection specially did not give a concrete information. They suggested just to hear the music and to feel Michael Hedges between the lines and chords, somewhere in the pauses, beyond the music and the words.

And I would like to say I few words about the name of the album. Michael has invented the word Torched himself. He used this word specially to describe the state of expanded consciousness, to which he was aspiring. Torched is a fiery state of existence, when a creative energy brims over the edge and flows richly in all the directions.

How pity is it, that the wonderful musician and spiritual researcher Michael Hedges is no longer with us. And how great, that we have his numerous works!

Serge Kozlovsky