PREMIERE | ash.ØK, 'Holding Sand'
Sublime music combining exotic flavors and electronic verve
"Holding Sand" is the dramatic new music video from ash.ØK.
The music showcases internationally renowned session cellist and erhuist, Tina Guo.Guo has appeared as soloist with the San Diego Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Vancouver Island Symphony. She performed with Midori Goto at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, toured as featured guest artist with Al Di Meola, and gave a solo performance at the Krakow Film Festival in Poland.
She's appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, played with Carrie Underwood at the ACMA and Carlos Santana on Dancing with the Stars, along with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Grammy Awards, MTV Movie Awards, American Idol, and many others. Guo has shared the stage with Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Josh Groban, Chris Isaak, Ariana Grande, and Michel McDonald. She's appeared in the movie scores for Iron Man 2, Olympus Has Fallen, Hancock,Predators, Fast Five, Dunkirk,Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and the list goes on and on.
Ashok Kailath, aka ash.ØK, is a music producer from Pennsylvania. His musical style is sizable and difficult to categorize because he melds a variety of unique elements into a singular sound belonging to him and him alone. Amalgamating electronic dance, world music, pop, prog rock, and experimental, his music assumes an artful aesthetic full of opulent imaginative colors.
"Holding Sand" opens with a delicately sparkling piano, followed by deep bass colors and the entry of Guo's divine cello exuding lustrous, exotic tones. The lighter, brighter erhu joins in, infusing the tune with gossamer layers of baroque hues. Guo's touch on her instruments imbues the music with charming, almost transcendent articulation.
The intermingling of electronic and Eastern mystical flavors invests the tune with a gracious flowing ambience, as well as a soft glow of elegance, as the textures interweave.
"Holding Sand" is simply stunning, a deliciously glorious piece of music.
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Randy Radic is a Left Coast author and writer. Author of numerous true crime books written under the pen-name of John Lee Brook. Former music contributor at Huff Post.