The singing bowls were originally used in Tibet by shamans of the Bon-Pot religion which preceded the Buddhist religion. Tibetan singing bowls were used for the invocation of good spirits for the harvest, for curing disease, for banishing evil spirits and negative energies. They were made with seven metals corresponding with the seven planets and seven chakras: gold, silver, copper, mercury, iron, tin and lead. The very large bowls were struck and kept by the monks in their own quarters from magical and devotional use. The bowls are very idiosyncratic and on the recording, there is great variation of harmonics of both bass and high frequencies, Sometimes there are curious buzzy sounds at nodal points and strange 'creaky' sounds but these are all characteristics of the live played bowls. The bowls were played for a continuous five minutes for each chakra. This was then overlaid with two more stereo tracks of the same bowl, played live. The end of each five minute track is announced by the tingshaws (ritual hand cymbals). - Ben Scott