Trance Union by Layne Redmond and Tommy Brunjes

These overtones create a chord of magical sounds with every stroke.

The frame drums on this recording range in size from the 4 inch south Indian kanjira, on up through the tars, bendirs, and tambourines, to the 22 inch Celtic bodhran.

Along with the many different types of frame drums, the djembe, conga, doumbek and other hand percussion instruments were used on Trance Union.

====================================== Bio: The February 2000 issue of DRUM! Magazine listed Layne Redmond as one of the 53 Heavyweight Drummers Who Made A Difference in the 90's.

She's the only woman on this list which includes Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, Zakir Hussain, Elvin Jones and Micky Hart.

And she is one of the few drummers listed who has not been in a commercially successful pop, rock or jazz band.

Instead Layne Redmond has followed an extremely unusual path specializing in the small hand-held frame drum played primarily by women in the ancient Mediterranean world.

From 1981 through 1990 she performed and recorded the first contemporary frame drum compositions with percussionist, Glen Velez for European and American labels.

During this period she intensively researched the playing styles and history of the frame drum in religious and cultural rituals culminating in her book, When The Drummers Were Women.

This book details a lost history of a time when women were the primary percussionists in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, Greece and Rome and also explains why they are not today.

When The Drummers Were Women was released by Random House in June 1997 in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe.

Redmond is recognized as one of today's most exciting performers on the frame drum and has been featured in many music festivals including the Touch Festival in Berlin, Seattle Bumbershoot Festival, the Institute for Contemporary Art in London, Tambores do Mundo (drum festival in San Luis, Brazil) and as a soloist at the 1995 World Wide Percussion Festival in Brazil.

On March 2, 2002 Redmond and Tommy Brunjes performed at the Vienna International Percussion Festival 2002.

Redmond is a master clinician and has taught and lectured numerous times at the Percussive Arts Society's International Convention, the National Association of Music Therapy and in 1998 she gave the keynote lecture and performance at the eighth annual Healing Sound Colloquium.

Some of the venues she's taught or performed at are Penn State, Vassar College, William's College, Bucknell College, Hartford Seminary, Andover Newton Theological Institute, Sam Ash Music Institute, Berklee School of Music, Calif.

Institute of the Arts, Roulette, The Knitting Factory, and Esalen Institute.

Her recordings include: Being in Rhythm, Since the Beginning, Chanting the Chakras: the Roots of Awakening and she has two instructional videos: Rhythmic Wisdom and A Sense of Time.

Golden Seed Music released the new duo cd, Trance Union, by Redmond and Tommy Brunjes.

She was the first woman to have a Signature Series of world percussion instruments with Remo, Inc., one of the world's largest manufacturers of percussion instruments and drum heads.

"Layne Redmond, the leader of the Mob of Angels, is a superb percussionist.

On Friday evening, she drew an astonishing variety of well-focused sounds from a tambourine, two frame drums and an African finger piano." The New York Times, June 9, 1991, James R.Oestreich "Glen Velez, Steve Gorn and Layne Redmond are as close as anyone's come to the universal crossover group.

Their pretty timbres and pure tuning attract the naive ear.

Jazz fans and raga buffs alike enjoy following the variations they spin around their rhythmic patterns, which are complex enough to intrigue experimentalists.

Their improvs are cleanly sculpted and motivically intricate enough to satisfy any lover of Brahms.

Their rhythms are classic, their melodies romantic, their technique astounding.

They probably don't make enough noise to please industrial band devotees; aside from that, they may be New York's most perfect musicians." VILLAGE VOICE Kyle Gann ====================================== Tommy Brunjes has performed, recorded and toured with numerous major artists, including the platinum selling pop bands, PM Dawn and the Murmurs.

On PM Dawn's last album, Dearest Christian, released in 1998, he recorded drumset and hand percussion including frame drums.

He's taught and performed at Berklee School of Music, Seattle Bumbershoot Festival, Tambores do Mundo (drum festival in San Luis, Brazil), Percussive Arts Society's International Convention, and on the WOMAD tours organized by Peter Gabriel.

In 1993, he was drawn into the world of frame drumming.

Although fluent on congas, bongos, djembe and other hand percussion, he was fascinated with the sound of the many styles of frame drums and sought out Layne Redmond for study.

Soon they were collaborating on the creation of new duo format for frame drumming.

All of this influenced his electronica/drum and bass project, Vibratribe,(available through CD Baby!) which is a hybrid of world grooves and ethnic melodic instrumental music with looped percussion.

It combines the best of American pop/funk rhythms with the various rhythmic traditions from Africa, India and the Middle East to create a new "World Groove" beat.

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