Mondo Head

Mondo Head is the kind of percussion panorama that Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has been orchestrating since he formed the Diga Rhythm Band a quarter-century ago. This time, he works with another group that shares his dream of a 21st century percussion orchestra. Kodo is a Japanese Taiko drum troupe who take the ceremonial drums of Japan and turn them into a performance vehicle with bells, cymbals, flutes, voices, and dance. Hart teams them up with his Planet Drum cohorts, including Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, Latin percussionist Giovanni Hidalgo, and Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira. Then he brings in ecstatic singers including Azam Ali of Vas and Turkish-Armenian Arto Tuncboyaciyan to wail and waft across percussion landscapes ethereal and demonic. Indeed, an earlier version of Kodo were called "the demon drummers." More global soundscape than rhythm dervish, Mondo Head is by turns exuberant and serene, profound and playful. --John Diliberto