Like its predecessors, the Echoes Living Room Concerts Volume 8 is 74 minutes of quintessential Echoes music. Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble create a trans-global orchestra, updating a renaissance tune with a global array of instruments. At the opposite end, there's a 10 minute or so space excursion from Wave World, the Dutch synthesizer duo. This is a classic example of modern space music. Robert Rich takes his own atmospheric journey, playing lap steel guitar over electronic ambiences on "Steel Harmonics". We have two solo pianists on this CD. Philip Aaberg is a veteran of Windham hill records and assays one of his best loved tunes, "Marias River Breakdown." Suzanne Ciani is still best known as a synthesist, but we catch her in an intimate solo piano performance, looking out the window to the Pacific Ocean from her living room in Marin County. World fusion is in abundance and variety with pioneers Ancient Future and an exquisite, Indian based piece called "Socha Socha" that features guitarist Matthew Montfort and Indian sitarist Habib Khan. Shaman's Dream brings us a gamelan based meditation mixing Balinese sounds with Indian flutes, and middle eastern percussion. Lumin continues the world fusion sound with their Persian derived designs on "Stiga," with singer Irina Mikhailova. Persian meets Celtic with harpist Lisa Lynne when she teams up with the Lian Ensemble. Another Celtic variation occurs with Solas when they perform the instrumental aire, "Maybe In A Prayer." You'll hear the first harpsichord ever to be played live on Echoes with Richard Searles and a rare trio of guitarist David Cullen, oboist Jill Haley and bassist Michael Manring. The Echoes Living Room Concerts Volume 8 isn't just a collection of songs. It's the articulation of a vision that connects music ancient to the future (to steal a line from the Art Ensemble of Chicago), music of the spirit and music of the senses, music that says the future is now. It's also a music that suggests a world coming together, despite political efforts to the contrary.