Asha ~ Angel of the south

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Asha (aka Asha Elijah & Asher Quinn) presents his instrumental piece 'Angel of the south' from his album "Music for Love." CD/download here: http://www.ashaquinn.com/musicforlove.htm

"Music for Love" was my final studio album for New World Music in 1999. I was first signed to them in 1987 (then New World Cassettes), and produced 13 albums for them.

They gave me my first break, and my albums sold globally. But I was never comfortable with being regarded as 'new-age'. At the top end of the genre there was stuff like "Tubular Bells" & "Oxygene," but there was also an awful lot of bland 'Mall-type' muzak.

I didn't want to be in the cringe-fringe!

It's true that I did produce instrumental pieces and piano vignettes, and was inspired by Phillip Glass, Ludovico Einaudi, Jean-Michel Jarre, Mike Oldfield, Arvo Pärt, Deute, Anugama & Enigma, but I wanted to sing, too!

And I wanted to sing higher love songs.

I wanted to be thought of more like Leonard Cohen & Bob Dylan, than to be associated with wall-paper, crystal helium-balloon music!

I finally managed to persuade New World to let me produce higher love songs on my 3rd album "Mystic Heart," in 1989, and it proved to be even more popular. So I was a ground-breaker!

Just to confuse matters further I wanted to change my name from Denis Quinn to Asha, after a very significant dream brought me that name in a vision. It felt like 'me' and so I changed it legally. I became Asha Quinn on my passport, and just 'Asha' musically.

New World thought it would bugger up my profile which they had invested in, so it took a while for them to be flexible. As it happens, 'Asha' became the name I was most associated with in the genre.

I also began to include tantric lyrics in some songs, including quoting the 'Song of Solomon' from the Bible, which is faintly erotic. This greatly concerned New World Music, who were actually quite conservative and vanilla.

I remember being advised, discreetly, that "we think your fans are not quite ready for that!" But they were, and over the years I gained more and more artistic freedom.

By 1999, I had 2 children, and I stopped making music for 6 years. I tried to carry on, but I was needed at 6.00 to change nappies, and nappies and tantric love songs are strange bed-fellows, so I put music on hold.

They were my kid's nappies, I hasten to add, not mine!

By 2005, the scene had changed. Cassettes had gone, and even CD's were on the decline in favour of digital music. New-age music as a genre had ceased to be new, and had become more cringe-fringe.

I wanted to be independent.

This took a while to evolve, but that's where I'm at today, musically. I'm an indie singer-song-writer who makes & publishes my own albums, and I now make my own films as well and design the art-work too.

As I play all the instruments and sing the songs, I guess I do the whole thing, except when guest artists appear. But I get tremendous help with the technicals. I need to work with sound engineers, and now I'm with the best guy I've ever had, Kálmán at Origo Studio in Budapest, where I've migrated to.

I've had graphic artists help with manifesting my art-work ideas. My younger son, Isaac, even designed 3 albums with me in his late teens!

I have a great guy, Seph up in Scotland, who maintains my website, and I've found a great CD-pressing company in Hungary, called HDcopy.

The films I've learned to shoot, research and edit alone, but I got help until about 2019, from Maggie.

'Angel of the south' is a sensual piece of music. In concept it was my response to the UK sculpture 'Angel of the north' that I find rather stark, hard & bleakly presented. I wanted my angel to be southern, warm & soft.

What emerged was a kind of gentle, lilting, languid but sweet chill-out piece; lounge music; beach music. It has an innocence to it! It's got played a lot since 1999, and is a popular piece on chill-out compilations.

But I never quite figured out how to make a YouTube for it. It's quite long at nearly 9 minutes. I suppose I thought I'd have to go somewhere like Mexico, Malaysia or Greece to film for it, and I've been less and less able to afford such a luxury as the years have gone by.

So this month I finally figured I'd try and do some extensive library research for it, and see if I could put together something coherent.

I'm pleased with the result! I think it works.

The truth is that angels & elementals are all around us, and within us. For sure we each have a guardian, guiding angel. In the film I've physicalised this with beautiful females, but angels are spiritual beings.

Nature reveals God and the spiritual world to us externally, and angels reveal that world to us internally.

Actually, all our thoughts & ideas are generated by spiritual beings. We think it's 'us' but actually it's 'through us.'

This piece back in 1999 was downloaded to me by my angels, and this film too was researched and compiled by the angels. I collaborated, rather than instigated.