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1995-2006
Darryl Riser

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Paradise Within by John Balint

I felt a little guilty when I picked up John Balint's Paradise Within. I knew there was no way the music on the CD could live up to the cover photo. I dream of thunderstorms over Balinese beaches.

Then I learned Balint took the photo himself.

The multitalented composer/photographer/artist/writer has accomplished a lot since graduating college the year after I did. He's published a book on desktop publishing, written soundtracks for educational films and, of course, developed a unique style of composing music.

"I primarily create my music in one of two ways," he explains. "Sometimes I set up my 'sonic palette' first, choosing just the right combination of sounds to evoke a particular mood, much like a painter chooses colors. As I listen and respond to different sounds, compositional ideas will present themselves. At other times, I'll sit at the Steinway and compose melody and harmony in a more traditional manner."

The end result is a blending of piano, synthesizer, percussion and voice that defies description. Balint loves to mix and match instruments that wouldn't normally belong together. Backing a tenor sax solo with a Balinese gamelan orchestra is one idea. Pairing a Japanese bamboo flute with an nylon-stringed guitar is a bit more conservative, but the result is still quite interesting.

"On Lullaby, I've combined phrases of sampled African singing and chanting with crickets from the Nile River Valley and a synthesized Japanese Koto," Balint says.

In spite of the unconventionality of his instrumentation, Balint still manages to provide a smooth, calm sea of music. The listener finds himself loosing track of the different voices involved and becoming lost in the moment.

That, Balint says, is the whole idea.

"I've also excercise restraint," he says. "The arrrangements are spacious because I wanted the music to breathe, befitting songs about 'the space of now'."

Balint adds the album arose from his own discovery of meditation. As he became familiar with the "one-pointed attention" which is the basic practice used to seek inner peace in so many tradition, Balint began to realize there was a place for this idea in his music. We create our own realities from moment to moment through careful attention to our thoughts, words and deeds, thus we are able to create the life of our choosing.

"One way or another," Balint says, "each song relates to the idea of being in the moment."