NAVAN: Lowena

Navan

Lowena

© 2006 Doirlinn Music (825576912522)

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3 voices. Traditional Celtic songs in the original languages. Lots of harmonies. No instruments. What could be better?

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notes

Lowena is the third CD from Navan, and the long-awaited first for the group as a trio. This CD brings all new material to the harmonies and pure vocals that set Navan apart from other groups in the Celtic world.

Brian O'Donovan of WGBH in Boston has this to say about the group and the new album:

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How do you describe the music of Navan? Yes, technical terms exist. Exquisite... acappella... harmony singing in all of the Celtic languages. But Navan is a classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. There is something about the blend of human voices without the burden or rhythm of instruments in accompaniment that affects us spiritually. This is the sound we popularly think of as that of angels.

In hearing the songs of Navan on this, their third CD, you will be transported to other places, other times. The sound is ancient, elemental. It is a continuum of experience for Celtic peoples through the ages seeking guidance and comfort in lives tied to the land but looking at the moon. The songs are food for the spirit, a warm drink on a cold night in front of a welcome fire; the smile of a stranger; the softness of a baby’s cheek; the sadness of remembrance; and yes, the blended voice of the angels, wherever they may be.

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reviews

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  • lowena
    author: mick paynter

    Ha lowena dhyewgh ynwedh hag dha sidi mar attes war skovarnow oll.HWEGH BRO, SAW UNN ENEV.

  • Lowena
    author: LALALA

    very beautiful

  • Lowena
    author: Devon

    Listening to this CD is a magical experience.

  • navan
    author: Pam Wilkey
  • Mesmerizing
    author: Matt

    I first heard the song Ellas Mari on the Irish and Celtic music podcast during a quick Google romp. When the song came up, I instantly fell in love. I've always been a fan of a capella, and to hear such lovely voices singing in such lovely languages captivated me. I ordered the CD immediately, happy to support independent artists, and presented it as a gift to my girlfriend soon after who absolutely loves it. Keep up the great work.

  • wonderful
    author: mindy

    This cd has so many layers that one hears something new each time it is played.

  • Absolutely breathtaking. The harmonies and language... words can't describe the
    author: Johanna

    My friend was playing lowena in her car- as soon as I heard the first song I knew I had to have it. These are the kind of songs that instantly make the day better- I'm amazed such powerful harmonies come from just three voices.

  • Excellent CD, excellent service
    author: Richard Griffith

    This CD is exactly as advertised, very excellent acapella celtic. CD Baby is also a very nice company - I will be back for more music!

  • Pure dilight
    author: Kathy

    Good old NPR comes through again. I get exposed to the best stuff there and it's so easy to find these days with the links they provide. I'll buy more from this group for sure. My whole family loves it.

  • Great music and great service
    author: Cecelia

    A good mix of music. Very evocative of the celtic world. This would be especially good for someone who wanted to start exploring this genre of music (but I assure you, you will want more after listening to this CD)

  • author: marla

    I have loved this CD. The music is well chosen and well performed. The liner notes were especially helpful. This has made my family's must have list!

  • Love Lowena by Navan!
    author: Jim Beckley

    I heard a few snippets of this CD on NPR one morning, and vowed to get it. I am so glad I did. I love this music and the group's musicality. Their harmonies are heavenly and their phrasing is sublime. I will be buying more CDs by Navan soon.

  • Smooth a cappella with beautiful harmonies
    author: Jeff Goodhue

    This is a wonderful CD, I truly appreciate the music throughout. The trio get along together well and communicate with each other. I do not speak any of the languages, but I have always loved Celtic music as a whole and enjoyed this a cappella version just that much more!

  • Great music
    author: Alaron

    I really like this CD, the vocals are beautiful and I love the way the music shapes with the words. Trying to follow along in the jacket is challenging, (and in some songs nie immpossible) but the sound is great.

  • author: kevin

    Even if you don't speak the gaelic, you'll find this music, with the tight vocal arrangements and ancient harmonies, mesmerizing.

  • Bracing, like fresh air!
    author: Elly

    I heard a cut on NPR and bought this CD immediately--a risky move. NOT disappointing! Strong heart, stirring harmonies, and a very human sound. This CD has plenty of variety in the types of music--some sounds almost like Balkan music, some more like Celtic.

  • great stuff!! and from wisconsin!! 3 cheers!!!
    author: rugdav9

    loved the cd. first heard about them on npr and then found them through the npr website.

  • Awesome!
    author: Jessica

    LOVE IT. Very beautiful and calming. Very spiritual! A+++

  • It was a joy to listen too.
    author: Bob

    It is a joy to realize the complexity of the music leads to such great sounds.

  • Subliminal and spiritual - suitable background to life's moments!
    author: Grace

    It's subliminal and spiritual - suitable background music for life's moments!

  • Beautiful, haunting melodies. Plan to buy more Navan CDs.
    author: etsonia
  • liked it
    author: john shults

    Some of the most relaxing, yet attention-grabbing music I have ever heard. I love the harmony in any music, but this group does it to an extremely pleasing level. Did I say I liked the CD?

  • Absolutely beautiful!
    author: Crabby

    I first heard this group on NPR and simply had to hear more. Even when I can't understand a word being sung, the purity of the on this CD gives me goosebumps. And that's a good thing.

  • Absolutely magical
    author: Corwin Sharp

    What a combination...Navan and CD Baby! Lowena is mystical, magical and just plain magnifico. Don't listen to this CD if you're driving a car - you will be transported from all earthly things - not a good idea on the freeway! And as for CD Baby...it's the only such site I've ever found that is actually fun to visit.

  • Transporting. A great calm joy. Wonderful!!!
    author: Kate

    The harmonies seem to vibrate at the frequency of my nervous system. Maybe it's the voices of my ancestors, transporting me back. I have not taken it out of my player since I bought it. THANK YOU!!!

  • a blessing!
    author: Bob Lehan

    Hard to differ from all those other spot-on reviews. The CD is a wonderful-meditative-chordal-harmonic-drone-chanted- a cappella - blessing!

  • Hauntingly beautiful
    author: Shiva

    I find myself listening to it again and again in my office. The music is like a calm, dark lullaby!

  • Hauntingly beautiful, Navan's talent shines through their songs on Lowena.
    author: Marcia

    To my ear these songs meld the best of the Celtic traditions with Navan's a capella approach. I highly recommend Lowena as a CD you will want to listen to again and again.

  • Wonderfully ethereal. Cross between chant and traditional folksongs.
    author: Carol K

    In preparation for a trip to Ireland this spring, I ordered this CD. I enjoy the melancholy harmony presented and am glad they chose to leave the vernacular intact. When I first heard their music on NPR, it reminded me of Ainu music--indigenous to Japan.

  • Wonderful music and CDBaby is great to buy from.
    author: Alan Bieber

    Navan is one of the best groups of a capella singers whom I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. I would highly recommend their music to anyone who likes vocal music or Celtic music. Their scholarship and authenticity are admirable, and their musicianship is incredible.

  • Perfect
    author: RavenMoose

    I was told immediately it was back ordered, and surprised when it arrived within days.

  • Very pleased with the music and CD Baby's service.
    author: Skip

    Thanks for a great CD. The music was inspirational.

  • This one is a definite winner!
    author: David Marcelle
  • I don't buy CDs ordinarily but I sure as hell bought this one!
    author: BD

    Heard the NPR piece quite by accident--sitting in my car--had me in tears (not an easy accomplishment)--by the time I got to a computer to order a copy from CD baby the shelves were already emptied. I finally got it when the next shipment came in. A transporting experience, listening to these voices. First new CD in over a year. The last one was a gift, an underground recording of the Dalha Lama doing a healing chant. Lowena is equally transporting.

  • Lowena + CD Baby = It's All Good
    author: P M Leonard Shumate

    Lowena - Beautiful Celtic songs that are heartfelt, honest, true, and timeless. Truly, they take you right there.

  • Like another kind of baptism...
    author: Herb aka Gillis Hutson

    ...immersed in the dust carried from there to here, fallen from coats and shoes of miners, laundresses, orphans... their history reborn by the soul-voice of midwife Navan...

  • Everything was as expected.
    author: Don S

    Very pleased with the CD and the service.

  • Instantly mesmerized!
    author: Robyn H.

    One grey winter day, I heard 15 seconds of this album on my local NPR station, was hypnotized by the music, went home and googled the name of the group (which wasn't easy because I didn't know how it was spelled) and finally found CD Baby so I could order not only this CD, but the other two albums by Navan as well! My friends had better be prepared because they are getting these CD's for gifts this year.

  • Wisconsin? The Irish Diaspora at its best.
    author: Richard

    Heard this group and their music profiled on NPR last week, and ordered all three of their CDs that afternoon. What a sound, and what spectacular arrangements and harmonies. Well worth having the whole CD package, too. Thanks Navan - please, continue.

  • great music, great service
    author: jim whiting

    Lovely a capella celtic singing. Great service from cdbaby.

  • Delightful,earthy,brilliant !
    author: Nelda

    This is the first time I have heard this group, thanks to NPR for enlightening and broadening the scope of the listening public. An important revelation of our spiritual continuity through the ages, as this is a work so marvelously wrought! Thank you so much!

  • Thanks NPR!
    author: Arlene

    Thanks NPR for introducing me to this artist!

  • An incredible find
    author: Todd Gage

    I too heard about this through NPR. This album has enough variety to keep it interesting, and absolutely incredible music all around. Highly recommended! This is my first exposure to traditional Irish music, and I am glad I found it.

  • Thankful for passionate musicologists and performers
    author: Michael S

    This CD is such a treat to discover. Thanks to coverage on NPR, I purchased the CD and it is even better than imagined. I am thankful there are such talented and passionate music scholars in the world today. Thank you Navan for loving the history of Celtic vocal music and helping to preserve and protect it us and our children.

  • Wonderful voices sing beautiful songs
    author: Sarah

    In Lowena you have three beautifully pure voices, with such exquisite diction that you can follow along the exotic lyrics, weaving strange and lovely harmonies in songs as ancient as King Arthur and as modern as World War I. With just three voices, Lowena is gorgeous and lush and evocative of other worlds and other times.

  • Excellent music
    author: Bubba

    This is one of the best albums I have heard lately, period! The group performs acapello and their voices complement each other wonderfully. I was introduced to them by NPR and I had to get their music.

  • Delightful, enchanting
    author: Rebecca

    Delightful, enchanting, amazing!

  • Feel it in my bones!
    author: Roxane

    Heard them on NPR and their music gave me cold-chills. The CD is even better. This is music for the Soul. Makes me want to sing and dance. I feel it in my body....great!

  • Delivery super fast, great voices.
    author: Victoria

    I first heard these artists on Public Radio and loved their work enough to risk buying this CD. I am delighted I did. This music is so rich that it needs to be savored and is not for background sound. Thanks, NAVAN.

  • Lowena transports the listener into new lands of Celtic voice.
    author: tjvalhalla

    The spareness of Navan's delivery, combined with clear and precise pronunciation of each of the Celtic languages, and a engaging range of music make Lowena the best yet of the group's recordings. More like it, please.

  • beautiful, ethereal
    author: Bill

    Beautifully sung, and for a moment, one's taken back to earlier times, when the languages sung here weren't exotic. The singing is powerful, transporting. The work is altogether ethereal.

  • author: Roxann & Steven Graber

    Lowena creates a wonderful world. It transcends the traditional celtic/folk music. There is a simplistic beauty in the way the songs are sung. Their voices are crisp and ring like a bell.

  • Absolutely transfixing!
    author: Annie Wellington

    LOWENA is an extraordinary CD in the Celtic genre. The music reaches deep into my soul, and transfixes me. It is primordial, spiritual, and deeply moving, as it touches and soothes all those ancient archetypal qualities we all have buried deep inside! The harmony of voice and beauty of the Gaelic languages is superb, and capable of bringing me to a place of such peace... Lowena is a must have CD.

  • Beautiful, haunting, just wonderful
    author: Peter

    This is the most beautiful and haunting music of the Gaelic tradition. I heard Navan on NPR and bought the Lowena CD immediately. More than a treat, listening to this music is a wonderful experience.

  • This is true celtic at it's best! 'TOMMY'
    author: ' THE GATEWAY 2007 '

    This is just what we need as humans. True celtic. ! Share your celtic now ! ' THE GATEWAY 2007 '

  • The sounds of our souls
    author: Paolo

    Great album. I like very much this music. It remembers me the Gregorian Chants. It is relaxing, ideal for meditation.

  • Great stuff - again!
    author: Gad Perry

    I first came across Navan when I lived in Wisconsin. Loved them in performance and started buying their CDs. It's been a while since one came out, but this third offering is every bit as good as the previous two. Great voices, in wonderful harmonies, performing little-known but beautiful celtic songs from multiple countries. It was worth waiting for, but I hope the next CD comes out faster.

  • great harmonies, beautiful voice blend
    author: anon

    Another great disk from this group. Nice variety of songs, with beautiful harmonies. The voices blend together remarkably well.

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