Chris James – ‘The Chalice’ album review

How can one use words to describe the magnificence of the wordless? How can one express the expansiveness of a sound that comes from the soundless? As the first exquisite notes of The Chalice play it becomes apparent that this music is from way beyond the three-dimensional plane of existence that forms our corporeal world. The Chalice is a journey into the multidimensional depths of Fohat, the light and truth, the will of the One True Source, and Chris James takes us there in his absolute ‘offering you the universe’ style.

The Chalice offers the listener a voyage deep into a very tangible experience of sacredness, and the ‘beingness’ of the human being. Multiple instruments and layered vocals provide a powerful bed of sound – the deeply mellow tones of the cello, the ancient Persian duduk, the flute’s ethereal harmonics that dance in space. Chris James ventures far into the spaciousness of the universe to pull formlessness back in the form of sound. Every note played is like a drop of Heaven.

Track one, Sacred Inner Temple, is simply an invitation to surrender deep within and allow our body to receive. The harmony of angelic voices and the deeply reposeful tones of the Persian duduk in a graceful dance with the soaring harmonics of a celestial flute clean out every dusty corner. The rhythmic beat of a delicate shaker completes the moment, and our body lights up in response to it all. A circadian re-set on offer.

Next is The Chalice, the womb of Sacredness. Here we are deeply held by the expressive tones of the duduk and lifted by the utter delicacy of the harp, plucked with no less than the precision of heavenly hands. Each sound played in sacred movement – we gather from the chalice deep within everything that is ever needed for our sojourn into life.

Ever expanding Love, track 3, is Sacredness in activity. When we are truly connected to the All that is Love, what else can we do but ever-expand Love and make the truth of Love our every way? The ancient duduk, repose and motion, paves the way for the warm tones of the striding cello, beautiful and rhythmical. We let everything that is not Love simply drop away, and be in the joy and expansiveness of who we truly are.

Track four, Universal, expands like the universe itself. A choir of instruments ripples out through the eternal sea of the universe. If the Universe could sing, this is what would it sound like. Stunningly beautiful, and deeply spacious.

The final track of The Chalice crescendos with the grandeur and beauty of The True Queen. With a blast of pure authority and majesty, the brass section heralds the True Queen and Chris’ spectacular vocals confirm the glory. A forever-celebration of She who moves with the all, Sacredness far beyond words can express.

The Chalice is a tribute to and celebration of Natalie Benhayon, the All that she is and brings, and comes from the realms of her Divine origin.

"From God’s love we learn about absolute beholding, and it being the ultimate form of apportioning at-one-ment for another to appreciate the next stage of offered fulfilment. It is likewise for the aspect of Truth where its potency lays not in realisation or advance alone but in the agency of confirmation, for what is true can only confirm God within you. So too it follows that God’s stillness provides appreciation of the re-attained sacredness; the factor of what produced life to all form is not ever inattentive to what it manifested, that is, it is impossible for the active essence of formlessness (stillness) to be absent in what exists."
Serge Benhayon

Listen now at chrisjames.net.

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Sacredness, Soul, Music