While this album may not make you want to get up and dance, your mind will respond to it. Kono Michi, a concert violinist turned singer-songwriter, uses her professional musical background to create a delicate and eloquent balance between lyric and instrument. Mixing different cultural genres, she creates a unique sound that keeps you enticed and interested.  Michi stretches the musical limits by meshing together the sounds of voice, string quartet, percussion, toy instruments and electronica. By incorporating other instruments aside from a drum set and guitar, she shows us that music really has no boundaries. Her eclectic sound is set to the deathbed poetry of Japanese Buddhist monks who died in the 18th or 19th centuries. Their respective haikus are their final presentations to humankind before making their journey out of the living world. By incorporating this poetry into her work, Michi reminds us that music is an aesthetic. These poems express a wide range of emotions with sometimes dark, humorous or celebratory moods. This is that rare type of music that makes you just want to lay down and open up your mind. - Mary Manchess