Peter Ulrich is concerned with the song first on The Painted Caravan (City Canyons/AIS), a grand mix of folk and world music, though each track boasts an interesting array of percussion, including djembe, Turkish cymbals, and temple blocks, which sets the music apart from your typical bare-bones acoustic coffeehouse fare. Guest vocalists dominate throughout, and there’s a ton going on, though it never feels cluttered. The sparse percussion parts on the Irish sea shanty “Hanging Man” and the Baroque “Fanfare for the Lost Tribe” are just enough. And dig the trashy cymbal overdubs and cool swells on “Tempest.”

In a Modern Drummer blog earlier this year, Ulrich said, “I use the largest range of hand drums and percussion that I’ve ever incorporated into a single album, including most of my cymbal set. The drums include darabuka, djembe, bongos, tabla, talking drum, Mayan drum, Chinese wood drum, and various frame drums, so that, in combination with the other instrument selections, we’re giving a very distinct flavor to each of the twelve tracks. I love recording with this range of instruments and having an arsenal of sounds to pick from when we start on each new piece.”

To read Peter’s entire blog post, click here.

Ilya Stemkovsky