A walk through mother nature’s vast and constantly changing landscape sometimes is the best way to come to terms with the hectic rhythm of nowadays life. After all, aren’t we surrounded by the beauty of nature, but often fail to see and feel it ?

Bands like Karnataka and Mostly Autumn seem to embody a strong bond with the calm and gentle character of nature’s richness, by regularly providing us with a perfectly matching soundtrack. ‘Delicate flame of desire’, Karnataka’s newest, proves to be an outstanding example of how the immense variety of nature’s features can be translated into a fine musical experience, thus showing some affinity with soul mates Mostly Autumn, Clannad and Enya . In fact, when listening to this album, one can hear a gentle breeze gliding smoothly over green landscapes, occasionally interrupted by the soft ticking of raindrops, while clouds move in and disappear again, enabling the sun to spread a layer of warmth and peacefulness. There is, however, no room for sudden changes to break through this pattern. All songs, from the instrumental ‘Karnataka’ until the intense closing section of ‘Heart of stone’ are bathing in almost the same pool of tranquillity. This music certainly isn’t innovative or progressive, but immediately attracts and seduces the listener by its richness of delicious and elaborate melodies, tasteful keyboard layers, exquisite guitar playing and the heavenly voice of Rachel Jones, accompanied on three songs by Heather Findlay. When listening to this album as a whole, you’ll probably end up by thinking all songs sound the same a bit, but I strongly recommend you to listen very carefully to each and every song, because that’s the best way for this music to unfold its beauty. The only (tiny) weak point of this album is the limited use of such instruments as flute and the absence of more classical instruments, which certainly would have given the music an extra dimension.

So take your time and let ‘Delicate flame of desire’ do the rest. Delicate as it is, it invites you to handle it with care. We don’t very often have the opportunity to encounter this kind of music.