Rain of Blessings: Varja Chants

Lama Gyurme is a Buddhist monk from the Kingdom of Bhutan in south Asia, who was named Ouzme - Master of Music -- in his early years of Buddhist monastic studies, because of his remarkable voice.

Jean-Philippe Rykiel is a blind French pianist possibly best-known for his collaborations with such high-profile African musicians as Youssou N'Dour, Papa Wemba, and Salif Keita.

In 2000, following their initial classic collaboration The Lama's Chant, this unlikely pair produced an astonishingly spiritual record that matched the Lama's richly resonant incantations with the Frenchman's sparse, judicious musical backing - a shimmer of African kora here, a mournful violin refrain there. Few records convey so much purity, spiritual depth, and serenity.