The Spirit of Raven
Raven Recording is a music label and shop for all things Gabrielle Roth and the 5Rhythms. Raven is world beat music without a world, made for a dance without steps, for a tribe without boundaries. The raven was one of Gabrielle Roth’s guiding spirit animals, so it was only fitting to name the label after it. The other magical force that drove her life was the beat.
Origins of the Beat
Raven began recording percussion-driven music in the early eighties to support the 5Rhythms as a dance practice. Since that time, the label has created over thirty albums, each rooted in one or all of the 5Rhythms. The intention was to capture the spirit of the drumming that drove and inspired Gabrielle’s workshops so that people could dance at home—or tune into their dance while driving the freeways of necessity. Different albums were made for different spaces. Many a child has been born—if not conceived—while the album Bones played in the background. And countless downward dogs have been chased by Sundari or the YogaFit series.
From Student to Steward
Along the way, Raven has been blessed to collaborate with some of the world’s greatest musicians. Gabrielle even managed to turn her defense lawyer husband, Robert Ansell, into a drummer, as well as the inspired head of Raven. His root drumming informed all of their music. He and Sanga of the Valley, percussionist extraordinaire, became Gabrielle’s band—her backup in this big, bad world of timeless, trancey beats.
It’s always exciting when other artists use Raven’s music. It’s exhilarating to watch dance companies like Alvin Ailey and Momix perform to Raven tracks, or to see lions rushing across the tundra to the downbeat of Totem in the Peter Beard TV special. Raven’s rhythms have pulsed through fashion runways at Donna Karan shows, and through ocean swells as Laird Hamilton, one of the world’s greatest surfers, rode one of the biggest waves of the century in Jack McCoy’s film T’O to the song Stillness from Tribe.
Today, Raven Recording remains a vital thread in the ever-expanding tapestry of 5Rhythms, offering soundtracks for movement and expression across the globe