Passion is, without question, Peter Gabriel's* best work & it is a tremendous album.
*Personnel includes: Peter Gabriel (various instruments); Youssou N'Dour, Baaba Maal, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (vocals); David Rhodes (guitar); Vatche Housepian, Antranik Askarian (Armenian doudouk); Shankar (double violin); Kudsi Erguner (ney flute); Robin Canter (oboe, coranglais); Mustafa Abdel Aziz, Musicians Du Nil (arghul); John Hassell (trumpet); Nathan East (bass); Massamba Dlop (talking drum); Manny Elias (octabans, surdu, skins), Doudou N'Daiye Rose, Fatala, Billy Cobham, Manu Katche, Djalma Correa (percussion); Hossam Ramzy (finger cymbals, tabla, dufs, tambourines, triangle, mazhar); Mahmoud Tabrizi Zadeh (kementche); David Bottrill (drone mix); David Sancious (background vocals). Recorded at Real World Studios, London, England. All tracks have been digitally remastered. With this landmark soundtrack for the controversial 1989 Martin Scorcese film,
Peter Gabriel helped usher in a whole new genre: the electronic world music album. True, ambient producer Eno and the new-music trumpeter Jon Hassell pioneered the approach in the early '80s, but Gabriel didn't merely recreate traditional sounds in the studio. He actually helped create an ongoing collaborative community of modernist world musicians like violinist Shankar, singers Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Qawwali singer from Pakistan whose estactic wail most Western listeners heard for the first time on the title track. PASSION effectively evokes the ancient wind-parched landscapes of Palestine and North Africa (where the film was actually shot). Though there is prodigious use of drones and percussive tonal "washes," the music is too rooted in history and local culture to be considered either minimalist or new-age. Much like the film, the soundtrack situates Jesus Of Nazareth in a specific time and place through the discerning use of "source" melodies and instruments. In turn, the viewer-listener is able to envision His original mission some 2000 years later. This is no small miracle Gabriel and Scorcese have wrought.
http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/...+Of+Christ.htm