When Beth Orton sings about how far we've come or how far we'll go, something rustles inside. Escape and sudden liberation somehow seem possible. You want to grab you car keys, let your hair go, and "roll away." Orton's voice holds familiar secrets that speak to us individually; she is an old friend,

Dreamy, Ethereal, Serene, Spiritual, Tranquil

Stokley Carmichael once said, "Everything is political." Apparently, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson agrees. The sound of his voice stays low and docile, as the humming of dub beats in the background lends a trance-like mood. But his are not calm words. The wrath of a gentle tiger broils in his laments aga

Agitated, Angry, Gritty, In-your-face, Lyrical, Overflowing, Political, Reggae, Social revolution, Spiritual

Shankar looks beatific, sitting on stage before his sitar, a 17-stringed instrument made of two gourds, teak wood, and silver-toned frets. We can almost envision the sultan's courts in Delhi filling with melodious strains. But once Shankar begins to play, his asymmetrical rhythms delicately splinteri

Dreamy, Ethereal, Hypnotic, Indian classical music, Serene, Spiritual

Plato was a divided soul. Torn between reason and passion, he gave birth to a philosophy marked by disconcerting duality. On the one hand, Plato was an artist and a poet: he encased his concepts in mystifying myths and slippery metaphors, worked out arguments in the form of dialogues rather than dry

Classical rhetoric, Clever, Contemplative, Homoerotic, Ironic, Mythic, Pioneering, Spiritual