Upcoming Release
April 4, 2025

Samsara’s edge

Self-titled Album

Inner and outer worlds collide in this debut album from Samsara’s Edge, a collaboration between multi-instrumentalist David Hannibal & Irish vocalist Cait McWhir, co-founders of the now defunct Bay Area band Haunted by Waters. 

Electronic, downtempo and worldbeat influences permeate this multi-textured and eclectic collection of tracks. Entrancing globally- flavored vocals weave their way around psychedelically-edgy guitar, layered rhythms and mesmerizing synthscapes, creating a potent brew of beauty and depth.  Guest artist and Oakland poet, the late Juan Domingo, rounds it all out with two spoken word pieces.

Samsara’s Edge has created a unique album with an intriguing sound and collection of tracks.

Samsara is the continuous cycle of life, death and rebirth where beings are repeatedly born, live and die, driven by their actions and desires. It is considered a state of suffering that individuals aim to escape to reach enlightenment or nirvana.

Listen to a full song here

Album Details:

Samsara’s Edge

Style/Genre: Dark Fusion Rock / Electronic / Downtempo / World Fusion

Instrumentation: Soaring Female Lead Vocals, Electric Guitars, Keyboards, Programming, Bass, Baroque Flute, Tin Whistle, Bodhran, Dotar, Udu Drum, Drums

Tracks:

1. Invokation (5:25)
2. Chrysalis (Rebirth) (6:23)
3. Earthen Vessel (5:26)
4. Mind Meld (4:48)
5. Tattoo (5:36)
6. Mutant Grace (6:49)
7. How Many Worlds? (6:56)
8. Kinvara (10:39)

Item # 1073

Credits

Samsara’s Edge* - All songs written, produced, performed & arranged by David Hannibal & Cait McWhir (ASCAP)

David: guitars, synths, bass, sequencing, drum programming, samples & loops

Cait: vocals, additional synth, mid-eastern percussion (tambourine and dumbec), tin whistle (on Invokation), fishhead (on Earthen Vessel), udu drum (on Tattoo)

Guests & Contributions:
Juan Domingo: spoken word on How Many Worlds** & Tattoo
Stephen Schultz: baroque flute on Mind Meld
Jeff Obee: bass on Mutant Grace
Deo Arellano: dotar on Tattoo
Jeffree Andrews: drumloops on Earthen Vessel, How Many Worlds?, Mutant Grace
Cover art: RAVEN FX (Harry Tanielian)

Recorded, engineered and mixed by David Hannibal at Digisonic Studios, Berkeley, CA
Mastered by Roy Finch at Sonos Studios, Los Angeles

* Samsara is the continuous cycle of life, death and rebirth where beings are repeatedly born, live and die, driven by their actions and desires. It is considered a state of suffering that individuals aim to escape to reach enlightenment or nirvana

** How Many Worlds? is a spoken word interpretation of the Hopi prophecy of the four worlds, a cyclical view of time in which humanity has passed through three previous worlds which ended in cataclysms, and is currently in the Fourth World, also prophesied to end, potentially ushering in a Fifth World of peace

Earthen Vessel lyrics are derived from a poem by Kabir

REviews

Samsara's Edge -- new release by main duo from the Haunted By Waters group. Great vocals with urban world/tribal Samsara's Edge backing. Picture Loop Guru, Lost at Last or Stellamara with a lot of edge, including guitar textures reminiscent of U2's guitarist Edge...' --Loyd's Picks, Backroads Music

'...when the occasional gem comes along, it's reason to rejoice...the instrumental sound is impressive...intelligent, humane, artistic songwriting is the key….' - BAM Magazine

Lyrics

1. INVOKATION

Hey Rama
Hey Sita
Hey Radha
Hey Krishna
Hey Macha
Hey Tara
Hey Brigid
Hey Ram….

2. CHRYSALIS

All of me
Take all of me
Despite the doubts
I can’t deny the temperature is rising
Carry me
I need protection for a love
That flies upon the wings of our survival

Lay me down to
Lay me down
To love
We’ll find our own way
Find our own way
We make our own destiny
It’s still my own
It’s still my own

If I could know Love forever
If I could be with you
Again, again, again
I get around you
Now that I have found you
After all I’ve done to you
After all I’ve been through
With you and without you
You are the one
There’s nothing else out there
There’s nowhere else to hide
There’s nothing else to do
There’s nowhere else to run
In spite of my insanity
I found you
I know I found you
I know I found you

3. EARTHEN VESSEL

Within this earthen vessel
Within this earthen vessel

When you are the water
When you fall you find yourself
When you find you’ve fallen
When you fall you find yourself

Within this earthen vessel
Within this earthen vessel 

All things are created
And all things they will fall
All things are created
And all things they will fall

(Hybrid Language Chant)

Within this earthen vessel
Within this earthen vessel

- Earthen Vessel lyrics are derived from a poem by Kabir

4. MIND MELD

Give me a sign
Give me a sign
Just want a sign
Of this other love
I hear your words
I see your eyes
I have fallen in the turbulent waves of a restless ocean

I hear your voice
I see your eyes
You keep calling to me
You keep calling to me from the other side

Hybrid Language Chant

The endarkenment
And the ancient is scoring the silence
There is nothing to do but wait
for the beauty to penetrate your soul

(Hybrid Language Chant)

Give me a sign
Give me a sign….

5. TATTOO

Ecstasy, smoke
A jaguar rippling muscles to pavement
He is looking into exotic eyes

Lined with black Nubian pens
Myth mixes with manzanita
Mysterious eyes join with
Another love-stained star

Tattoo the folds in my soul
in my body
Tattoo the folds in my soul

I have waited for you so long
In the nape of my neck
in the mouth of a raven
Flying and cawing
The spirits light work

Tattoo the folds in my soul,
In my body
Tattoo the folds in my soul

At a place of dripping oceans kissing the shores
A rose opens, a rhythm pulls at the tides
A song is waiting to be born
It tattoos the folds in my soul

Que belleza!
Such expression of life
spinning webs to nestle into faces
Changing
Yet eyes probing deep

There are no limits
The bottom cannot be found
There are no limits
The bottom cannot be found

Tattoo the folds in my soul
Tattoo the folds in my soul

6. MUTANT GRACE

Experience is not what’s needed
Only understanding
Time is moving
Life is changing
New kinds of control take over our lives
I’m not afraid of new beginnings
You have taught me how to believe in love
The phoenix raising from the ashes
Revolution brewing all over the land
Do you want this?
Do you need this?
Can you feel the changes growing
All around?

Fallen Angels
Surrounding us with their desire
Frozen beauty
In search of meaning
In the endless broken places
Do you want this?
Do you need this?
Can you feel the changes growing
All around?

The struggle to survive in isolation
Is dividing us all
The temple of indifference
Is calling me to worship material gain
Surrounded by a disappearing longing
For a spiritual life
And our strength is returning
And a revolution’s stirring all over the land

How are we supposed to carry on?
Hollow prayers
In search of meaning
In the endless broken places
Do you want this?
Do you need this?
Can you feel the changes growing
All around, around

7. HOW MANY WORLDS?

In the first world there were no changes
No false hope
No rearrangements
Of a dream
Of a mean
Of a sinister machine
Taking over the land and the minds of the people
There was no drying the wetness out
In about the same time that it takes to crawl
Through the window and into the back door
Because there was nothing but infinite space
And he she was the creator creating the place
of half water and half earth
There was no mirth
There were no tears
There was silence, only silence
Silence.
In the first world..

The water rising
Feel the water rising
Sacrificing of love in the raging sea
I hear their voices
Disappearing voices
Come on come on down to the river of love

Then the division came
It was only a name,
It was like a knife, cutting the world in two
And the people were divided
Some walked the zigzag way,
Others still remembered how to pray
At night and in the morning, when the sun went up,
And when it curled its feet to lay its head down
The people were divided
And the waters rose to the mountains high,
And the waters froze to the frigid eye,
Watching like two TVs
Shining in the middle of the night
It was the second world and it was such a sight!
In the second world…

Disappearing voices
Sacrifice to the silence
Feel the water rising all around
Love is all that we possess
Feel your heart in the emptiness
Feel the water flowing all around us

In the third world there was more of the same.
Men became greedy, they desired fame
The game such a shame.
La Gente cinta cuenta they came
To the city, high rise, rising above the smog.
The dog, scrounging for a morsel to eat
Beggars begging, guns haunting
The eyes of the children
Women no longer respected for their wisdom and love.
Men no longer singing their heart’s peace of a dove.
There air was dingy grey, with nothin’ to say
Just glass and steel, nothin’ to feel
In the Third world.

We have all been here before
We have all been here too long
Sacrifice to the healing place
Sacrifice the story

In the fourth world, make no mistake
The heat became real, the meat was burned at the stake
So the people went to the Four Directions
They passed their symbols round and round
They saw the buffalo standing with only one leg to the ground
Its’ hair was falling out,
And without a doubt, the clouds began to shout
The prophecy said it was a sign the world was ending
It said that the blind zigzag ways were ending
It said that the prayers of those who had gone underground
would make a sound
to the heavens and earth
In the fourth world

Go listen to the prophecy, the prophecy….

8. KINVARA  (Song of Longing)

Praise… the roses disappearing still
Rain…the ocean falling on my skin
Sunlight fields of golden brown
Storm tears on the water

Oh Kinvara
You have been lying beyond the veil
Shame…he likes your eyes of burnished flame
Full moon shadow
Moonlight dream
Wind blows through the valley

Haunting silence faraway
Child fills up the aching of an endless day
Memories silent they ride upon the air
Destined, my heart knows