The Truth is unspoken, a promise is broken
I’m under surveillance, they know what my name is
I need some protection, some love and affection
There’s 1000 reasons, but one is the number

Welcome to my spaceship
It’s beautiful forever
She’s right here where you left her
And the heart’s lonely hunter

Save bottles of water and flour and sugar
Turn off the AC and hang up the bed sheets
Cover up windows, careful where the light goes
Yank out the cable and blow out the candle

Welcome to my spaceship
You’re beautiful forever
She’s right here where you left her
And the heart’s lonely hunter

Perfectly molded almost unfolded
Under the counter well, that is your nature
Drip grind or roasted, buttered or toasted
The greater the db’s the higher the AC

Psycho acoustics
Down in the black seats
Stereo nation
Amplification
The brave and the righteous
They’re safe in their houses
Now one is just a number
The heart’s a lonely hunter
One is the number
Heart is a hunter
One is a number
Heart is a hunter

Welcome to my spaceship
You’re beautiful forever
She’s right here where you left her
And the heart’s lonely hunter

Welcome to my spaceship
You’re beautiful forever
She’s right here where you left her
And the heart’s lonely hunter

Thievery Corporation make abstract, instrumental, mid-tempo dance music whose classification falls somewhere between trip-hop and acid jazz. Featuring the production skills of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, Thievery Corporation released several warmly received singles on their own Eighteenth Street Lounge (ESL) label (named after their own Washington, D.C. bar and nightclub) in 1996. Although previously known primarily among acid jazz and rare-groove DJs, the group shot to minor celebrity when a track from one of their early 12"'s appeared on respected DJ/producers Kruder & Dorfmeister's mix session for Studio K7's DJ Kicks series. Similar in many respects (and more than just number) to that Viennese production duo, Thievery Corporation subsequently grew in popularity among a wider audience of DJs and headphonaunts.

The duo's debut LP appeared in 1997, along with a compilation of Washington, D.C.-based electronica artists entitled Dubbed Out in DC (both albums were released by ESL). After signing with the British label 4AD, Thievery Corporation began to work on their second LP but were forced to postpone its release date after tapes were stolen in a mugging. The stopgap remix compilation Abductions & Reconstructions was released in 1999, and their second proper album The Mirror Conspiracy followed one year later. The duo's growing fame made them a natural choice to select tracks for the 2001 Verve compilation Sounds From the Verve Hi-Fi, and they returned to their own work one year later with The Richest Man in Babylon. The mix album Outernational Sound and remix EP Babylon Rewound both appeared in 2004; that same year, the track "Lebanese Blonde" was featured in the highly successful Garden State soundtrack, which later won a Grammy Award. 2005's The Cosmic Game featured guest vocalists Perry Farrell, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, and David Byrne, and the remix compilation Versions followed in 2006. As election season approached, Thievery Corporation released the politically minded studio effort Radio Retaliation in September 2008.

Din toata viata mea
Am amintiri
Iar toata lumea
Nu m-a lasat, nu m-a lasat
Sa viu acasa

Mai am o sansa acum
Sa n-o dau gres
Si visul meu
Sa mi-l urmez, sa mi-l urmez
Cu o viata noua

Romanian pan flute virtuoso Damian Draghici is not an easy artist to categorize. His recordings -- many of which are instrumental, although he sometimes features vocalists -- could be described as world music, but he certainly doesn't limit himself to any one style of it. Damian, a gypsy, is unpredictable, and the musician has been influenced by rock, pop, jazz, new age, and classical as well as Eastern European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Latin music (especially Spanish flamenco, although he has also acknowledged Afro-Cuban salsa and South American/Andean music). Although Damian now lives in Los Angeles, he was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania. The musician/composer (who plays the piano as a second instrument) is old enough to remember when Romania and the rest of Eastern Europe were ruled by oppressive Communist regimes, and Romania's was among the most brutal and restrictive in the '70s and '80s. Rock music was frowned upon by the late dictator Nikolai Ceaucescu, who ruled Romania with an iron fist and was infamous for his human-rights abuses. Nonetheless, Damian exposed himself to as many types of music as he could, and he learned to speak English by watching American movies.

Damian's first exposure to the pan flute came from an uncle, who gave him two lessons before fleeing the country; after that, Damian was on his own. But he kept practicing the instrument, and by the age of 14, Damian had performed the European classical works of Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach on national television. The musician became known for his impressive technique on the pan flute, and Romanians nicknamed him "the Speed of Light" because of his ability to play complex, challenging music at fast tempos. When Damian reached adulthood, he hoped to perform in other countries; in 1988, he applied for a visa. But his request was refused by the Ceaucescu regime, and the musician decided that he would try to flee the country without the government's permission. After hiking 400 miles, Damian managed to escape from Romania and get to Athens, Greece.

Several months after his escape, Damian learned that Ceaucescu's regime had been overthrown and that the hated dictator had been executed. And he also saw that Romania, like other countries in Eastern Europe, was turning capitalist; in the '80s and '90s, countries ranging from Russia and Poland to Czechoslovakia and Hungary rejected Communism and embraced free enterprise. But Damian had no desire to move back to Romania; he felt that his future was in the West and remained in Athens, where he played his secondary instrument, the piano, in Greek nightclubs. While living in Athens, Damian applied to Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music and was accepted as a pianist; after playing Charlie Parker's bebop standard "Yardbird Suite" on the pan flute for Berklee employees, he was awarded a fully paid four-year scholarship. But it only took Damian two years to graduate from the revered music school, and after his graduation, he moved to Los Angeles. By 2000, Damian had recorded at least 12 CDs, although 1999's Romanian Gypsy: Pan Flute Virtuoso on Lyrichord was his first U.S. release. In November 2001, Damian visited Romania and played for about 72,000 people at the Centru Civic in Bucharest; that concert was taped and resulted in the album In Concert from Bucharest, which Naimad Records released in the U.S. in June 2002.