Oneness: Silver Dreams - Golden Reality is a 1979 album by Carlos Santana. It was his second of three albums (the others being Illuminations and The Swing of Delight) to be released under his temporary Sanskrit name Devadip Carlos Santana, given to him by Sri Chinmoy. The album, which consists mostly of instrumental songs and ballads, features members of the band Santana, as well as Carlos Santana's first wife Deborah and father-in-law Saunders King. According to Santana, Oneness was influenced by Weather Report's album Mysterious Traveller. The track "Transformation Day" is an adaptation of part of Alan Hovhaness's symphonic work Mysterious Mountain.

Reception

A writer for Billboard noted Santana's "extraordinary guitar work," and called the album "a musical excursion into various moods and feelings." Critic Robert Christgau described the album as "frustrating," calling it "spiritual program music that mixes genuinely celestial rock with the usual goop." The Bay State Banner opined that, "at this point, Santana would be well-advised to rid himself of Greg Walker's vocals, which are empty and corny." The New York Times noted that "too much of the time is spent wallowing in benign platitudes." In a review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann noted that "the difference between a group effort and a solo work seems to be primarily in the musical approach, which is more esoteric, and more varied than on a regular band album." Rob Caldwell of All About Jazz stated that "though this was essentially [Santana's] first solo record, it marked the work as a definite remove from any 'Santana sound'." He wrote: "Oneness is much more accessible than Illuminations and more likely to appeal to fans of the band. Gone are the lengthy and often meandering tracks..., and Santana explores many avenues of expression." Musicologist Melinda Latour described the title track as "a particularly clear example of Santana's attempt to transcend to another plane through tone," in which he "builds a sense of spatial transcendence," leading to "an explosion of upper partials that carry the end of a note upward into a new dimension."

Track listing

All tracks written by Carlos Santana, except where noted.

Personnel

Charts