Yoga Music Blog

 

 

 

EarthDance Festival - Solano County Fairgrounds, Vallejo, California (new venue this year)

EarthDance presents an incredible weekend of yoga at this years festival featuring internationally renowned yoga teachers and musicians. The classes will take place inside the Unity Hall, a wonderful indoor facility with plenty of room to stretch. Each class will be accompanied by live music and will feature well known artists from the yoga community, including a few surprise guests from the festival main stage. The highlight of the "yoga for peace" weekend will be the "prayer for peace" class on Saturday (2pm to 4pm). Backed by an all-star cast of musicians, this class will culminate with a globally synchronized "prayer for peace" uniting with over 350 cities in 65 countries across the world. So pack your yoga mat and join us for the a wonderful weekend of yoga.

Yoga teachers include such renowned names at Shiva Rae, Pete Guinosso, Michilene Berry and more.

Featured Yoga music artists include: Desert Dwellers, Suzzane Sterling, Karsh Kale, Rara Avis, Amani Friend, Craig Kohland (Shaman's Dream), Kirtan with Prema Mayi and many more.

Proceeds from CD and yoga mat sales go to support - "Off the Mat into the World"

In addition to the focus on Yoga, if you want to get your dance on, be sure to check out the amazing lineup on the other stages, including Ziggy Marly, Balkan Beat Box, Les Nubians, Ivan Neville's Dumspterphunk, Beats Antique, David Starfire, Opiuo, Gaudi, Kaminanda, and too many more to mention.

Click here for ticket information

If you appreciate Yoga Music that is evocative of peace and spaciousness, then you might consider adding Om Deeksha to your Yoga music collection.

Om Deeksha offers ten tracks that range from uplifting celebratory chants, to meditative moving soundscapes. Om Deeksha is a blend of vocals, keyboards, strings, percussion, Indian instruments, nature sounds, and more.

Featuring the gentle influence of Maneesh de Moor's production style and the voices of Deva Premal, Sudha, Sri Anandagiri-ji, Yogini, Sri Krishnaraj-ji, and Anette Carlström, Om Deeksha gives you a aural taste of the spiritual phenomenon known as deeksha. But even if you are unaware of, or don't resonate with the deeksha movement, this album is an excellent musical tool for your Yoga practice, meditation, healing, or even as a sound track to a romantic evening.

Born in the Netherlands, Maneesh mastered the art of sound synthesis and sound sculpturing after studying in the classical and pop/world genres of music. He specializes in the fusion of ethnic styles and contemporary atmospheres and grooves. Over the years he has collaborated with many musicians from around the world. (Sudha, Praful, Bahramji, Deva Premal & Miten, Prem Joshua amongst many others)

Maneesh is a specialist in creating and manipulating sound and draws on a huge collection synthesizers and effects as well as infinite sample libraries to achieve his signature sound. "Anything is possible... I love the cutting edge as much as I love the pristine beauty and purity of a great acoustic recording. In music production, there's a wide array of possibilities to choose from...These days more than ever, with all new technology being developed every day. As a producer and arranger, I take on the responsibility to make the most qualified choices in sound and arrangement, in full, flexible and easygoing communication with my clients."

Click on the link below and preview the tracks on Om Deeksha. I'm sure you'll agree that these are a collection of Yoga music tracks that are at the same time diverse, and yet interconnected.

The Yoga Music Blog wants to take this opportunity to let you know that YogiTunes.com was unveiled at Wanderlust Yoga Festival recently. YogiTunes is a new Web based concept with downloadable music in many genres, including a unique feature, downloadable Yoga teacher playlists. The site will also offer Yoga clothing, mats and other products to support the Yoga lifestyle.

I've watched my friend Alex King-Harris (performing solo and with Desert Dwellers as Rara Avis) work his butt off over the past couple of years helping to get all the pieces in place for this great Yoga music Web destination. It's off to a great start, and promises to continue to evolve into a place we can all count on for some of the best Yoga music tunes available anywhere.

The Press notice below layous out the details better then I could.

Alex King-Harris, Craig Kohland, and Amani Friend, three of the nation’s most prominent yoga music composers and performers, announced today the launch of YogiTunes, a digital download store featuring US and world music specifically selected to complement yoga, dance, meditation, massage, and a wellness-based lifestyle.

“Yoga has seen such explosive growth over the past few years, and so there is a real need for a service like YogiTunes that provides the curated focus that we do”

The co-founders bring over 15 years of industry leading experience in creating and recommending music for top yoga instructors. Their custom designed digital music store will appeal to health and sustainability enthusiasts who want specifically filtered content to complement and enhance their lifestyle needs.

With thousands of handpicked albums and artists, YogiTunes launches with a huge pool of music that will be constantly evolving with fresh deliveries from a wide array of record labels. YogiTunes fairly compensates artists and record labels with prevailing rates in the digital download industry – encouraging news for music fans who want to sustain a broad based wealth of great music.

One of the highlights of YogiTunes is the Yoga Teacher Playlist – a selection of songs picked by yoga instructors for use in their classes. What makes a good yoga playlist is its ability to follow and support the various intensities of a yoga routine. Health and sustainability enthusiasts are typically first exposed to the music attending classes or workshops, but often don’t know where to buy the compilations of their instructors.

YogiTunes solves this by featuring the playlists of certified yoga instructors across the country for students and other teachers to purchase and download. A broad group of the most highly respected teachers in the country and around the world have signed up and will be creating playlists on a regular basis. Shiva Rea, Sadie Nardini, and Hemalayaa Behl are just a few of the world-renowned instructors featured on the site.

“Yoga has seen such explosive growth over the past few years, and so there is a real need for a service like YogiTunes that provides the curated focus that we do,” said Alex King-Harris, CEO and co-founder of YogiTunes. “The value we bring is our seasoned ability to both create and recommend contextually specific songs for teachers. As well, YogiTunes is run and supported entirely by active members of the yoga community who are dedicated to fostering community and positive social change through the power of music and yoga.”

The founders have collectively produced, contributed to, and recorded over 70 releases under various names including Rara Avis, Shaman’s Dream, and Desert Dwellers. They frequently are featured at major yoga retreats and gatherings. YogiTunes was unveiled at Wanderlust California in Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, among the nation’s premier yoga and music festivals.

"Total treat – we now have an actual music headquarters for the yoga community, where we can all share and listen to what's inspiring our colleagues,” said Elena Brower, founder and co-owner of ViraYoga in New York City and the 2010 Global Yoga Ambassador for Addidas. “YogiTunes will undoubtedly create more cohesiveness and creativity in the yoga and wellness space. It really is a privilege to be here at the inception of this incredible concept."

In addition to yoga-inspired music, YogiTunes offers unique, music-inspired merchandise and yoga apparel with a focus on eco-friendly, competitively priced products. Their goal is to infuse the creative energy of the music community into products that blend the essence of both yoga and music into an on-going YogiTunes signature series of goods.

The site was created with the support from some of the leading developers and strategists in the music and yoga industry, who have collectively been behind successes such as Earthdance International, eMusic.com, WhiteSwan Records, Six Degrees Records, YAMA Talent, LA Yoga Magazine, Wanderlust, and other leading niche music services.

Kuan Yin is one of the most well-known Buddhist figures.  She is revered throughout Asia as one who answers prayers swiftly and eases the suffering of the world.  Often called the Goddess of Compassion, she is actually a bodhisattva, an 'awake being.'

Songs of Kuan Yin is overflowing with the power of the Divine Feminine. This album features songs by some of my favorite women artists, Deva Premal, Choying Drolma and Donna DeLory, among others.

The tracks are a sumptuous mix of  Western and world fusion influences, exclusively from women artists. (with the occasional assist from the men listed below) The overall presentation is contemplative, reflective, and the result is often heart opening.

Among my favorite tracks are, Song to Kuan Yin, by Donna DeLory & David Gregoli, Chenrezi by Choying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts, and Kuan Yin's Mantra by Lisa Thiel. As usual I gravitate to the tracks with distinct exotic world fusion arrangements, but there should be something here for every kind of musical taste in contemporary devotional music.

 

Chanting Mantras is a search term being used many thousands of times per month by those seeking vocal chanting in one form or another.

It appears to me, based on some search engine research, that people using the term download chanting mantras are seeking many different kinds of vocal chanting music, not just mantras as the term might apply.

A few examples are: Sanskrit chants, Tibetan Chants, Indian Mantras, Buddhist Chants, chants in English, and too many more to list here.

Some of the music previously reviewed in this Yoga Music Blog includes vocal chants in one form or another, and I am currently producing some of my own Yoga Music with vocal chants in Sanskrit and also some chants without meaning, other than the expressiveness of the vocals.

Once I finish up with some my own music, a few tracks will be available to download chanting mantras here on the site.

Photo of a Cistern In Morrocco by Catherine Larrick ©2010 [Click here to enlarge]

Dust from a Trip is the 2007 release by Seahorse Transform. (Seahorse Transform is 34 year old Simon Jagd from Copenhagen, Denmark.)

Simon has been writing music since his teens, specializing in percussion based music. He is inspired by the Asian instruments he discovered on his many journeys to India.

Seahorse Transform isn't widely known. I discovered this music while listening to am ambient-chillout feed from Indochill Internet radio in India.

My favorite Yoga Music of the nine tracks is Djaja Dub. It has a strong, but restrained, groove that keeps chugging along carried by a perfect blend of percussion, electronica, and indian strings, such as sitar.

Ninth Gate is another favorite on this release, but at times the groove inspires one to get up and move, which can interrupt your floor work.

Check out the entire release, but let me know what you think of Djaja Dub for Yoga music.

One of the hottest groups doing kirtan/yoga music right now is Mayapuris.

Their first release, Mridanga, hit iTunes on June 21st, and has quickly risen to #10.

With a mix of energetic uptempo and silky smooth downtempo grooves, blending the mridanga drum, vocals, flutes and more, this is a very satisfying collection of tracks.

Guest artists such as Jai Uttal, Guari Vani, As Kindred Spirits, and Benji Wertheimer (with some very tasty ezraj) add to the allure.

From their website:

Where do we come from? We come from a place where every word is a song, every step is a dance. We come from a paradise where the sound of kirtan can be heard from every direction at any hour. We come from the spiritual sky, each and every one of us, and we are just trying to get back.

Through kirtan.

As usual, I'll keep this review short and let you decide with a quick listen... just click on the link below.

The album Selwa is a collection of beautiful, haunting chants that evoke an ambient peacefulness and inner calm. The instrumental arrangements are appropriately sparse, creating a perfect vehicle for the expressive voice of Choying Drolma.

It continues to remain in my mix of favorite yoga music because of the timeless quality of the arrangements, and also because it's clear to me that this is more than just notes and melodies.

This music creates a serene atmosphere for yoga or reflection, and is also perfectly suitable for just listening in front of a good sound system.

Choying Drolma, was born in Kathmandu to Tibetan exiles who fled the Cultural Revolution in 1959. She was accepted as a nun in a Tibetan Monasterey at an early age where she was instructed in monastic rituals and meditation, which included chants. (Tibetans do not regard this as folk music, but rather perceive the depth of meaning in these chants as capable of enhancing understanding and transforming ordinary experience.)

In 1994 guitarist Steve Tibbetts visited her remote monastery where he recorded the music, brought it home and later added the guitars and other instruments that resulted in their first collaboration called Cho.

Marc Anderson provided the percussion.

I might as well admit that Desert Dwellers is currently my favorite world fusion, downtempo yoga music, as there will be many reviews and recommendations of their music on this site.

I discovered Desert Dwellers on iTunes a couple of years ago and they quickly moved into heavy rotation on my iphone.

 

In a bit of synchronicity, about a year later I discovered that Rara Avis, one of it's members had moved to my town. When I ran into him a month or so later doing a live gig, I introduced myself and he's become a musical mentor and a friend.

On their first full album release, Desert Dwellers meld elements of downtempo and psy-chill with sinewy basslines, otherworldly guitar and an exotic mix of organic instruments into an Indo-ambient mystical fusion. Created and composed by Amani Friend and Rara Avis, and produced by Craig Kohland, founder of the Shaman’s Dream Ensemble, DOWNTEMPLE DUB: WAVES pulses with lush rhythms and serene harmonies, guiding a sonic odyssey into the soul of the global heartbeat.

Desert Dwellers' roots lie in a thriving community of provocative artists, creative thinkers, and progressive-minded individuals based on the West Coast. Since the early 90s, their extended family has assembled regularly, forming a sacred space where people can relax, tune in and bliss out to chillout, ambient and downtempo music produced by a loosely-knit collective of DJs and producers. 

These gatherings have extended the frontier of electronic dance music and today form the epicenter of the techno-tribal renaissance movement. DownTemple, in addition to being the title for this new music series, is also the theme for some of these downtempo events, where a vision of promoting a conscious way to walk peacefully in the world is shared by all. 

When White Swan suggested the name DownTemple Dub for this series, they were stunned by the synchronicity, as the organizers for Downtemple are some of our closest friends and share our eagerness to spread the ethos of Downtemple and Desert Dwellers alike. 

This is the intent written into our music: that it may contribute to the overall well being of the people living on this planet. Music is our key to healing. Music is our key to finding fellow travelers during these intense times, and it is our key to understanding the great depths of human emotion, and our potential to soar. 

On the track, Misty Mountain from the album DownTemple Dub: Waves by Desert Dwellers, they push the boundaries of Yoga music into a new realm of musical fusion they call “Yoga Dub”.

This track is a prime example of their electronic devotional music blending rhythmic ambience with traditional instruments such as subahar, tabla, udu, erhu, cello and voice. To give a listen to this and other tracks from the album on iTunes, simply click the button below.