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Indiajiva Soundz

Twelve devotional pieces drawn from several traditions at once — Sanskrit mantra, Buddhist chant and the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic.

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Indiajiva

Indiajiva work in the broad field of contemporary devotional music, setting sacred texts to arrangements that draw on Indian classical instrumentation and modern ambient production. The result sits somewhere between a meditation record and a world-music album, and it is unusually well made for either.

What distinguishes this set from most of the category is the breadth of its sources. Hindu mantras, a Buddhist dharani, and Christian prayers rendered in Aramaic all appear, and they are treated with the same musical seriousness rather than being flattened into a single generic mood.

That choice carries an argument: that these traditions share a purpose and a vocal technique — sustained repetition, breath control, the voice used to still rather than to express — even where their theology diverges completely.

What to listen for

"Om Namah Shivaya" appears twice, in different settings, which is the best way into the record — hearing the same five-syllable mantra treated two ways shows what the arrangements are actually doing.

"Lord's Prayer (Abwoon D'bashmaya)" is the most striking piece here. Aramaic was the language Jesus is understood to have spoken, and hearing the most familiar prayer in English-language Christianity in its own linguistic register removes every association it has accumulated.

"Tubwayhun" is its companion — the Beatitudes in the same language.

"Om Mani Padme Hum" is the Tibetan Buddhist mantra, probably the most widely recited phrase on earth, and "Long Dharani" with Ayya Yeshe is the most demanding piece on the record.

"Song to Krishna" and "Shri Ma" are the most melodic, and "Om Poornamadah" is the most serene.

"Vedic Prayer" and "Hori Bina Tera" are the pieces closest to Indian classical practice.

Go deeper

For the wider field: Krishna Das and Deva Premal are the best-known artists in contemporary mantra music, and Alice Coltrane's devotional recordings — particularly the ashram tapes collected as The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda — are the most musically remarkable records anyone has made in this territory.

Ravi Shankar and Pandit Pran Nath are the classical foundations underneath all of it.

How to use it: this is functional music in the oldest sense — it is meant to accompany practice rather than to be admired. Played as background it reads as pleasant; used as intended, with the repetition doing its work over twenty minutes rather than four, the pieces turn out to be built with real care about breath and pacing.

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