WHITE SUN’S MODERN WORLD-FUSION MUSIC MAKES YOU SMILE AND FEEL BETTER

WHITE SUN’S MODERN WORLD-FUSION MUSIC MAKES YOU SMILE AND FEEL BETTER - JULY 2015 There has been a trend in yoga music in recent years to modernize the sounds. It has worked to bring in more worldwide listeners, and especially broaden the appeal to Western audiences who might go running if they hear another sitar album. One of the very best to come along embracing this modernization trend is the group White Sun who has released their debut album, also called White Sun. There is not a sitar to be heard on this recording. They do have a great tabla player (tabla is the drum most heard in music from India), but not on every tune. The focal point of the sound comes from the vocals of Gurujas, a woman who also teaches yoga worldwide and who has a beautiful voice for singing mantras. That is probably the number one aspect of this modernizing trend -- singing the mantras rather than chanting them. Imagine a bunch of male Tibetan monks in a monastery on top of a mountain at dawn sitting and chanting mantras in a quarter-octave drone-like way. This recording is the exact opposite of that. Imagine a tight little world-fusion band with a keyboardist, gong-player, guitarist and a couple of world-beat drummers-percussionists, occasionally supplemented by a few violinists and cellists. Yes, the singing is in an ancient language, and, no, it does not matter. She could be singing in pigmy or swahili. The only thing that matters is that it sounds good. Now the group may be smiling up their sleeve because if you like the music and stick around to enjoy it, the group feels you will be getting the sound-power mystical vibrations and reverberations of the mantra sounds so you might start feeling better despite yourself. The real bottom-line is that the music is enjoyable, even to someone who does not know a yoga-mat from Yogi Bear. Sample a few tracks online wherever you can find them and be prepared to be won over (and probably to incidentally feel better).