Dakshina

Deva Premal

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 5, 2005)
• Original Release Date: April 5, 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: White Swan
• ASIN: B0007VZ91C
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,646 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > New Age > Meditation

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Chant is a new marketing niche in the alternative music scene, and swings from albums of straight recitations to a glut of electronica mantra CDs. A group like Rasa turns chants into cinematic excursions. Singer Donna DeLory recasts chants as pop hooks and Krishna Das growls them into guttural ruminations. But the German singer Deva Premal was doing the mantra thing long before it became a commercialized trend.

On Dakshina, Premal, along with her partner, guitarist Miten, converts chants into serene, almost easy-listening refrains. Premal has a warm alto that she deploys on rhythm-free chorales of Enyaesque vocal layers to downtempo, world-beat grooves. With her chants harmonized and repeated into infinity, the effect can be like an ocean surface. It's constantly flowing and in motion, but doesn't have a lot of focus. But on songs like "Guru Rinpoche Mantra" or "Homage to Krishna," a wave rises and carries you down its face in a slo-mo free fall. Premal keeps it mostly acoustic, filling in ornamental lines with acoustic guitar, tamboura, and bansuri flutes. Only the orchestral strings occasionally get in the way. Her previous albums have often been sappy in their new age aspirations, but on Dakshina, she's more naked, stripping her sound down to a deeper emotional core. --John Diliberto

Product Description
Mantras are rapidly becoming the music of choice for people seeking solace in sound, and Deva Premal, dubbed by one reviewer as "the Enya of mantra," is the voice they're turning to. With close to 400,000 CDs sold worldwide and a buzz of interest from ardent fans ranging from yogis, therapists and alternative health practitioners to Cher and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Deva Premal and her partner Miten have achieved a huge degree of recognition in the blossoming niche world of yoga music.

Deva Premal's music is driven by a simple yet elegant vision: "everybody with a voice can sing, and everyone with a breath in their body can experience their divinity...we share with others the healing power of music, and the bliss that it brings." The phenomenon of her groundswell of listeners is living proof that mantras are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago.

Featuring Deva Premal’s transcendent voice layered in a chorus of lush harmonies, Dakshina is a celebration of the divine, perfect for yoga and relaxation.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous, March 1, 2006

By	Jennifer-Lakshmi (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This music will wrap you in beauty. This is my most favorite of Deva Premal's cds. There are no translations of the mantras, as in her earlier cds, but the exquisite presentation and layered harmonies more than make up for that. Definitely worth having for yoga, meditation, cleaning house, driving, calming children :) and centering one's self right smack dab in the middle of the fact that you are alive!

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enticing Invitation , May 29, 2005

By	N. Danziger (Ashland, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dakshina picks you up and carries you gently yet powerfully to deep inner realms...spiraling, spiraling down to a space of incredible relaxation, silence, and joy.

It plays in my house for hours at a time, creating a lush refuge, and such an enticing invitation to return to the stillness pulsating at the center of all of our crazy cyclones.

If I had enough money, I would buy a copy for every political leader on the planet. Om shanti, shanti, shanti....just imagine if you can...

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth and Beauty Transports, May 29, 2005

By	V. Banik (Round Top, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is my feeling that listening to Deva Premal's latest release DAKSHINA can be a transforming experience. In my opinion, it is her best effort so far. The human voice is capable of communicating tremendous depth and emotion. And Deva Premal does not disappoint. Her voice brings a message alive with love, devotion, and meditation through music that is nothing if not beautiful--beauty embracing truth. If you surrender to the listening and travel in you will not be disappointed.

V. Banik