GauraVani.com » Mantralogy

Mantralogy Spring 2010 Magalog

rasa.acharya — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:21:00 +0000

In the summer of 2009, some of our Mantralogy crew members, including Gaura Vani and the Mayapuris, toured the USA. On one long drive we all discussed what it would take to make the fast—growing kirtan music “scene” stronger. Some of us have roots in the early 90’s punk rock, which relied heavily on zines, or small, fan-produced newsletters/magazines as a method of sharing insights and creating community around a shared passion: in this case, music. As some of the kirtan scene’s largest fans, we discussed how great it would be to create a zine for us and our friends in the kirtan world.

Although times have changed and most communication nowadays is digital, the printed word (and image) still could have a relevant place in the kirtan world today. At least, that is how we see it.

Coupling news and feature articles with the Mantralogy Lifestlye catalog, we have come to call our version of the zine a “magalog,” which is to be produced biannually. We hope to bring you a small taste of the kirtan scene with exciting products, events and music. We welcome collaboration in any respect, so if you have an idea or would like to contribute, please contact us here. Rasa Acharya, Editor

Download the first ever Mantralogy Magalog (magazine/catalog). Enter your email and name below and we’ll email you a link to download the digital version. If you want a physical copy, enter your address into this form and we’ll mail you one.

February 12 Hour Kirtan MP3s

rasa.acharya — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:34:19 +0000

Enjoy these photos and MP3s from the second monthly 12 Hour Kirtan at the Bhakti Center. This 12 Hour Kirtan was a meditation on Sri Chaitanya who is the founder of the modern kirtan movement. Join us at the 3rd 12 Hour Kirtan on March 20th 2010 with special guests The Mayapuris.

To listen, click on the links below then press play. To download, Right Click on the word “Download” and select “Save As…” from the menu. Having trouble downloading? Read our Help Section.

Mantralogy Tour 2009: Janmashtami in London

Jahnavi — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:44:23 +0000

After many weeks touring in the US, we travelled to England for the world renowned Janmashtami (Krishna’s birthday) festival. This celebration is held all over the world, but this one continues to be the biggest outside India, with almost 70,000 attending this year. Colourful tents and stages are set up over the 80 acre property of Bhaktivedanta Manor (donated by George Harrison in the 1970s), and worshippers flock to see the ornately decorated altar.

We felt such a strong sense of unity as we all joined together to celebrate the festival, and had many hours of joyful, moving kirtan together. When we did kirtan on the main festival stage, I’d look out and see the most incredible variety of people – from close family and friends of all ages, to local villagers, to Gujarati grannies (who we actually got to clap and sing – much to our surprise).

It was also nice for me to get to show the rest of the band around my hometown a little bit, though most of our days were packed with kirtan engagements! One day we got to go sightseeing, and ended up at the temple of Sri Sri Radha London-isvara (Krishna, the Lord of London!), where we had many hours of soul-stirring kirtan with our dear friend from Switzerland, Madhava.

Our brief stay culminated in a final Sunday stage kirtan, after which we were whisked out to the car park and driven straight to the airport to fly to Mumbai, where we would be performing a kirtan concert for a special launch of Radhanath Swami’s book ‘The Journey Home’.

Mantralogy Tour 2009: Yoga Glo!

Jahnavi — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:50:17 +0000

After the fun of the trance dance at Zanzibar, we were eager for our next evening with Shiva, MC Yogi and DJ Drez. This time we were at Yoga Glo, a very big yoga studio in Santa Monica that doubles as a studio to film yoga classes in HD quality. These are then sent out online to a large community practising yoga at home. Our evening of kirtan was filmed also.

It was exciting to see many of the same faces as we’d been seeing at other events in LA – they claimed they were hooked and couldn’t miss the chance to come and chant and dance in kirtan again!

Gaura Vani featured in the Boston Globe

rasa.acharya — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:45:29 +0000

By Tripp Underwood
Globe Correspondent / September 18, 2009

Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits were featured in the music section of the Boston Globe on September 18th 2009. The article ran in the printed paper as well as their website.

Gaura Vani, a Hare Krishna musician who combines traditional Indian kirtan music with Western elements such as 12-string guitar, gospel choruses, and hip-hop rhythms, is a musical product of his environments.

Born in Los Angeles, Vani was sent to India at a young age to study sacred music by his Hare Krishna parents. Upon completing his studies he returned to the States, where he began combining spiritual Indian kirtans – a form of rhythmic, call-and-response chanting over various musical accompaniments – with the other music of his youth: rock, pop, and world music.

The result is a genre-defying hybrid of ancient Indian sacred music and modern Western styles. Sitars, mridanga drums, and chanted vocals meld smoothly with guitars and the occasional hip-hop vocal flow, all with clearly defined verses and choruses and a focus on melody not usually found in traditional Indian music.

And though his music contains deeply spiritual lyrics and a layering of styles that spans centuries and continents, Vani maintains a surprisingly simple interpretation of sacred music and its relationship to its audience.

“Kirtan is just the process of using chant and music to clean the heart,’’ he said from his home outside the nation’s capital. “It’s like an ancient can of Scrubbing Bubbles to clean our hearts and help figure out who we are beyond the body.’’

Comparing a 5,000-year-old form of meditation chanting to a modern-day bathroom cleaner may sound like an odd analogy, but it makes sense when coming from a cross-cultural artist like Vani, whose latest CD, “Ten Million Moons,’’ is gaining attention in spiritual music circles as well as in the secular world.

“Music is just an expression of the heart and soul,’’ he says. “All I’m doing is drinking from different springs and bringing together in my heart what seems natural.’’

Intentional or not, Vani’s eclectic style has allowed him to take his songs and message from Krishna temples and yoga studios to a wider range of audiences. In the past year Vani has performed at diverse venues for all types of music fans from backpacked Chicago indie rockers at Lollapalooza to hippies and modern primitives in the Nevada desert at Burning Man to a jubilantly dancing crowd at the Church of the Holy City in Washington, D.C., who had gathered to celebrate President Obama’s inauguration.

Vani and his band, As Kindred Spirits, bring their unique brand of kirtan music to Boston Common on Sunday. The performance is sponsored by the Boston chapter of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness to celebrate Rath Yatra, one of the most sacred holidays in the Hindu world.

The embracing of different cultures and musical styles is apparent not only in Vani’s music but also in his signing to Matrology, a subdivision of Equal Vision Records, a New York label best known for releasing punk rock and hard-hitting emo albums.

Ray Cappo, a yoga teacher and former punk musician who leads spiritual pilgrimages to India and now answers to the Krishna name Raghunath, says elements of the hardcore punk subculture and Hare Krishna teachings have far more in common than many realize. “A lot of people in the hardcore scene are very concerned with similar issues that occur in Krishna consciousness like anti-materialism, vegetarianism, and straight edge,’’ Raghunath says, referring to the cultural movement that eschews drugs and alcohol.

“Twenty-five years later that is how we still live our lives,’’ says Raghunath, formerly of the underground band Shelter, which combined Krishna-influenced lyrics with razor-sharp guitars and blistering drum beats. “Some things may have changed with time, but it’s a form of continual evolution, and in one sense it’s exactly what we were doing in the punk scene when we were teenagers.’’

Vani shares Raghunath’s belief that music inspired by spirituality should retain core elements but be able to evolve with the times and changing tastes of followers.

“Spiritual music is a living tradition . . . from ‘Johnny B. Goode’ to the Bad Brains,’’ says Vani. “It grows and is alive. The music we make is just a natural progression of that.’’

Read the entire article here.

Mantralogy Tour Recordings

rasa.acharya — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:39:58 +0000

What you’ve all been waiting for… New, fresh kirtans from around the world. This is a part of the recordings from the Mantralogy Tour with Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits along with the Mayapuris. You’ll find many other special guests on the recordings such as Madhava Prabhu, MC Yogi and many others.

Our apologizes for taking so long to get theses up. While traveling it’s almost impossible to find the time to edit the kirtans. For those of you who don’t know, it takes around 4.5 hours of editing/rendering/conforming/uploading/posting time per 2 hour show. So without further ado…

To listen, click on the links below then press play. To download, Right Click on the word “Download” and select “Save As…” from the menu. Having trouble downloading? Read our Help Section.

Washington DC Ratha Yatra 7/4/09

Jivamukti NYC 7/15/09

Toronto Ratha Yatra 7/19/09

Bhaktivana (Lawrence Kansas) 7/21/09

Radha Damodar Mandir (Denver) 7/22/09

Exhale Spa with Saul David Raye 7/28/09

Yoga Glo with Shiva Rea and MC Yogi 8/7/09

Bhaktivedanta Manor (UK) Janmastami 8/14-15-16/09

Mantralogy Tour: Trouble on the way to Tahoe

Jahnavi — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:22:07 +0000

Stopping yet again to fill up on gas, hot air blasted into the car. Moving gradually westward, we’d finally reached the dry state of Utah.

‘This must be some kind of hell,’ someone complained. We were all hot, tired and after fifteen hours of driving, pretty cranky. We piled back in and continued driving. Suddenly, the landscape changed dramatically.Vast stretches of white salt lakes spread out in every direct – almost blinding in the bright sunlight.

‘Hey we should do a photoshoot,’ shouted Rasa from the back. ‘Pull over!’

Before any of us knew what was going on, Gaura veered off the road and into the sand of the Bonneville Salt Flats. It was only a matter of seconds before we realized the wheels had become complete stuck. In the searing heat of the day, we were stranded. Fortunately, we had some kirtan power on our side. Chanting mantras and using all our strength, we managed to unhook the trailer and lever it out of the sand.

‘Ok guys, get out your clothes, we’re still doing a photoshoot’, said Rasa, who’d been happily taking photos of us pushing the van. After a little protesting, we realized we might as well make the most of the opportunity, and got busy jumping and posing. Passing drivers must have been taken aback at the sight of eight people holding strange instruments and dressed in Indian clothes, jumping crazily around in the sand.

Before we packed up and continued to Tahoe, we decided to take one last shot of us all pretending to hitchhike. We didn’t expect anyone to actually stop, but only three minutes after we stuck out our thumbs, a big truck pulled over, offering to tow us to safety! He drove off again, looking more than a little confused and holding a copy of Ten Million Moons.

Mantralogy Tour 2009: Kansas to Denver

Jahnavi — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:40:34 +0000

After another gruelling drive, we reached the oasis of Bhaktivana, the rural home of our friends Gopimata and Ankotta in Lawrence, Kansas. We also met the Krishna Culture festival tour bus there, who had been busy preparing a wonderful feast for all of the guests attending the kirtan. Bhaktivana is home to a wonderful family, as well as beautiful Swiss cows and peacocks. Those of us who have been to the sacred town of Vrindavan, India felt transported there – even the intense heat was the same!

Many people turned up to sing with us, most of whom have been introduced to kirtan through the yoga classes run by Gopi in her home studio. We were fortunate to be joined again by Bada Hari, who lead a powerful kirtan in praise of Lord Rama. The glorious sound was complete with Purusartha on electric bass, and Jaya Sita’s emotive cello playing. We were also lucky to have Prtha and Nadia, two Bharatanatyam dancers from the Bhaktikalalayam dance academy in Alachua, Florida, who performed an electrifying routine to ‘My Body Is A Temple (Krishna Murari)’.

After marveling at the star filled Kansas sky, it was time for bed. We would need to leave very early to continue our drive – another ‘all dayer’ to Denver.

Almost fifteen hours later, we parked up outside Gaura’s childhood home, opposite the Denver temple. He hadn’t been back for over twenty years, and he exclaimed at how small everything looked.

There were just a couple of hours to rest until our evening kirtan concert within the temple. We were scheduled to begin after a Bhagavat Saptah reading – a type of narrative recitation describing the activities of the Divine, accompanied by music. Hundreds of people had come to attend the reading, and as it ended, they all danced and chanted with abandon, celebrating the pastime they had just listened to about the birth of Lord Krishna. Many stayed on for our kirtan and eagerly continued to chant.

We left late, packing everything up and stopping for a quick van cleanup at a gas station. The next day was to be the longest drive yet – over 24 hours to Lake Tahoe.

N.B. We apologise for not posting any recordings right now. We are recording all shows, but because we are on the road, we have limited facility for editing and uploading. Please stay tuned!

Mantralogy Tour 2009: DC to Toronto

rasa.acharya — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:42:06 +0000

Putting lemons under our tyres for good luck, we set off from Gaura’s home in DC in high spirits. Ten sandwiches, six rest stops and a box of granola bars later and we reached New York, where we performed two very different shows – opening for a fundraising evening at Club Le Royale, and then an evening at Jivamukti Yoga.

Next we drove to Albany, NY for a workshop with our friend Shiva Rea at the Kripalu yoga centre.

From there we traveled straight to Toronto, only stopping to drop off our trusty trailer before we crossed the border. We were invited to come and participate in the 37th annual Toronto Festival of Chariots, as well as its sister event called ‘Yoga Meltdown’. An ongoing city workers’ strike meant that the normal, secluded venue of Centre Island was completely inaccessible, but nevertheless, the festival organizers worked even harder and put on a dynamic event on the harbor front.

A diverse crowd attended on both days, enjoying the delicious feast, yoga classes, cooking demonstrations and entertainment. Of course, the best part of the event was the non-stop kirtan in the specially dedicated tent.

Today marks the end of our first week on the road. It has been driving so much every day has been tiring, but we continue to be enlivened by the enthusiastic response to kirtan everywhere we go. Now we head for Lawrence, Kansas – another stop on the way to the Wanderlust festival in Lake Tahoe, California, where we will be performing with Shiva Rea and Jai Uttal.

N.B. We apologise for not posting any recordings right now. We are recording all shows, but because we are on the road, we have limited facility for editing and uploading. Please stay tuned!

Equal Vision Records Announces Mantralogy

rasa.acharya — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:33:47 +0000

This press release was just circulated:

In a move that returns one of the nation’s most reputable punk and hardcore labels to its roots, Equal Vision Records has announced the creation of its new label division, Mantralogy. The sub-label will showcase kirtan and a variety of other sacred and meaningful musics for both the flourishing underground conscious music scene and an increasingly swelling mainstream audience. In the same progressive spirit, Mantralogy’s debut release, Ten Million Moons, from celebrated modern kirtan/conscious groove band Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits, is earning impressive acclaim from a wide variety of audiences, many previously unfamiliar with this music.

While Equal Vision Records is best known today for releasing music from earnest hardcore acts like Coheed and Cambria, Bane, and Chiodos, the Mantralogy wing serves to reconnect the label with its original mission to deliver edgy, Krishna-conscious music, like that of Equal Vision founder Ray Cappo’s early 90s band, Shelter. Kirtan, the main inspiration for extending into Mantralogy, is the 5,000 year-old practice of sacred Hindu chant, where repeated musical mantras enable people to step out of their habitual selves and collectively open up to a powerful, spiritual sensibility. Today, kirtan is enjoying a modern Renaissance, as a new crop of eclectic, cross-cultural chant artists create uplifting music and compelling positivity in arenas far outside the yogi niche.

Mantralogy’s first artist, Gaura Vani, blends western instrumentation, rhythms and harmonies with traditional chants and melodies, citing influences like Beck, Bjork and Peter Gabriel. He and his band, As Kindred Spirits, often perform in traditional venues like yoga studios and temples, as well as more mainstream spaces like NPR, CBS, Lollapalooza, Burning Man, and countless grassroots get-togethers on every continent. The band organized the radical, first ever Chant4Change, a sold-out kirtan festival during the presidential inauguration in January, when thousands gathered in Washington, DC to empower the new Obama administration. Ten Million Moons is presently featured on iTunes’ World Music homepage.

“Everyone deserves to feel how this music makes you feel,” explains Gaura Vani. “Music is so powerful. When it’s dealing with the soul and our inner journey, it’s even more powerful. Our goal is to take this ancient, uplifting culture and give it new roots—to thrive at a time when the world really needs it. Our vision is to build a home for spiritual music, take it from the places we expect to hear it—churches, temples, mosques—and make it the soundtrack to our lives, something that people of all walks of life can relate to.”

Sacred activists and artists Shiva Rae, Jai Uttal and Dave Stringer have dubbed Ten Million Moons “rapturous,” “powerful,” and “thrilling.”

“Everything I learned from punk rock, kirtan makes so much more meaningful,” says Equal Vision owner, Steve Reddy. “The power in this music has helped Equal Vision get to where it is today, it’s only fair to share it with others.”

Mantralogy is positioned to lead the expansion of ‘new school’ kirtan as the style grows into new popular spheres.

For more information, visit www.Mantralogy.com and www.GauraVani.com.