The new recording “Cosmic Connections Live”, which was recorded during the 2014-2015 World Tour by the popular world-fusion group Deva Premal & Miten with Manose, offers an opportunity to experience the transcendent energy of their live concerts. The album is due to be released on 20 May 2016.
Since they first started recording together in the late Nineties, Deva and Miten have been considered pioneers and leaders in developing a new style of world-fusion music blending ancient mantras with contemporary music elements that has helped bring the transformative, healing power of mantra into the 21st century. Deva and Miten see their music as an invitation to take a break from the ceaseless turbulence of our troubled times and lead the listener into a space of inner peace, harmony and meditation. Their new release is another beautiful bridge to cosmic connections.
The new album begins with Deva’s haunting rendition of the timeless and mysterious mantra OM (Deva and Miten call it “The Cosmic Yes”). A short multiple-voice version opens the recording and a 10-minute mostly-instrumental version closes the musical experience and gives the entire band a chance to shine instrumentally. What lies between is an enchanting journey into mystic realms. Included are beloved mantras previously enjoyed by fans of the studio recordings, but here captured live in concert (including “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo Mantra,” “Om Kumara” and “Mangalam”). These ancient mantras are embedded in East-West fusion soundscapes that soar with transcendent vocals mixed with luminous notes from the bansuri, courtesy of Nepalese maestro Manose. The music is balanced between those healing and inspirational mantras and the intimate and deeply moving ballads from Miten (“White Cloud White Swan” and “Native Son”).
About the artists
Deva plays tanpura and keyboards, Miten adds guitar, and Manose is heard playing the bansuri wood flute. All three sing. The trio are joined on this concert collection of mantra and song by several other master musicians, notably Joby Baker (bass/percussion/vocals) and Spencer Cozens (piano/keyboards), plus special guests. Additional excitement comes from the concert audiences in Budapest, Frankfurt, Edmonton, Bath and Amsterdam.
This recording, and others by Deva Premal & Miten, are available at both mainstream and specialty stores throughout the United States, and also are available worldwide as CDs and digital downloads from numerous online sales sites such as iTunes and Amazon. For more information about the group and their music, go to DevaPremalMiten.com.
In concert these celebrated chant masters feature their unique, spiritually-inspired presentations of mantra, song, and chant with the aim to bring solace and great music to thousands of kindred spirits, thirsty for respite in this troubled world. These powerful gatherings create moments of what Deva describes as “ecstatic silence,” or in Miten’s words, “luminous pools of deep celebration.”
During their years together, the duo has presented their music worldwide, from New York to Los Angeles, from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro, from Moscow to Kiev to Tel Aviv, from San Quentin Prison to the concert halls of Europe, proving that mantras transcend all traditional cultural and religious boundaries.
“We meditate — we investigate”
According to Miten (pronounced me-ten), “The music we make is born out of a committed spiritual practice. We meditate — we investigate — and our music is a result of that experience. It’s more a case of life and death than entertainment.” Deva Premal (pronounced day-va prim-all), adds, “Sanskrit mantras are ancient, primordial healing formulae that resonate at the very core of our being. By chanting communally, we access this profound depth of silence and inner peace, transcending all conflict, inner and outer.”
Flame carriers of a 5,000-year-old tradition, Deva Premal & Miten are at the forefront of the burgeoning world-wide chant phenomenon. They are major contributors to the soundtrack of most 21st century alternative healing modalities, from rehab/detox/stress management clinics to yoga studios, spas and meditation centers, and shamanic gatherings and ceremonies whether in the depths of the Amazon or in urban areas throughout the world.
Merging ancient mantras of India and Tibet with contemporary musical settings, their debut album The Essence in 1999 introduced a new and unique musical genre. The album soared to the top of World and New Age charts globally and has remained a constant best-seller. Deva Premal & Miten have released more than 18 albums of uplifting and inspirational music, and are acknowledged leaders in the field of world-fusion and blending ancient mantras and modern music. Their best-selling 2015 release Songs for the Sangha debuted at #1 on iTunes and Amazon World Charts.
They have hosted online mantra meditation programs with more than 200,000 participants. They have graced festivals, concert halls, rock venues and cathedrals around the planet. Their numerous fans worldwide include such diverse luminaries as Cher (who recorded and performed their version of the “Gayatri Mantra” and said “The Essence is my all-time favorite album for yoga”), His Holiness the Dalai Lama (who proclaimed: “Beautiful, beautiful music”), life coach and motivational guru Tony Robbins (who felt the music to be “passionate and powerful”), and author Eckhart Tolle (who called their music “pure magic”).
Deva and Miten are often accompanied by Nepalese wood-flute master Manose (pronounced ma-nose’). Born in Kathmandu, Manose has performed extensively with them and is featured on many of their previous albums, including Songs for the Sangha. Manose also has released four solo CDs. He is credited with re-popularizing the bansuri in his country, where he was the first to introduce it as a rock instrument.
A journey into love and creativity
Deva Premal & Miten met at Osho’s meditation center in India in 1990 and began a journey into love and creativity which has seen their worldwide concerts and best-selling albums introduce millions in the West to the joy and deep relaxation found in chanting mantras from the Eastern meditation traditions. Their music is the soundtrack for yoga, massage, acupuncture, meditation and stress management programs around the planet.
Deva was born in Germany to the sound of the “Gayatri Mantra” — her parents chanted it to her in the womb and it was her bedtime lullaby through childhood. She also is a classically-trained musician. Miten grew up in London, immersed in the Sixties sounds of The Beatles and the other pop-rock acts of that era, but he dropped a successful career as a rock musician to explore the world of meditation. Together, they have created a unique musical genre, setting the chants of India and Tibet into Western musical settings.
At his ashram in Pune, India, the enlightened mystic Osho gave her the name Deva Premal (“Divine Loving” in Sanskrit). There she was initially attracted to healing modalities, becoming a practitioner of reflexology, massage, shiatsu and cranio-sacral therapy. It was also there that she met Miten. “He was the coordinator of the ashram music and he wrote the most beautiful songs.”
In today’s crazy, hectic world, Deva and Miten’s chilled out Sanskrit chants offer something of a musical balm to calm the nerves and nourish the tortured spirit. “Without the silence that follows the chants,” Deva explains, “you get only half the story. It’s so easy to overlook the silence inside music, and, ironically, it is that silence which contains the potent, healing power. This is really the main reason Miten and I sing, to bathe in ‘Ecstatic Silence.’ It’s our nourishment. For me there is nothing more precious than having sung with an audience, ecstatic with bliss, and then enter the inner world of deep peace that the mantras offer where all personalities are gone and dissolved for an endless sacred moment into eternity with only joy remaining.”