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Donna D'Cruz's unusually varied personal background - - born in South India of Euro Asian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Anglo ancestry - - is emblematic of raSa's pan ? cultural ethos. Having spent the first part of her life in India, D'Cruz's family moved to Sydney, Australia. While growing up in Australia, D'Cruz was very conscious of being different from other Australian's and eventually discovered a balance between assimilation and celebration of her own unique cultural identity. Since coming to America in 1991, she has signed and marketed music by Australian artists as well as musicians from around the globe. Her association with AMI/raSa follows earlier tenures with Polygram Records / Australia and MMA Management (INXS) / rooArt Records in America.
Based in New York City, raSa is the sister company of AMI (Australian Music International) which was formed with the intention of nurturing outstanding cultural musicians from Australia and marketing their music internationally. AMI is the home of Nomad (led by world beat composer and Didgeridoo player Adam Plack), whose self-titled album Nomad has earned remarkable success in the US and abroad.
The diversity of raSa is perfectly captured by its inaugural release A Gift of Love - - Deepak & Friends Present Music Inspired by the Love Poems of Rumi. The album shows physician/author Deepak Chopra, MD and numerous guest artists (including Madonna, Demi Moore, Rosa Parks, Robert Thurman, and Goldie Hawn) reading poetry by the famed 13th century Persian poet Jalaleddin Rumi. Featuring new translations by Fereydoun Kia and Chopra - - as well as translations by Rumi scholar Coleman Barks - - the readings are set against an evocative musical backdrop composed and arranged by Adam Plack, Yaron Fuchs, Richard Horowitz and Sussan Deyhim.
"This is the label's first album" says D'Cruz, "and in many ways it defines what raSa is all about. We collaborated with Deepak to bring together a diverse group of people - - from Rosa Parks to Madonna to Demi Moore - - reflecting our desire to make raSa a place where many talents can converge into a new, unique and challenging whole."
"That notion," she continues, "is reflected in our choice of the name ŒraSa,' a traditional Sanskrit word which means Œthe essence,' Œthe flavor,' or literally Œthe sap.' We want to experiment with new combinations of the many flavors and seemingly singular elements - - sound, passion, ideas - - that go into this thing we call music."
In addition to emphasizing adventurous multi-culturalism, raSa seeks to market music which possesses an intimate, personal flavor. "Rather than focus on faceless, synthesized music, "D'Cruz admits, "we really want to hear a strong human element: voices and instruments which convey the emotional essence of diverse societies. The Qwaali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan exactly embodied the idea of smudging the lines of demarcation between cultures and styles. I saw one of his last performances and everyone in the room - - regardless of their background - - was entranced from the moment he opened his mouth to the end of the performance. We were swept up and I realized later that he was like a transmitter for a greater truth, some might say even a transmitter for God - - in the same way as artists such as Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson, and John Coltrane. When you hear their music, it's like breathing: it's so natural and powerful, almost a force of nature which transcends any barriers of nationality or ethnicity."
Ultimately, raSa seeks to discover a wider mainstream audience for musical themes which have long deserved greater exposure. Summing up the idea with an easygoing laugh D'Cruz says "we want to take spiritual types of music from the crystal shops and into the nightclubs."
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Featuring the soothing narration of Deepak Chopra over the trancelike music of Adam Plack, The Soul of Healing Meditations serves as an introduction to meditation for neophytes and as a more advanced tool to help overcome a physical ailment and/or emotional toxicity. That may make it sound like a digital elixir, but as Chopra says in his liner notes: "We like to tell our patients (at the Chopra Center for Well Being) that the body is the best pharmacy in the world and is capable of making wonder drugs." His message here is that one can naturally prevail over serious life challenges by becoming more attuned to one's body--by relaxing and filtering out the external world, focusing on and influencing internal sensations and biorhythms, and banishing negative thoughts and focusing on the positive aspects of life. This CD is not meant as a cure-all for physical or emotional ills. Rather, it's a supplemental experience to other treatments or programs, and it shows how enlightening and empowering meditation can be when practiced properly. Its actual effects will depend upon the receptiveness of the listener. Plack's accompanying soundtrack ranges from delicate ambient tones to more active Indian music, appropriately serving the mood of each of the album's eight tracks. --Bryan Reesman
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A "Chakra Balancing" provides the key to maintaining wellness and balance by providing effective tools for the removal of any blockages in our chakra system (or "wheels of light"--spinning vortexes of energy contained in each of us) to achieve radiance in body, mind, and soul. Contained in this luxury double disc edition from the world's most preeminent voice in mind, body, and soul modalities are a detailed manual and images that'll help take you on a powerful journey toward healing.
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"The innocence of my life releases the God I love everywhere." These are the words of Rumi, 13th-century poet and founder of the Whirling Dervishes of Sufism, as spoken by the mature and melodious voice of Rosa Parks. Her voice, American history, those words, intense longing: Power. In celebration of the human spirit, The Gift of Love is a recitation of the love poems of Rumi by Dr. Chopra and celebrity friends, including Madonna, Goldie Hawn, and Robert A.F. Thurman. Sensual Middle Eastern-influenced music backs the reading and provides breaks between sections such as "Love Drunk" and "The Light of Love." The Gift of Love is sincere and potent stuff, unafraid of the deep physical, spiritual, and mental hunger that Rumi's words not only taste, but roll about the tongue and swallow whole. --Paige La Grone
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Rarely have prayers to Krishna sounded so serene and so sensual at the same time. This is the fourth album from Rasa, the duo of singer Kim Waters and multi-instrumentalist Hans Christian. Overall, there's little to differentiate this disc from the other three. Waters sings Indian chants and prayers in a voice that is soothing and serene, like velvet smoke curling around these adapted melodies. Using sophisticated programming, cello, electric bass, Indian sarangi, and Swedish nyckelharpa, Christian embeds her voice in translucent layers. Each time he touches an instrument, adding it to his textured arrangements, it's like unlocking the key to a serpentine journey. He also brings the rhythms slightly to the fore, reinforcing the tablas of Girish Gambhira with subtle electronica grooves. But there's no thud-thud, four-on-the-floor sell-out to a dance music subset. Waters's voice is so serene and the grooves so relentlessly languid that Shelter becomes like a long bath. Soothing, even enlightening, but the skin gets wrinkled if you stay with it too long. --John Diliberto
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The chant genre is glutted to epidemic proportions these days, with everyone from Buddhist nuns to Madonna's backup singers intoning Tibetan chants and Hindu kirtans. After six albums, Rasa continue to rise like perfumed smoke above the chanting hordes with their Eastern acoustronica and the enthralling singing of Kim Waters. The Rasa signatures are all there on Saffron Blue: Hans Christian creates a global fusion playing Swedish nyckleharpe, Indian sarangi, cello, electric bass, and synthesizers, orchestrating them across deep throbs of Indian percussion. But it all starts with Kim Waters, intoning Hindu mantras and bhajans in a voice that is both comforting and seductive. Christian builds her up in echoing choirs and canons that just seem to climb higher and higher. But there are some new wrinkles in the sari on Saffron Blue. They bring in a couple of other singers to duet with Waters, providing a contrast of rougher, more traditional sound with Vaiyasaki Das and Bairavesh Das. But even that nod toward tradition is bent through psychedelic echoes, subtle backwards effects, and deft electronic rhythms. Christian even gets a bit of funk slap bass in on the epic 10-minute trance of "Vande Krishna." Rasa don't make your street-corner Krishna sound, nor the easy grooves of ethno-techno chant albums. They've created a chilled-out global chant that speaks in a universal language. --John Diliberto
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