Casabella

Casabella is an exciting 9 piece Latin-Beat band that has been rocking festivals, dance floors and clubs with its vibrant songs and groovy rhythms.With musicians from Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, the word „fusion“ takes real meaning with this colourful, young, and soulful band. Gigging regularly in the London circuit and festivals, Casabella is finalizing its first CD which is due for release in 2009, with a repertoire of new songs written by lead singers Gianni and Sam.

Casabella's e­nergetic live performance has something for all tastes: pop, Latin, Brazilian, reggae, all with a jazzy flavour given by Jivana on Trumpet and Kim on Sax. The main influences for the drums and percussion section are Cuban, Brazilian and afro beat and they have proven to get even the shyest of spectators grooving on the dance floor!!!

Casabella were formed in 2007 and started by Italian guitarist and vocalist Gianni Rossi, vocalist Samantha Grant of Anglo-Burmese descent and New Zealand keyboard player, Michael Lloyd.They began to write a mix of Latin fusion music taking in all of their influences from rock, pop, reggae, afro-beat to Latin and began gigging around London. During one of their performances they met Thierry Deneux a French drummer and percussionist who after hearing their music for the first time wanted to join the band immediately.

This 4 piece then continued writing, performing as well as going on to meet new band members South African bassist Winton Palmer, French trumpet player Jivana Hunt, Jamaican percussionist Derek Ferguson, Brazilian percussionist Manitu Szerman and saxophonist and percussionist Kim Eersel of French/Moroccan parentage to complete the 9 piece line-up.

Where did such distinct musicians meet? Gianni as a musician playing Afro and Latin music, and Samantha, formerly pop and rock singer?

Gianni: You will be surprised but Sam and I came from a similar music background and generation time. I started playing in bands since I was 17 doing all sorts of alternative, indie rock music. Just after I started SY meditation in Italy I had the desire to compose music for live gigs where the audience could dance and feel happy. When I came to London I started playing in an indie music band but soon I decided to start my own project and I was lucky to met Sam, who is my wife's childhood best friend, and it just flew magically.

Sam: Like Gianni I have been in bands since the age of 16. I was singing in a new wave rock band until my early twenties and gigging around London. I have also been in many musical projects over the years from my own album ‘SAM’, to TV work, to all types of music ranging from dance, pop, rock, to ambient music. Singing, writing and performing from a young child has always been a passion of mine and is in my blood. When I started to meditate I was looking for a new direction, something deeper, music to touch people. We formed the ‘SAM’ project working with 3 other yogis and when that project came to it’s natural end I wanted to try a new style of music, something I hadn’t done before. By chance I met Gianni who is married to my best friend. We jammed and we just seemed to gel vey well musically. Gianni’s cool latin style mixed with my western melodies just seemed to work. It was the start of Casabella and I knew we were onto something special.

Casabella´s music is lively, raging and wild, it bears spontaneity of Latin American music, it is a mixture of all possible genres and it brings the joy of dance and motion. Do you compose songs together, or do you complement each other or are the songs the individual work of each of you? Does the band have its share on the songs?

Gianni: I had quite few songs that I wrote in Italy and Sam arranged them and added her singing style and translations in English. Then we wrote new songs together very spontaneously. I respect Sam very much as an artist and person and we share ideas and listen to each other suggestions. The songs were quite strong just acoustic but without the whole band we could never have reached the level that we are now. Sam and I leave the band members to express themselves and they add their own creativity in every single song.

Sam: It was very inspiring to be free to express myself and add and arrange my own parts to Gianni’s already existing songs as I could hear that they were already very good. I too respect Gianni’s musicianship and when we started writing songs together it just seemed effortless and the songs just worked. As Gianni has said the band add their own creativity to each song. With all these elements it has helped us to get to this level and when we are one the vibrations just flow.

How did you get to music and playing? What were the grounds of your music? What did influence you?

Gianni: I started playing guitar when I was 15. The first LP I bought was “Ummagumma“ by Pink Floyd and we went to listen it in a dark room with my brother and friends to listen all the special effects on that album. As a teenager I was into Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin but I kept on following the new music coming, so I went through west coast, country, Brazilian music, jazz, blues, blues rock, rock, punk, new wave, garage rock, reggae, ska, afro beat, indie rock, grunge - you name it. I had a lot of heroes when I was young but now I think it is just a projection of your mind - we are all human.

Sam: I started singing as a child in my bedroom and writing melodies and songs from about the age of 7, I wanted to be a DJ and I used to record my songs on an old tape recorder and pretend to play them to the nation!! As a child my cousin’s and I used to hold concerts for our parents and perform songs we’d written together, it was fun. My first serious influence was the SKA movement. I just loved the energy and the style of the bands. I then got into punk and new wave with bands like The Clash and Blondie. Then when I was about 13 I saw U2 on the tv and was completely blown away. Their passion and connection with the audience was something I’d not seen before. The ‘War’ album had a massive affect on me and I knew then that I wanted to be writing and performing in a band.

You give a lot of concerts and let know about yourselves. That is very good. Your profile on Myspace is one of the very extensive and now you have already your own EP disc. Do live concerts give you the feeling of satisfaction and fulfilment?

Gianni: We are 7 yogis in the band plus 2 non yogis that have experienced meditation but they are not practicing. Well, you know most of the time when we play live we are like one, very strong, it is like taking a pill of happiness we all feel really good after a gig and the audience too.
There is a lot of work done behind the scenes to manage a 9 piece band and to build what we have achieved so far. There is a lot more to do but I am trying to be detached as much as possible. We are also working on some afro dance choreographies with 2 yogini to add more to our live performances.

Sam: Yes our drummer once said ‘a Casabella gig is like taking a happy pill’. It is such a good analogy. He is not a yogi but for him to feel the joy inside each time we perform is amazing. It means that we are touching people, we feel good and so does the audience. It makes all the hard work worthwhile. Working with 7 other yogis in the band gives us a real strength. I can feel the collectivity and the feeling of being one. The 2 yogini dancers will also add something very special.

Does Sahaja yoga play any role in your music and a musician life? What are your plans for the future?

Gianni: If you listen to the lyrics they reflect the essence of sahaj. I would like to represent a life style out there in the world where it is possible to live and enjoy yourself without drinking and taking drugs. Meditation is the only ways to keep your subtle system clean and be able to get the most from your life. Casabella name is dedicated to Cabella village in Italy and that is the root where most of us are coming from. I would like that we can break through the minds and conditionings of people to help bringing a new era in our planet, together with every single project that Mother is working on, where we all have a role.

Sam: Sahaja yoga plays a very big role in our music. The lyrics are sahaj and with our music we want to tell people about another way of living, a life of peace with complete joy and self awareness as the spirit. A life does exist without stress and the need for alcohol and drugs. If we surrender we can be touched by the divine vibrations.

“If anyone out there wants to support Casabella, for gigs or helping to promote Casabella music, please get in touch with them through this radio station. Casabella's CD is available on Itunes and CDBaby”.

Links: MySpace, CDBaby, YouTube,

The IPO - Millennium and Blossomtime

We will finish this month by a close look at the trilogy album, which was recorded and published by The IPO during the years 1995–1999. I had both articles hidden in my computer and believed that one day I will use them and let the readers know after all these years about the reviews on these wonderful songs. We pay our attention to the albums Blossomtime and Millennium. Many of you have certainly those albums at home and you can listen to that music on our radio. Let´s together read those reviews which were published on the internet in the nineties.

1995 Blossomtime is the first collection of songs from the diversely talented musical group, the IPO. It may sound on first listening like contemporary music, the kind that fills the airwaves. But listen again. This is world music – world music with roots, contemporary stylings and solid musicianship. A passing band graces the opening moments of this CD, like a collective memory or a dream. The music strains to touch our ears wrapped in a cool, refreshing wind, reaching out.

At first, like a ragtag mariachi band coming over the hill on their way to a wedding, then like an army of warriors announcing a new age, this overture gives tribute to the bedrock of IPO's genesis. It is with the unlikely rhythms of this spirited Indian village folk song, sung for generations, that this musical curtain rises. The words in the Marathi language – although we don't understand them – ask for spiritual awakening.

In a second homage to their antecedents, a voice, cloaked in the same winds of time, speaks the words of the visionary poet William Blake: „To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower…“. And then, without delay, off we go… Blossomtime does just that. It blossoms and unfolds with the grace of a flower, each petal of a new color – urban rap (Paradox), playful pop (My Bubble Went Pop), even relaxed Latin lounge (Only the Spirit) and driving folk ballad (Horseback Ride). Blossomtime, for all its stylings, stands strong with one vision.

Best articulated in songs like Better Than Anything I Know, Great Moments of Joy and the anthem-like These are the Times, there is a call. With the immediacy of one voice, the songs together tell us „It's happening Here and it's happening Now“. „I know you've waited so long / These are the times“ one tune tells us. „We understand that life is in the palm of our hands“ echoes another line of lyrics. Everything is arranged for a new world to begin, as described in The Garden – a place not of the future, but a place of prophecy, set to begin right now. „People are ready“. That's the other theme laced through this work: „Everybody Knows“. Everybody knows something's wrong with the world, so the desire for change must be collective. Or, as the song Paradox recites, „They're dreaming of a tropical paradise, ‚cause the world we live in ain´ t so nice“.

The song Ananya speaks out with clarity. „Everybody knows that love is the truth / Everybody knows that their lives are sacred / …Everybody wants to become one with one“. With feelings like these, it's not surprising that Blake is cited before any singing even begins. Or that his painting, Glad Day, a portrait of a reborn Humanity, graces the the face of the CD jewel box. It is as if this music is more than just something to which we can listen. It should also be felt, but not just emotionally.

The music of Blossomtime is, as the liner notes invite, for us to enjoy as it registers and resonates, resounds and rejuvenates through us. „All we have to do is listen / to the flow of love within“. Blossomtime, with a fresh affirmation of the human spirit, is something more than just the music. Blossomtime is aimed at a mass audience, so it entertains. But the depth of its reach is way beyond the measuring stick of popular music.

1999 MILLENNIUM is the latest recording from The IPO containing no less than 19 songs by various musicians from various countries in various styles. One of the interesting things about it is the way in which these songs flow on from one another with surprising fluency and unanimity of tone.

The CD opens with the soulful WHEN EVER which takes us back a full 2000 years, what better place to start, and then it comes right up to date with the lyric: „The truth is manifesting one thousand million stars“ the central message being „the Comforter will come!“ GOD IS CLOSER, a German rap song (in English) follows on. Slick and catchy, it embodies a rather startling statement about the Holy Ghost/Comforter. The lyrics announce: „To rescue the seekers, She traveled all over the world. She was also in your city. Haven't you heard? It seems the whole thrust of this musical ensemble is about startling statements and heartfelt announcements. (See what you think.)

Indeed, you could say that the whole CD seeks to deal with the questions: Can Pop be sublime? Can Rock Music, which is so associated with clubs and drugs and, to put it in a nutshell, the material body, be made into something transcendent, something spiritual? It doesn't let up there, COMFORTER the third track speaks of a meditation: "In that moment you showed me, just what it means, to go beyond time and space, and everything in between.“ The lyrics are serious in what they say, finishing up with: „Do we realize…this is the final revolution. The final revelation!“

Jeremy Clancy's THE REVOLUTION, with fine, stinging vocals continues on this theme „Don't you know the revolution.....is within“ refining the process further to „We're talking about love, love, love, love, love.“ This track has a tremendous undercurrent of real power and glory. Surely this would be the pop single? LIKE HEAVEN and WHY DON'T YOU TRY? by the Austrian singer Sia are two most beautiful and jazzy tracks, „Calm, peaceful, Oh so joyful“ they explode with flavor and are worth the price of the CD alone.

Matt Malley's LOVELY ETERNAL with its haunting vocals and maybe the best original line on the CD: „Your silence is louder than any devices of our own“, is particularly effective. This is real poetry delivered in the folk/rock genre. In praise of the eternal it overflows with bhakti (devotion). Ville Tantu's inspiring Finnish interpretation of some lines by the ancient seer William Blake, titled MERRY HEART, has a stunning chorus in what, I guess, is Finnish but sounds like Sanskrit, proves that modern styles can infuse ancient poetry with life. Folk music, with its ancient traditions, is maybe more easily or more obviously suited to the expression of spiritual subject matter, and several of the tracks here, including Doug Nicely's pleasant, sunny ON THE GROUND, recorded in L.A.,

Chris Marlow's OUT OF MY HEAD with neat guitar solo from Paddy Martin, Debbie Eckman' mystical GURU MANTRA and Daniel Wagner's SHE DOES IT ALL, featuring Joanne Levine on cello, come somewhere between folk and rock and make for uplifting, provocative and inspiring listening day or night. Provocative, because the songs sing of the feminine aspect of the divine, the Comforter, Counselor, Redeemer, the Mother, Guru and Holy Ghost, no soppy ‚here today-gone tomorrow love-lost songs here. „Sing all you people, sing from the Heart, sing like you've never done before“…and why…well these are special times, Millennium Times.


TRUE REFLECTION „Like a lake I will calm me down. Still my soul to that Holy Sound“ is perhaps the albums most introspective track as it echoes the innermost desire, „A true Reflection in my Soul I'll see.“ Following on in a similar tone is Ciaran McLaughlin's ac­complished STILL LIFE SUPREME, again reminiscent of a meditative experience recorded in song. Driving rock, you're probably asking? Don't worry, for those who enjoy playing a bit of‚ air guitar, we have your song here, recorded in Pennsylvania, USA. BORN OF FIRE, doesn't beat about the bush, starting right out from creation itself, the story brings us to the present day with the finale: „The secret of Selfhood is alive!“ Similarly, YOUR NAME in a rocky U2 style delivers up some striking guitar and lyrics: „A rising force of love that non can defy“. Try it!


Rap, yes we have that too. Shoebeat Rap a phenomenal song, a mystical lyric: „when the Mother's in your heart and the Child is in your head“. A song with an attitude, yet a song invoking a meditative state/experience. Instrumental, well that's how the cd finishes. a triumphal traditional song set in a modern composition, recorded in Italy. World music for sure. What's more the music comes with a 16 page booklet which seeks to discuss the Millennium time and also the subject of much of the music. The feminine aspect of the Divine. Read on – it's all here!

New CDs

Dear all,
we are pleased to inform you that we have added to the broadcast three new albums. The first one is older album of The IPO - Eternity (please, visit our radio blog). Second one is nice album of Nirmal Sangeet Sarita - Bandagi and other CD is Avahan – Various Sahaja Artists .…
Please continue to enjoy the radio!
Radio team

Nirmal Sangeet Sarita - Bandagi

Tracks:

Khud Ki Kudi Ko Kho Kar,

Khoje Tu Jise,

Muzrim Aadil Ho Gaye Hai,

Nakhuda Ko Dubte Beach,

Laharla Sahaja Cha Pataka,

Bramha Shodhile,

Maauli Ne Thotavile,

Matajiche Swapne Sahaj,

Muzrim Aadil Ho Gaye Hai

Various Sahaja Artists - AVAHAN

Tracks:

Mahamantra,

Raag Bilaskhani Todi,

Aa Tujhko Dikhaun,

Awaz Uthayenge (Chinese),

Maa Charno Par,

Aaya Hoon Darbar ,

Abhir Gulal ,

Hame Maa Se Pyaar Kitna,

Chala Nirmal Nagari Jaau,

Nasik Cha Jogwa

The IPO - ETERNITY

Our dear listeners,

at the end of this month we would like to introduce to you one of the beautiful record which was released more than thirteen years ago. The album belongs to the trilogy of records, which the band IPO introduced themselves in the second half of the nineties. In our blog we will gradually go through each of the three albums and also through reviews, which appeared on the Internet in the time of releasing the records. Now we shall have a look on the second album from the year 1996 with the title Eternity. The CD has not yet appeared on our radio, so you have the opportunity to listen to that wonderful record and at the same time read the review. But first of all – who are the IPO or who were they? Below you can find review of their second CD (courtesy Richard Payment) … Enjoy !

IPO stands for many things – from International People Orchestra to Integrated People Only to Inner Peace Orchestra. This is a ‚loosely-knit, closely connected band of artists who enjoy playing music which points to how we can connect with the „reality behind the everyday“. This is music with a message. The uniqueness of this band is that it is composed of many musicians from all over the world, getting together to compose, sing and play in innumerable styles, in a spontaneous way, but united by a common denominator which is the Spirit. Every one of them is a Sahaja Yogi, a realized soul who reflects the Spirit, and the music of IPO truly carries these vibrations of a divine musical coefficient. One can meditate on their music, as well as simply enjoy it in any moment of the day. People who are practicing Sahaja Yoga meditation will be able to feel the coolness of divine vibrations of the Kundalini energy emanating from such music.








1996 "Eternity". With songs of joy and songs of seeking all but vanished from the lyrics of popular music, the new Sahaja CD „Eternity“ stands out with its clarity of vision. This is more than a collection of songs by aspiring musicians. This is more than a sampler of varying styles and views. „Eternity“, the new CD and cassette from the musicians known as the IPO, is music with spiritual vibrations. It is music to awaken seeking and to reaffirm for us the truth of what we have found („What you seek, you're meant to find“).



From the Beatlesque drive of the opening song, „Oceanbound“ („Now I know exactly what it is I found“) to the simple mandolin-accompanied allegory of „A Leaf Falls“, the album starts with songs of seeking. Often direct („Are you in pain? / Don't you waste another minute / Forever is waiting for you / Just seek the joy of the Spirit / Reality is calling out to you“), often inspirational but dynamically upbeat („River of Life“), the eighteen songs of „Eternity“ are short, all in the three and four minute range of commercial radio. They build one to the next with singular unity. One title, „Opportunity“, has a particularly rich, soulful vocalist („If Heaven has a gate / Love is the key / It's inside of you“). „Here for a reason“ features a progressive jazz horn that brings the whole recording up to a new level.







„Only part of the story“ continues the jazz feel with a full big band sound, and then moves into the driving drums and solid rock sound of „Feeling Good Road“. By the second half of the CD we are taken farther along the journey of seeking to true songs of praise and worship, but still we are in the realm of popular music! „Salutation“, as the title suggests, offers praises to the divine („The Joy in my heart is You / You are the light in the children's eyes“) with an Indian style violin bringing new depth to a familiar style. Similarly, „In the Presence of You“ introduces spiritual surrender – something you don't hear about much in western music. „Reach Paradise“ offers hope: „I pray to my Mother for Love / The purity of a dove / I pray for man to rise / And reach Paradise“.

„Eternity“ is a recording of music that will please many people, Sahaja Yogis or not. Its songs of ascent raise the vibrations of the listener and tune into the harmony of the Spirit. The CD concludes with a seven minute guitar and synth instrumental called „Sangha“, mystical and true to the album title, „Eternity“. Incidentally this track was recorded at the Royal Albert Hall Programme given by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi in 1996. This music reflects a Sahaj culture, speaking out in a familiar voice of pop music. It is, simply put, a landmark recording, joyous, fresh, direct.

When was the last time you heard a popular song with lyrics like „With Your love to guide the world / It's time to save mankind“? It's been a while. And now the music is back. Loaded with vibrations. May this precious recording be heard by many ears across the three worlds. And may its joyous lyrics be repeated on many lips

5 year anniversary

On October 18th, 2009, Sahaja Yoga Radio (sahajayogaradio.org) is celebrating five years of online broadcasting.

Thousands of Sahaja Yoga music tracks, podcasts, interviews belong now to the radio library.

In one month, the radio is accessed around 8000 times totaling to a 2500 hours of broadcast to over 80 countries.

The blog (blog.sahajayogaradio.org) is promoting the art of Sahaja Yogis, having many daily visitors.

Thank you for your support and we are looking forward for your feedback at [email protected]

New CD on radio

Jai Shri Mataji !

Dear listeners of the sahaja radio, after our shorter holiday break we are back with new CDs which you can listen to on our radio. We will again bring irregularly new CDs of sahaja artists in the order how we will get them. We will have a look back to the records which were released many years ago, for example the first one we are offering you are Eternal Roots. The album was a result of creativity and spontaneity of the students of the Musical Academy of P.K.Salve. After all those years it is interesting to read the review on this album which was then published on the Internet and some of you, who haven´t listened to it, will have the opportunity to listen to some songs in our broadcasting.

Eternal Roots

When we talk about World Culture these days, we usually mean cultural imperialism, the Americanization of the globe. World Culture seems to indicate something so popular that it can only possibly appeal to the lowest common denominator , broad and gross.. World Music, on the other hand, is something quite different. This is more than just another category in the record shop. It didn't come out of the head the marketing executive. It came out of our need to know about our neighbours. And ourselves. With World Music, there is a respect for the sound, the instruments, the musicianship that comes from another land. It is a festival, a fusion, a romance. Here a sitar is a sitar and doesn't need to be restrung for Western ears. This is not the Coca-Cola-ization of the planet. It is the celebration of many tastes.

And so it is with a new CD called "Eternal Roots"? With a chorus of voices from several countries, the musicians of the PK Salve Academy of Fine Arts and Music are reaching back to a common heritage of this one planet. Touching the earth at their school in the heart of India, the musicians' stylings roam freely, but always come back and make reference to the classical forms of the subcontinent, as if finding themself in the other.

Eternal Roots begins and ends with Indian raags. These are deep, yet unadorned, classical movements played on a sarod and a santoor respectively. These are the musical roots, the basis for all our music, eternal, where we came from and where we are going. In between, like seven pearls on an anklet, there is the music of that journey around the circle. Played mostly in a Western popular style still, but imbibed with a Eastern depth and spiced with a masala of sarod, tabla, santoor, Indian violin and even a didgeridoo, the seven intervening tunes are, most simply, spiritual music. This is not the music handed down by a church, sung for generations without meaning, but it is spiritual music that looks inside. It introspects and comes up with something. It describes journeys that never end, that are intimately personal, at the same time universal and collective.

Katie Ferris Gleave sings in a signature tune "Journey": Until this train stops, I will not arrive, but just pass through… I am going on a journey and I'm diving down to the depths of reality. Are you coming, my friend, cause you never know what wonders you might see?…

In "Hands of Fate" Stephen Day expands: Between the ancient and the modern On a collision course with time… Trying to hold on to tomorrow Trying to hold on to yesterday , when it´s gone.

We all know these travels that seems to have no resolution, trekking across a continent and not finding anything so much as our own home in a backpack of memories.

Katie Ferris Gleave sings of the "Indian Sun": I see Indian sights all around. Will my feet ever feel the ground Of England, once again? ‚Cause England has always and always will be my friend. But there is a peace, a discovery and a resolution at the end of this journey.

I would venture to say that it is because this music is rooted. There are strong guitar chords that make us feel at home. And there are harmonies and lyrics that are narrative, a diary of the trip. Like an impressionist painter who can improvise only because he really knows how to draw, these musicians can shape their music in popular Western conventions because they have tasted the real music, the raags, the scales, the eternal roots. After descriptions of cobras and monkeys and blue-skinned gods, after prayers for rains of peace and the advent of love and a sky without limit, there is one haunting passage from that same song, 'Journey?. It tells us of a: Complete feeling of timeless joy …I want to sit on this step forever and watch the world go by. Everything, everywhere in one moment, in one place. And peace reigns. Yes.

And then comes the santoor. George Macfairlaine-Reid plays "Raag Puriya Dhanashri" to take us back to where we started. In this Global Village in which we are all destined to live in each other's backyards, it is that music which spills over the garden fence by which we will better come to know our neighbours. Eternal Roots not only allows us to hear those sounds, it set out to carefully dismantle the fences.

Author unknown (for me)

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