Uma Mohan fuses western and Indian music for her Sanskrit devotional albums. Quite foot-tapping. Recently, an English Druid friend of mine heard Mohan’s version of the Nirvana Shatakam (she was directed to it by someone else) and rather liked it.

Divine Chants Of Mahalakshmi – Prayers for Prosperity, Peace and Power-Uma Mohan

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Mohan has used western music, employing harmony better than some have in the category of devotional music and in Indian film music. She often comes up with a rather upbeat “pop” sound. It’s all quite new-agey, but I go through phases when I quite listening to the albums she’s conceptualised, before going back to something more classical.

One of the advantages of Mohan’s renditions is that the enunciation is clear, and one can sing along. I’ve found myself remembering the words to a lot of Sanskrit compositions because of Uma Mohan. Children, and those who don’t have an ear for Indian classical music, but who still want to listen to Sanskrit chants might like them too. What I don’t like is how synthetic the orchestration can sometimes sound, wish I could cancel that out.

Below are some albums that have some good music in the devotional genre.

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• Chants of Mahalakshmi
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• Undevotional Music
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Unfortunately, there is a lot of “devotional” music being churned out that is guaranteed to bring you out in a rash and takes you to new heights of irritability rather than the meditative calm that’s usually intended. Tinkly, tankly, sentimental and with too much sugary instrumentation. One could always, of course, listen to the devotional category sung classically and one only has to turn to the old favourites like MS for that, but really it would be nice to have something different in the lighter forms.

Another problem is that we just don’t seem to do choral music as well as they do in the West. Even really bad Christmas choirs sound better. So we should stick to single voices and restrained instrumentation until we learn how to sing in groups.

Oh, and what’s with those booming voice-overs and introductions by men with overly honeyed voices? Examples of these voice-overs are here and here and in countless other places.

Related Posts:

• Uma Mohan’s Sanskrit chants
• Chants of Mahalakshmi
• Ud Jayega Hans Akela
• Tamil songs I love and don’t understand (with videos that sometimes make me cringe)-6
• Gharana Festival Chennai-22nd to 24th January 2010