The Santa Monica-based trio White Sun has a curious, only-in-L.A. backstory, having been co-founded by Adam Berry, best known in the biz for his four seasons as the music director for the animated show “South Park.”
They can add "Grammy-award winning" to that biography. The group bested a competitive field including Enya and Vangelis to earn the New Age album Grammy…
White Sun II is the second release from the Los Angeles-based group White Sun. The core group consists of vocalist and composer Gurujas (pronounced goo-roo-jass); composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Adam Berry, a two-time Emmy winner; and Harijiwan (hudd-ee-jee-vin) who plays gong and serves as spiritual leader. Guest artists include Mamadou Dibate on kora (a 21-string harp made from a calabash gourd), Abhiman Kaushal on tabla and Gabe Witcher on fiddle, plus additional singers. Most of the songs on the album are based on 5000-year-old yogic mantras, but what makes this music really different is that the songs are set in a more modern song style that will appeal to a much broader world-wide audience. This is obviously working remarkably well since the album made its debut at #2 on the Billboard New Age chart and is currently #1. Even more remarkable is that White Sun II is now part of the required curriculum for two courses at the University of Southern California as part of their health and wellness campaign to find new ways to deal with the stress level of students.
Why mantra? Is it religion? It is yoga?
Gurujas: Mantras have a vibratory frequency that doesn’t exist in other kinds of music, so there are all kinds of magical, mystical things that start to happen to people when they listen. Some of these mantras have been in existence for thousands of years, and they were designed to create a better feeling in the human being, to bring a more positive frequency to the planet. It’s not about tradition or religion, it’s about energy. It’s about giving someone a way to feel better, right now, just by listening. And everything we do with the music of White Sun is to further project and expand that positive force of the mantra. Music is a very powerful force. One of the most effective ways to shift someone’s energy is through music.
White Sun’s music is bliss. The gentle celestial symphonies swirl about with a serene grandeur. Cascades of elegant guitars cradled by tender keyboard pads are infused with the distinctive tonal colors of tabla, kora, gong, and fiddle. The balanced blend creates a sparkling, magical expanse that serves as the perfect environment to showcase the transcendent beauty of Gurujas’ immaculate vocals.
White Sun is releasing their second studio album today, and it can best be described as a sweeping exploration of New Age, through the lens of the Kundalini Yogic tradition, incorporating elements of world music, gospel and pop. The arrangements are thoughtful and intricate, and the production quality reflects a level of expertise rarely heard on albums these days…
Its been a year since I wrote about the self-titled debut album of White Sun, a Los Angeles-based band known for its pioneering musical interpretations of yogic mantras. Now they are following up with the release of their next album appropriately called White Sun II. For those who may not be familiar, the dictionary defines a mantra as: “a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation, a Vedic hymn, a statement or slogan repeated frequently.” While this type of spiritual chanting dates back to ancient times, it has been enjoying a modern resurgence as people search for deeper attunement and inner connection in life. One difference in White Sun’s interpretation of this sacred music is that rather than being chanted repetitively as it traditionally is, here it is presented in more contemporary song form with melodies, verses, choruses, and arrangements.
