Sat Kartar Khalsa has been teaching, facilitating, recording,
and performing chant music and devotional kirtan (music sung
in call and response style) for almost 30 years. Her personal
journey with these potent spiritual tools was initially orchestrated,
in 1971, when she stumbled upon Kundalini and Naad Yoga, Indian
classical music, and Sikhism, and became a student of her spiritual
teacher, Yogi Bhajan.
Her
childhood was full of music. Both parents played piano and her
father frequently performed at parties and restaurants. There
was music around of every kind--musicals, standards, and classical
music. Sat Kartar played piano at 5, guitar at 14, and picked
out everything on piano and guitar, from the Beatles to the
Spanish classical "Malaguena".
She
trained in ballet, and other dance forms. In college, she was
gigging, doing covers of singer-songwriters and folk artists.
One big influence was Joni Mitchell, whose open tunings and
unusual melodies were a doorway and vicarious permission to
explore uncharted territory, musically. Trying to find her lyric
voice to express the rising spiritual revolution she felt, in
this time, she tried a Kundalini yoga class, hoping for some
kind of release from songwriter's block.
Sat Kartar recalls, " My first experience of chanting was
being mezmerized with the sound of this yoga teacher, named
Livtar Singh, who was singing these words over and over to someone
named Guru Ram Das (a spirit guide in the Sikh faith) while
playing a drone instrument called a tamboura. " I felt
as though I had opened Pandora's Box on a mysterious unknown
world of sound." Sat Kartar went on to sing in 2 Sikh spiritual
bands, Sat Nam East, one of the first American chant groups,
and later the Khalsa String Band.
In
the mid-seventies, she began what would be a life study of Northern
Indian classical kirtan, with numerous Sikh musicians, called
Ragis ( who sing devotionally in Eastern raga scales). "I
wanted to bring the enchantment of this world of music to an
American audience in a simpler, sensuous form, so Westerners
could appreciate the haunting beauty of these ancient scales."
In 1984 and '85, collaborating with veteran New Age producer
Liv Khalsa, they created 2 timelessly beautiful recordings,
"Spirit in Blossom" and "Domain of Shiva,"
a group of hymns from the sacred Sikh texts, containing 4 raga
scales. Symphonically orchestrated and ahead of its time, this
music found a new audience, in the early stages of the World
and New Age Music movement.
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After a period of personal transitions, Sat Kartar's quest for
spiritual musical expression found form in a genre of dance
electronica, then called Trance House. A chance meeting with
musician-producers Akinchina Das and Lalita Dasi, whose background
was also Indian classical, turned out to be instant musical
chemistry, and the techno group Overlords of the UFO was born.
Their vinyl EPs "Imagine" and "Transcendental
Overdrive, released in 1994 and 1997 respectively, drew critical
acclaim in the international dance and DJ market.
In 2002, Sat Kartar released a CD of chants for starting the
day called "Daily Practice" Many spiritual paths have
this pre-dawn regime of chants, called sadhana. Produced by
Dan Charnas, the soaring gutsy side of her voice is backed with
a world music potpourri of djembe, guitar, bass, tamboura, and
temple bells. She and her band began extensively touring the
Southwest with this CD, and garnered a regional following.
Most
recently Sat Kartar teamed with producer Thomas Barquee for
her most recent work, FLOW. This CD is more orchestrated and
has a pop feel, and includes mantras never before recorded."This
recording was a journey of faith into my heart," Khalsa
says."I want to live my life more from that place."
Come and enjoy Sat Kartar and her band on the road this year
and next, with their live kirtan concerts and workshops.
