Search - Bhaktisiddhartha Dasanudas :: Friend of the Heart

Friend of the Heart is an eclectic collection of settings for the Hare Krsna maha-mantra in both traditional and modern styles. This is great for introducing friends with contemporary musical tastes to mantra meditation, or just cool and unusual background music. Over 60 minutes of spiritual music! Friend of the Heart: Pop-flavored arrangement of a song I wrote in South Miami Beach in 1999. I saw so many people who thought they were cool but actually had no conception of what they really are. It's an upbeat, jazzy setting in the style of BS&T: lots of horns! Nanda Kumara: Traditional Hindi temple song (bhajan). Hare Krsna, Baby: Latin maha-mantra tune with a surprise at the end: it turns into a full-on Brasilian street samba, recorded live, with a screaming kirtan! Prabhupada Pranati: Traditional prayer of obeisance to the Spiritual Master, with an ecstatic, Latin-flavored kirtan at the end. Kalachandji: This is a very romantic Krsna kirtan from the Holy Land of Vrndavan. I fell in love with the tune and the scale that it's in. I recorded it very early one morning when I was feeling especially ecstatic; you can hear this in my voice. The melody and countermelodies fit together perfectly. You can also hear Krsna calling the gopis by playing His flute on the fifth note... Where Are You Now: Harinama mantra with full orchestration. This piece is a musical picture of the elephant procession every Wednesday evening in Mayapur. I lived in Mayapur for several years and the procession is one of my most vivid memories. I wrote and recorded the arrangement in Dallas in 1997. It is based on melodies and riffs by my dear friend Visnujana Swami and is dedicated to him with love. Rainy Day Mantra: This slow, soft jazz setting of Maha-mantra is exactly what it says. This was a cool, rainy autumn morning in Hilo. The song was a spontaneous jam that expresses my mood on a quiet, slow day. It was recorded in a single take with vocal and piano. Mantra Bossa: Setting of the Maha-mantra to a jazzy Bossa Nova tune. I wrote this arrangement of a traditional mantra tune while playing at Kalachandji's Restaurant in Dallas. It was a joke at the time, but now it seems to have a kind of light charm.