Merging With Mystery

By: Susan Van Dongen , TimeOFF , Princeton Packet- NJ, August 19, 2004

Robin Renée, along with musician and composer Karttikeya, will present an uplifting session of 'Kirtan-o-Rama' at the Princeton Center for Yoga and Health in Skillman, Aug. 21.

The latest CD by "mantra-pop" artist Robin Renée is titled All Six Senses (Menage a Music), which might make some people scratch their heads. We all know sight, sound, smell, taste and touch but, aside from an M. Night Shyamalan film, what is the sixth sense? Ms. Renée and her fellow seekers know this extra sense is a way to tie all the others together and go beyond human perception into the intuitive, metaphysical realms of understanding. It's the essence of a higher understanding and consciousness. "The album is all about knowing that mystery and getting comfortable with expressing my love and desire to merge with that mystery," says Ms. Renée, speaking from her home in Camden County.

"I've always been very aware and interested in things other than our five senses. I'm happy to be at a place where I'm free to talk about spirit." It is no surprise, then, that Ms. Renée, a singer with an openness to all kinds of spiritually nurturing practices, would discover kirtan chanting. This is a form of musical meditation - a call-and-response chanting practice that evokes deities from the Hindu tradition, though it can enjoyed by people of all faiths and all walks of life. Ms. Renée, along with musician and composer Karttikeya, will present another session of Kirtan-o-Rama at the Princeton Center for Yoga and Health in Skillman, Aug. 21. They led an evening of kirtan chanting in July, which Ms. Renée says was almost as uplifting as a revival meeting.

"It was beautiful, my best experience there so far," she says. "I love the peaceful type of kirtan, but I also like when it gets energetic and emotional. "Kirtan came to me both by way of a powerful transformation and as a complete surprise," says Ms. Renée, who was exposed to the Indian chanting tradition partly through the music of central New Jersey resident Suzin Green. Ms. Renée has been a singer-songwriter for many years, performing as a solo artist with bands like Spy Gods and The Loved Ones. She draws from rock, punk, New Wave and folk, but a spiritual awakening brought South Asian chant into her musical vocabulary as well. She continues to perform her original songs, sometimes merging her melodies with the mantras that have become her passion - that's where the term "mantra-pop" comes from.

"I was a friend of Suzin Green's and had her CD 'Hearts on Fire,'" Ms. Renée says. "I just started going to the Princeton chanting group, which was led by Monica Johnson, taking part in any kirtan I could experience. I was chanting more and more and wanted to find a place where I could do it regularly. "I think 'All Six Senses' is a transitional album," she continues. "It chronicles a time slightly before I had this transformation. You'll hear the songs at the end of the CD have mantras, for example. That all came in during the course of my writing."

Produced by Scott Matthews, who has worked with Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and George Harrison, All Six Senses has an interesting array of styles, from the romantic, country-tinged "Cling to You" to the high-energy title track. Ms. Renée, who sounds a little bit like Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, also does an interesting cover of Costello's "Cruel to be Kind." "I've always loved that song," she says. "It was one of the things I always wanted to cover. Scott helped incredibly with the feel and design on the tune, to give it that smoky jazz club feeling."

Ms. Renée has led chanting events throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, sharing the stage with Krishna Das, one of the best-loved kirtan singers outside of India. Musician and composer Karttikeya plays the South Indian Naal drum and is innovative with various percussion instruments and found objects, including an old-fashioned watering can. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Karttikeya immersed himself in Hindu practice, living and studying in Hawaii for 12 years.

There are many reasons for the meditative, healing effects of kirtan, some common sense some more esoteric. One logical reason kirtan brings such joy is simply that you are singing - which makes you exercise your lungs, bringing oxygen to the brain and disposing with toxins by exhaling. But there are other factors Ms. Renée and other kirtan devotees can't explain. Perhaps it's the group invocation - in Sanskrit - of numerous deities, like praying out loud. Maybe it's because you're moving energy through the chakras, seven special centers of the body that govern particular kinds of energy. By using the voice, you are activating the throat chakra - which has to do with communication and creativity.

"The reasons kirtan is so healing are complex," Ms. Renée says. "For me, kirtan is just the most intense way to open my awareness of spirit. All the time I've been interested in music, it's partly because it has a (meditative) effect like this. Music just opens me and I feel completely ecstatic. But kirtan approaches this experience too.

"One of the most interesting things is that I've written fewer songs since I've been chanting and I think it might be because kirtan allows you to connect to your own divinity so completely that there's nothing left to say," Ms. Renée says. "'Aum' is everything there is. I've gone through a long period of just being in that moment."

Kirtan-o-Rama, led by Robin Renée, takes place at the Princeton Center for Yoga and Health, Montgomery Professional Center, 50 Vreeland Drive, Suite 506, Skillman, Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m. $10 suggested donation. For information, call (609) 924-7294. On the Web: www.princetonyoga.com. Robin Renee on the Web: www.robinrenee.com