Choying Drolma, Deva Premal, Maneesh De Moor, Armen
Chakmakian, Oliver Shanti & Friends, Deepak Chopra,
Paul Schwartz, Karunesh, Ginkgo Garden, Prem Joshua
Vodjani was born in Persia in 1954 and nowadays works from his OM Studio
in Hamburg, Germany. He has travelled many countries and is fascinated by Oriental
music and culture. His first major album Karmapa was released in 1996 under the name
Sijano Vodjani and was co-produced by Oliver Shanti and published by Sattva Records.
It is a beautiful recording that features samples of prayers spoken by the 16th Karmapa
who had died in 1981. If you enjoyed any of Shanti’s albums, especially his Tai Chi series,
you should enjoy Vodjani’s debut. In 1998 the album Sacred Buddha was released
under the name Sina Vodjani, and this time distributed and published by Music Alliance
AG in Germany. The album does signify a slight change in style from his first album
(most likely due to Shanti not being present as producer). For his second album, Vodjani
specially travelled to Tibet to meet the young 17th Karmapa and record his voice
live. It is an album that combines very ambient arrangements, with the occasional
trance-like basslines, subdued techno beats and Mongolian-style chants. Om
Mani Padme Hung is a gentle, dreamy song with breathtakingly beautiful female
singing, accompanied by high piano notes; eventually bringing in a much deeper
bass rhythm and harsh, spoken words serving a great contrast. Milarepa features
a deep, guttural Buddhist chant-speech accompanied by New-Agey synths and
distant, electric guitar. Wisdom of Love features a lonesome pipe playing,
with heavy drums and a throbbing bassline with speech.
