Vedic Mantras

Gino Foti talks about the music on Vedic Mantras, "Inspired by several "East meets West" jazz-rock artists that incorporate Indian culture, I chose to combine traditional Vedic mantras with modern instrumentation for my next project. The focus of this release is the Taittiriya Upanishad, one of the most important writings of ancient Indian thought. It should be noted that the Vedic chanting on this album has been recited with the same accents, measures, emphasis, sequences, and rhythms for millenia. I took great care to juxtapose as many non-Indian elements and styles as possible to the arrangements, hopefully without sacrificing any of the devotional mood or integrity of the sacred texts. Unlike other releases of this type, which keep the mood meditative and the instrumentation sparse, I focused my attention to adding as much power, energy, and dense orchestration as I could, using compositional techniques that are not usually associated with mantric arrangements."