With down-tempo middle-eastern inspired music; Kalya Scintilla delights your ears with sonic bliss and is undoubtedly Tribal Council’s favorite producer of 2012 (and Clayton’s favorite of all time). No matter what TC party you have been to, you are guaranteed to have heard at least one Kalya track. Being from Australia, his music carries a different, exotic, and galactic feel. Generally absent of lyrics; this helps display the interesting melodic lines and sound clips interwoven into the soundscape. This ambiance and music is perfect for belly dancing, yoga, and even meditation.
Tantilizing to the ears, Dance the Spiral Never Ending was released in January 2012. This whole album has this lovely yet groovy dance feel throughout! He loves to add these wonderful alien sounds into his songs; one that sticks out in my mind is ‘Bone and Stone‘. This song has some gangster beats with intergalactic filters layered on this amazing track. Another memorable song is ‘Break Belief Bounce‘ featuring Alice Spacedoll with exotic vocals. With a very bouncy beat, this song incorporates what I would consider the “essential” Kalya Scintilla sound; middle eastern inspired, galactic, activation beats. The last track I want to mention is ‘Dance the Spiral Never Ending‘ featuring Alice Spacedoll; the title track of the album. This song is really funky and has violin and guitar samples strewn through-out. The lyrics to this song are inspiring “Dance the Spiral Never Ending. Dance the air, the earth, the water; by your dance you hope can give us…” I love when artists use spoken word poetry or uplifting messages in their music. This idea of sharing more than just music, helps plant the seeds of self transformation and love.
KalyaScintilla released a remix album fall of 2012, featuring select tracks off of Dance the Spiral Never Ending. On the original album, Rises in the East is the first track. Remixed by The Human Experience, the version is super quirky. They added some light vocals, and a beautiful violin solo to make the track dynamic and their own. The Desert Dewllers remixed Break Belief Bounce, it has much more of a trance sound than the original. The vocals and main melody are woven in and out of this track. Instead of the normal flow, the vocals are worked in as smaller glitchy clips broken up. Whitebear also offers a remix of the same track, his take is very trance-like. He layers a lot of the sounds on top of each other, creating a larger sound palette. I really enjoy how he breaks up the original rhythm and creates his own idea. Dance the Spiral Never Ending is remixed by Kaminanda, he gives this song a very alien sound. Adding some of his own melodies through the song, he leaves the spoken poetry. This version is very groovy and galactic, with less of the middle eastern sound that Kalya uses. There are a few versions of Whomp Shanti on the remix album, but I think Bird of Paradise’s remix is the best. There is this forward motion in the track, that is also present in other sets and songs of Bird of Paradise. At the end he speeds up the whole track and gives it a break beats feel.
Merkaba is a side project that Kalya Scintilla has; the sound he uses is much more progressive psytrance. Galactic Ohm is the latest release under this name. First track is the title Galactic Ohm, and has many elements of Kalya Scintila’s style. With many glitchy, alien sounds and a constant fast-paced rhythm beneath it all; he creates the psytrance sound. The second and last track is titled Heart Math, and is my favorite track of the album! He starts this wonderful groove with a singing bowl and bells being rung, which are rung through-out the song. He takes the track to a new level by doubling the bass beat again creating the psytrance sound. What makes this track stand out to me is the simplicity through-out, ending with a sound clip of Bashar spreading his wisdom and light. (That is around 10:15 in the track) “Your heart has memory, your heart has wisdom, your heart has consciousness, your heart actually thinks… and when you can develop a balanced dialogue between the heart mind and the head mind, that’s when everything falls into alignment!”
Needless to say Kalya Scintilla is a beautiful, intelligent, transcended master of sound. He is currently trying to raise money for a visa to tour America in 2013. Please take a moment and donate to his campaign here. I cannot think of another artist I would like to see more during this upcoming festival season! Also feel free to check out his soundcloud for some other great remixes.
