The Way to Wah!
The Kansas City Star/Today in KC  Thursday, July 31, 2003
by Brian McTavish, Arts & Entertainment writer for The Star   (bmctavish@kcstar.com)

MEDITATIVE MUSICIAN SEEKS MAINSTREAM
The first thing that gets your attention is the name: WAH! It sounds like a baby's cry, but it's also the hip handle of wistful musician and spiritual wayfarer WAH! That's it, just WAH! For years she's recorded and performed her chant-driven music for the yoga and meditation communities. Now she's courting a larger audience with "Opium," her first English-language album with autobiographical songs that meld pop, world music and reggae.

"Opium's" mainstream players include Macy Gray sidemen Dave Wilder and Jinsoo Lim and Alanis Morissette band members Dave Levitta and Zac Rae. The album's title is a riff on the song "Opium Den," which she calls a "dreamy description of healing in yoga class." WAH!s voice has been described as Jewel meets Sade. Hear for yourself when WAH! peels back the layers of her ethereal onion in a concert at 7 tonight at the Anahatta Yoga Center in the Ranch Mart Shopping Center, 95th Street and Mission Road. Besides pop-oriented tunes, the show will include deeply relaxing chants drawn from the ancient Hindu tradition.