Elevated
About the Album
Wah! songs in English, exploring emotions of love, empowerment and peace. We’re excited about this new album, featuring guitarwork by Sean Kantrowitz (you’ve heard him on Kelly Clarkson, Dr Dre and Sia songs), mixed by Seva at Sequoyah Studios (mixes for Dolly Parton, David Bowie, Chris Blue) and mastered by Bob Olhsson (mastering for Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, George Lucas Films). It’s been a great collaboration of music genius, years of experience and long-distance work sessions. Please listen, share and enjoy!
International yoga music star Wah! releases her new album ELEVATED, songs of love, empowerment and peace. Her upbeat tracks have inspired yogis for over 20 years and she is credited with being one of the founders of the yoga niche music market.
Check out the singles: ONE BY ONE, BEAUTIFUL, ANGEL and the album release concert on Jan 1, 2021.
The new CD 'Elevated' is what Wah! delivers in her concerts - inspiration, hope, and great bass lines!
IVANA, ACTRESS
The Story Behind Elevated
2020 was an unprecedented year of transformation and revelation. I wanted to write songs that reflected our process of creating new systems, navigating fear, respecting each other and Mother Nature. I wanted songs to inspire us to reach for harmony, love and patience during chaotic conditions.
The cover shows a world upside down - I'm sitting on a tree branch above heaven and below earth. The year 2020 felt crazy, that's all I can say. It marks the beginning of economic collapse, fragmentation, and individual newsfeed algorithms. I'm wearing workboots because it's going to take a lot of work to stay optimistic and keep moving forward.
I wanted the album to inspire people to dream and imagine a new future. First track was "Blue Sky" - a slow, downtempo instrumental to give people space to breathe and shift gears. Then "Garden" a song performed at festivals, and often requested, but never recorded. "Only you can show yourself how to get back to the garden..."
"Shine" came forward as a doorway into forgiveness - "gotta find a way, gotta pray, get inside the day, find the new way..." I performed it in concerts and yoga classes and got a great response. A reminder to be strong in your own energy... "shine like the sun on the ocean."
"Beautiful" was a fantasy about how it would be if people smiled and appreciated each other all the time. I had the beginnings of the song in 2019, but by 2020 with everyone wearing masks and bickering with each other, we needed the inspiration more than ever. "I feel beautiful when you're with me... you just smiled at me, the world is so much better...everything's working out beautiful, beautifully."
"So Good" is a visualization remembering how it feels to be loved (releasing seratonin so you feel comforted and cozy) - "the birds flying by remind me of your love, oh darlin' it's so good to be home..." If you can't be with the one you love, you can remember good memories, it's the next best thing.
"One by One" was my understanding of how we could build a new world - "healing the people one by one, standing under them so that they feel strong..." "White Clouds" was a song inspired by crickets!
"Angel" was a love-song to Mother Nature, a desperate appeal to heal what has been fragmented. "Feels Like" was a fantasy about floating in the middle of entangling world events, a remix of an earlier song titled "Midstream." "Here to the Future" was a reflection on the state of our world. "How do we save our existence? Walk the mile, take a chance and find empowerment, don't back down make a stance..."
"Pacem" was a 9-beat exploration of Dona Nobis Pacem. I wanted to reinvent this campfire song to sound beautiful and relevant to our current situation.
I wrote the songs by scribbling words on a paper and singing a few lines, then creating and arranging the songs in Ableton Live. The arranged tracks were exported and brought into Logic Pro for vocal and instrumental recording. I produced and edited all the tracks in Logic Pro, and then sent them to Seva for mixing.
Seva from Sequoyah Studio in Knoxville TN did the mixes in Logic Pro or Pro Tools, depending on the song. It was a joy to reconnect with him for this project. He knows my sound and delivered impeccable mixes with all the right sonic touches. Mastering was done by Bob Olhsson, an industry legend (he mastered all the Motown Records, for starters!). A big thanks to Edward Edwards at The Orchard for helping mastermind the metadata, licensing, lyrics and distribution on digital streaming platforms.
Thank you for reading! Thank you for buying, liking, sharing and streaming the music!
I look forward to meeting you and connecting. Jai ma,
Wah!