Syllables of Change: Simrit Brings Musical Innovation and Personal Devotion to One of the World’s Oldest Poetic Lineages

Some performers can bring true commitment to age-old meditations, urging everyone from pop stars to club audiences to fall in love with the words of South Asian sages. Some artists have a presence that engages and soothes, an ear that can hear the resonances that bridge continents and souls.

Vocalist and songwriter Simrit, born in Athens, Greece, adopted and raised in the American South, is one of these artists. Drawing on the harmonic beauty of the Greek Orthodox chants she grew up with, adding the pulse and melodic sensibilities of West African traditions she studied intensely, Simrit and her ensemble tease out distinct facets of devotional poetry and the intimate ardors of the spirit on Songs of Resilience (release: September 30, 2016).

Working with an elegant, expressive musical palette--rich cello, exquisite kora, rolling percussion--and with veteran rock and Americana producer Paul Mahern (Willie Nelson, Iggy Pop, Lily & Madeleine, John Mellencamp), Simrit reveals new sides to ancient gems, encouraging listeners to find grounding endurance, hope, and transformation. “Our songs are about the soul, about all its experiences of love, pain, and joy,” says Simrit. “These are all things that people on this planet deal with each and every day.”

Simrit and ensemble will perform across the US and Canada in October 2016.

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Simrit’s music is entwined with yoga practice, but has a distinct lineage all its own, one that knots two seemingly disparate threads.

One thread begins in Athens, when a young singer from a prominent musical family had to give up her newborn daughter. That child was embraced by an American Greek couple, who took Simrit, born Stavroula, as a toddler to South Carolina. She grew up dancing traditional dances, learning Greek, and singing in the Orthodox church choir, mesmerized by the chants and hymns.

“There was a specific system used to teach us the melodies and it made them very interesting to learn,” says Simrit. “Many are in these haunting minor keys, with this deep, mystical sound. I was steeped in that from the time I was really young. It’s still some of my favorite music and has had a huge impact on my work,” though the youthful musician also loved dreamy rock like Mazzy Star, songwriters like Jeff Buckley, folk goddess Loreena McKennitt, roots reggae, and world music from the Mediterranean to the Subcontinent.

Simrit’s musical inclinations--even as a preschooler, she was always humming her own tunes--were supported by her parents with piano, drum and voice lessons. As she headed to college, she found herself fascinated with African drumming, after hearing the Ghanaian Odunde Ensemble at the Spoleto Festival. “I wanted so much to be a part of this. I approached the drum master from Ghana, though there weren’t a lot of European-heritage folks or women in the group,” recalls Simrit. “I said I’d never played this way, but I knew something about rhythm. They invited me to come to practice the next week, and they gave me a djembe and some rhythms. I was hooked.”

Simrit has woven her love for West African beats into her own art, in part thanks to Salif Bamakora, an American kora player born Gordon Hellegers who studied in Mali with Toumani and Madou Sidiki Diabate, Karamo Susso, and Yacouba Sissoko, as well as several other masters, for more than a decade. His imprint is felt on “Nana,” a reframing of an old Manding song Salif was taught as a student, dedicated to Salif’s beloved grandmother.

The second thread, the one most apparent at first listen, begins in Punjab. Over thousands of years, local sages and poets built up a store of powerful songs, tales, and mantras, the oft-misunderstood excerpts and key phrases from devotional literature used to guide the way our minds move. These texts, meant to be recited or sung, are not firmly tied to any religious framework, yet have a place in many religious practices in the region, especially Sikhism. They have gained ardent admirers worldwide, among yoga practitioners, as well as many others.

There’s a reason: They are believed to have a profound physical effect on both singer and listener, and have been honed to work change in the way we feel and think. “This music changes consciousness, and that is where we can start,” Simrit muses. “For the world to shift into a potentially peaceful place, we must start with ourselves first.”

Simrit’s start, her first serious encounter with these poems and mantras, came in a Kundalini yoga class, where extended songs based on Gurmukhi-language works play a role in practice. They intrigued her, and she had an epiphany: She could bring a broad but nuanced musicality to the style. She began making her own songs, performing traditional and original work at workshops and other yoga-oriented gatherings. And she began hearing arrangements for mantras, which were part of her own daily practice.

“The mantras weren’t part of my music at first,” remembers Simrit, who like many Kundalini practitioners has taken on a new name. “I started to listen to some mantras at the time. I really loved the repetitive nature. It reminded me of Byzantine music. A light came on. I realized I could contribute my talents. I could bring something really powerful to this.”

Simrit’s contributions push the genre into new places, throwing off kirtan conventions. She mixes distilled philosophical statements with ethereal but hooky rock (“Clandestine”), turns 16th-century Gurmukhi hymns into grooving songs (“Song of Bliss”), and creates soundscapes threaded with mantras, quiet acoustic anthems like “Sat Narayan” and more driving folk-rock tracks like “Prithvi Hai.”

Simrit’s sound sets her apart from the more familiar approaches to this lineage and its musical expression. It’s won her some unexpected fans--Belinda Carlisle adores her music--and it’s allowed her and her group to stretch out beyond the usual yoga-centric venues and scene and find new audiences. These audiences are remarkably supportive and committed, speaking to the growing, passionate following mantra-inspired, yogic music has in the US. (Simrit’s previous album charted on Billboard and topped iTunes’ world list.)

Yet the central message is not sappy or facile. It’s about finding the sounds to aid change, to expand what you can see and embrace. As Simrit puts it, her aim is, “Be comfortable in your skin. It’s not about acting as if we are happy all the time when we are not, or that everything is stellar the way it is, when it is not all the time.  My prayer is that people will feel more content in their own skin.  It’s about being real.  That’s the theme of my generation.  There’s a lot of pain in the world right now.   It’s not a mask or filter.  It’s about finding the best tool, a very efficient way to feel comfortable in our own selves so that we can actually relate with the humanity in ourselves and each other.”