Belinda Carlisle: Wilder Shores Album Launch
Wilder Shores Album Launch with Belinda Carlisle
Tuesday 26 September • 7:00-9:00pm • Cecil Sharp House
Pop meets mantra! A celebration of the release of Belinda Carlisle's new mantra album Wilder Shores, this one-time event will include kundalini yoga, meditation, and chanting led by Normandie Keith and Sat Shakti Kaur. The experience will be powered by Belinda and her bandmates playing live mantras from the new album. As a bonus, you'll have a chance to buy Wilder Shores ahead of the official release on 29 September.
Music lovers and yogis of all levels of experience are all welcome for this event. It is recommended that you wear clothing that you are comfortable to move in. And please bring your own mat or sheepskin to sit on, there are none at the venue.
Note: this event will be filmed by Kundalini Lounge and photographed for promotional purposes.
Cecil Sharp House • 2 Regent's Park Road • London NW1 7AY
£25 preregistered, £30 on the day
About Belinda
Belinda Carlisle is an American singer who gained worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of The Go-Go’s, one of the most successful all-female bands of all time, and then as an iconic solo artist. Over the course of her career, she has sold over 30 million albums.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Carlisle frequented the Hollywood punk scene of the late 1970s, briefly playing drums for legendary punk band The Germs. In 1978, sitting on a street corner with friend Jane Wiedlin, they decided to form The Go-Go’s. Within three years, their album “Beauty and The Beat” was the number one album in the country, one of the best-selling debut albums ever. Their biggest hits included “We Got the Beat”, “Our Lips Are Sealed”, “Vacation” and “Head Over Heels”.
The Go-Go’s became one of the most successful American bands of the 1980s, helping usher new wave music into popular American radio, and becoming the first all-female band who wrote their own music and played their own instruments to ever achieve a number one album.
The Go-Go’s broke up in 1984 and Carlisle embarked on a solo career with her first big hit, released in 1986, the romantic pop ballad “Mad About You”. In the next few years, she released a string of chart-topping staples including “Heaven is a Place on Earth”, a worldwide number one hit. Her latest release “Wilder Shores” is a pop album with a twist, combining a pop sound with Kundalini Yoga mantras in Gurmukhi and some inspirational English songs.
About the Album
Wilder Shores is a genre-busting album of eastern and western influences, fusing the worlds of energizing pop music and elevating Kundalini mantras. The powerhouse voice of pop superstar Belinda Carlisle soars over these chant tracks with precision and grace. With Petra Haden on Violin, Gabe Lopez on piano and guitar, and Arjun Bruggeman on tabla, the musicality of Wilder Shores is deeply authentic to the genre of kirtan, but deftly translated into an ultra-current sound that makes these mantras sound like chart-toppers. The power of the mantras themselves to bring peace, balance and strength to the heart is supported by powerful English tracks, including a new acoustic version of Carlisle's international hit "Heaven is a Place on Earth" that fans will not want to miss. Wilder Shores is filled with music equally at home in yoga studios and rock stadiums, leading the wave of spirituality in the music mainstream.
Wilder Shores debuted at #1 on the Amazon UK World Music Chart!
Track List:
- ADI SHAKI
- EK ONG KAR SAT GUR PRASAD
- LIGHT OF MY SOUL
- RAKHE RAKHAN HAR*
- HAR GOBINDAY*
- HUMEE HUM BRAHM HUM
- AAD GURAY NAMEH*
- LONG TIME SUN
- HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH
*Featuring Simrit Kaur on vocals
You can sample the tracks at www.amazon.co.uk.
A message from Belinda
“I have been practicing Kundalini Yoga for over twenty five years and in the last twelve years I have built up a serious practice routine and begun studying the mantras that are used in classes much more closely. I now know first-hand just how powerful they are. Chanting was one of the tools I used to help me in the early days of my sobriety, it’s a proven science and there is no question that it is a powerful method for dealing with everyday life.
On the roof of our mouth there are eighty four energy meridian points which are activated by chanting, it stimulates our glandular system, balances our chakras and is an amazing way to achieve peace of mind, optimum health and the ability to shift our perspective on life as needed.
I’ve always wanted to do an album like this but I never felt I was ready until early in 2015. It’s not just music on this album; it’s a science that requires an element in the voice called the naad. Naad is almost transference of energy through the voice and it wasn’t easy for me to learn. That being said, I am a pop singer so I could never be a traditional chant or kirtan artist as it would not be true to who I am. Wilder Shores is therefore still a pop album with the same structure of verse, bridge and chorus as my previous records but it is done with repetitive chanting. I’ve chosen seven mantras (there were thousands to choose from) that have been really effective for me and put them into the pop song format. If you were to put it on in the next room or in the background you would think they are pop songs, but when you listen you can hear it’s not in English but in the language of the Gurus, Gurmukhi.
This project came complete{y from the heart and from the experience that I have had with chanting. I wanted to share with my fans what I feel can be a life changing practice for anyone.
I decided to include an acoustic version of “Heaven is a Place on Earth” on this album because lyrically it is and always has been a song of hope. I’ve performed it in a very broken-down form in big yoga classes, including with the very well respected teachers Seane Corn and Gurmukh Khalsa, and have had many people coming up to me afterwards to say they didn’t realize that the lyrics were so in keeping with yogic philosophy until they heard it stripped of all its production. I then thought it would be great to include it in an acoustic form on “Wilder Shores” and, to me, it fits perfectly.”