Kamala

ROCK YOUR WAY TO ENLIGHTENMENT WITH KAMALA. The music will make you high and will bring you back home to your true self of pure bliss, love and compassion.

Genre: World Sacred Music

Members: Ramesh Khalil Balgos, Jonathan Cena, JP Hernandez and Jean Sioson

Biography

The word KAMALA is a Sanskrit word that means “lotus flower”. The lotus flower is the only flower that still blooms beautifully despite being in muddy waters. And so like a lotus flower, KAMALA’s music aims to thrive in an era of chaos and confusion by infusing positive spiritual energy and intentions into its sound vibrations.

KAMALA can also be interpreted as an acronym that stands for KA-ibigang MA-laya, a label that applies not only to the members of the group who live a life of free creative expression and universal spirituality, but also to the artist friends and supporters of KAMALA. The inspiration that they give to the group allows KAMALA to continue creating sacred beauty and to live a life of bliss and devotion.

KAMALA is a journey not only in music and mysticism but also a voyage in the marriage of both arts. Founded by artists and musicians who have long explored and practiced different musical traditions—from punk rock to heavy metal, tribal to psytrance, acid rock to jazz—the members truly understand what boundless and transcendental music really means. But KAMALA is definitely not one of those kids on the block jumping into the whole new age/post-rock/East-meets-West exotic scene, for its members are established artists in their own right and have a long history in the grassroots (counter-)cultural, social and esoteric movements and communities.

Drummer and didgiridoo player JP Hernandez is also a well known drum maker and self-taught luthier. Bass player Jonathan Cena is a highly-skilled tattoo artist and tribal percussionist, while percussionist Jean Sioson is also a hand-tap tattoo artist. The sitar player Ramesh Balgos is a teacher (and continuous student) of traditional martial arts and also an aspiring yoga teacher. All of them are core members of KATRIBU Art Movement, a cultural movement which aims to revive, preserve and promote indigenous and traditional arts and culture in contemporary society. Such artists have travelled far and wide–from the highlands and coasts of the country, visiting and living with different shamanic and animistic tribes, to the bhakti temples of India, the immigrant Sufi communities of California, to the urban Buddhist temples of Metro Manila–learning and searching for the sacred musical traditions of these spiritual and mystical traditions. KAMALA’s music is a marriage of beats and melodies that are earthly and sensual, yet divine and mystical.

By defining itself as a WORLD SACRED MUSIC ENSEMBLE, KAMALA intends to mindfully synthesize the sounds of different cultural and traditional instruments into a cauldron of heart-awakening melodies and trance-enducing rhythms. The alchemy of sound, however, isn’t complete by just transforming sound waves from earthly to etheric. The ultimate goal of KAMALA is to put its audience into sacred trance or, in esoteric lingo, give the audience a taste of the same Amrita (blissful nectar) that yogis achieve in Samadhi, the same Oneness the Buddhists unite with in Nirvana, the same Divine Intoxication the Sufis exclaim during Fanaa, the same Crazy Wisdom the Zen masters discover in Satori, the connection with our Mother Earth that Shamans all over the world have been teaching us to do and, most importantly, to inspire their listeners to unfold their natural state of Be-ing, which is LOVE and COMPASSION.

So whether you’re into Tai Chi, Yoga, Traditional Martial Arts (like Silat, Kali, Eskrima, Capoeira, etc.) or a rocker who’s into eastern culture (and maybe a traditional artist who loves to rock!), or if you just love positive high-energy music, there’s something in KAMALA’s music that will make you high, and will bring you back home to your true self of pure bliss, love and compassion.