Deva Premal & Miten: Songs for the Sangha
Deva Premal & Miten: More Than Music
MANTRA MUSIC SUPERSTARS DEVA PREMAL & MITEN EXPLORE NEW TERRAIN
With 17 albums under their belts and fans the world over, it’s safe to say that Deva Premal & Miten have found a formula for success. But their latest album is anything but formulaic. On “Songs for the Sangha,” they marry ancient Sanskrit mantras with spiritually inspired English lyrics – a first for the mantra music superstars.
German-born Deva Premal is a classically trained musician who grew up chanting mantras as bedtime songs. Her mother played European medieval music on the viola da gamba, and her father, an artist and drum maker, was a devotee of Eastern spirituality, teaching himself Sanskrit while practicing daily sessions of yoga and Zen meditation.
At the tender age of 11, she was introduced to the meditations of the controversial enlightened Indian mystic Osho, who gave her the name ‘Deva Premal’ (‘Divine Loving’ in Sanskrit). As a teenager, she moved away from the confines of both her classical music training and the mantra practice and began to explore her destiny in Osho’s ashram in Pune, India. She was initially attracted to the healing modalities, becoming a practitioner of reflexology, massage, shiatsu and cranio-sacral therapy. It was there that she met Miten. “Although I was just 20 years old and Miten was 42, our hearts immediately connected. He was the coordinator of the ashram music and when he sang, he opened the congregation to an instantaneous connection to the Master’s loving energy.
Miten was born in London and grew up in the 60s when England was alive with the sound of a generation experimenting with American rock n’ roll, blues, and folk music. He later went on to explore those boundaries, establishing a successful career for himself, touring with such bands as Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, Hall and Oates and Ry Cooder. During this time he released two well-received solo albums, one produced by The Kinks, another by noted Los Angeles producer Bones Howe. Although this period of his life was creative and exciting, spiritually he began to feel more and more unfulfilled. His epiphany came while reading a transcript of discourses by Osho on Zen parables, (No Water No Moon). Miten was up-rooted from everything he had known and, selling his guitars, abandoning friends and family, record company, publishers and managers, he pilgrimaged to the feet of the Master, embracing a new life as a member of the ‘sangha’ (spiritual community.
