Artists such as Radhika Vekaria are scant in the modern landscape. She isn’t a song and dance performer exhorting listeners to shake their collective backsides. Vekaria isn’t hungry for fame and fortune. Her talents have landed her several high-profile media appearances, but Vekaria hungers for different sustenance. Her intelligent and searching artistic vision leaps out of itself to communicate with a broader audience, and the cathartic aims of her songwriting are equally apparent. The nine songs on her latest collection Warriors of Light are for herself, first and foremost.
They hope to find common ground with listeners. However, several qualities work to subvert that aspiration. Vekaria’s heavy reliance on non-English vocals undercuts the album’s global marketability. The religious overtones prevalent throughout the titles and lyrical content pose another challenge. They are superficial obstacles. Open-minded and attentive listeners will note that Vekaria’s songcraft seeks and finds a middle ground between her high-flown spiritual concerns and the listener’s everyday struggles. She makes the necessary connections rather than losing her potential audience through inert, dogmatic content.
Songs such as the opener, “Asato Ma Sadgamaya (Purification Prayer)” make it immediately clear that her voice is a marvelous instrument. Vekaria’s skill for conveying human emotion through her tone alone renders discomfort with her non-English lyrical contents a moot point. Listeners merely need to feel. Indian instrumentation is plentiful throughout the collection, but Radhika Vekaria avoids purist trappings. Each of Warriors of Light’s nine songs has a thoroughly modern sound.
“Kali” will likely provide one of the album’s most familiar moments. Even those without much grounding in Eastern philosophy/religion are acquainted with Kali through literature and film, though their understanding may be limited. No matter. Vekaria delivers one of the collection’s best vocals, and the occasional supportive double-tracking further reinforces the singing’s dramatic qualities. The ultimate success of “Release Your Fears (Jaya Jaya Durge Ma)” rests upon a seamless tempo shift that overtakes the song near its midway point. Percussion is another musical key to the song. Double-tracked vocals are present throughout this track, and Vekaria does an outstanding job blending English and non-English lyrics.
“Aganitha Tara (The Dance of Countless Stars)” is one of two recordings featuring guest performers. However, an outsider’s presence has no audible effect on the performance. Much of the track depends on the interplay between Vekaria’s vocals and understated percussion. The latter percolates at a low but constant pace throughout the song. Vekaria’s accompaniment during “Hanuman Chalisa (Feat. Shashank Acharya)” is so low-key that it is nearly effervescent. It provides an ideal amount of color for what is, essentially, an acapella performance from Vekaria. The minimal musical adornment spotlights her vocal performance, but the song never suffers.
“Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu (Peace Prayer)” has an orchestrated, even constructed, quality. Listeners can nonetheless appreciate it as a fine-tuned studio creation that closes Warriors of Light on the proper note. The balance between the reverential and earthy characterizing its predecessors remains vibrant throughout the finale.
Radhika Vekaria’s new full-length album Warriors of Light reinforces her standing as one of the most idiosyncratic but rewarding musical artists today.
