Maia shares…

What a journey! Spirit gave us the concept and name of the album 18 months before we began it. As keen as we were to begin, the time had to be right…and then there was a long gestation (nine months!), so we experienced a feeling of both elation and ‘at long last!’ once we finally had the CD in our hands.

While recording, we had many an opportunity to reflect on how very different this album was from anything we had done before and how much it would surprise people – we knew it was a game changer.

Nicholas

We were keen to have Nicholas Ng play erhu on the album, after enjoying a number of collaborations and being blown away by how beautiful our instruments sounded together. Nick was happy to participate, and the result of his half day in the studio with us is spectacular…we are so far beyond thrilled. We will certainly be doing more collaborations and hope to have Nick join us for our Follow your Bliss concerts whenever possible. (That's him with us in the photo on the right.)

Angel voices

On the other hand, while we had arranged two other singers to contribute their angel voices to the album, for different reasons neither turned out to be possible. I felt a little challenged by that – as much as Spirit had guided that I was to sing on this album, not being an experienced singer, I was not convinced I could carry it on my own.

Surrender and trust

Doubt was fortunately overridden by surrender and trust, and while I did experience some challenging days in the studio, I am pleasantly surprised by the end result and I once again bow to Spirit’s wisdom and the perfection of how they set it all up. I never would have imagined it turning out so well. Beyond the joy and creative indulgence of recording many different harmony parts that I can never possibly sing live, it has offered me a huge growth spurt and expansion as a singer and brought to my awareness that I am only just being to explore the potential of my voice.

…as is Pratika-Sahayak. With such a wonderful timbre in his voice I was keen to include it in the album. Although not entirely convinced at first, to his credit, Sahayak embraced the idea and it is really wonderful to have such deep, rich tones, and to balance the feminine with the masculine.

Tapado

We sent music files and briefing notes over to our friend Tapado (percussionist we performed with four times with in Costa Rica), seeing as we were not going to be present for the recording of the percussion. We outlined our ideas for the percussion, but also said that if he had any inspirations that were different, to go for it. Well, he did – and wow!

We had not asked for any percussion for ‘Love’ as we were perfectly happy with the way it was. What he added to it was totally unexpected, totally not what we would have thought to do, and totally beyond awesome – it blew us away! We loved it…but we also felt to keep the non-percussion version, so we ended up including both on the album.

Happy accidents

The making of the album was full of little miracles and happy ‘accidents’ – like when Steve (sound engineer) accidentally played two vocal takes from ‘Awakening’ at the same time and we looked at each other and had an OMG, WOW! moment…and then proceeded to build on the direction it showed us.

Also when we recorded background vocals for spoken quotes, a variety of lovely melodies had come to me, so we recorded them long before putting them together with quotes. When the time came to experiment with various combinations of backing vocals and spoken quotes, it was extraordinary how well certain ones sat together – like they were made for each other.

We left a space in ‘Inside’ for a percussion solo, briefing Tapado accordingly. When the files came back, for whatever reason, there was no percussion solo! What would we now do with the space? Enter a flash of inspiration from sound engineer extraordinaire Steve (that's him on the right) – who also happens to be a musician – and next thing we know, there’s an email saying, ‘see what you think of this idea’ and…an unexpected flourish of piano! Not what we would have thought of or sought out, but it sounded fantastic and like it totally belonged there. Blessings have showered upon us in so many ways throughout the making of this album – this wonderful surprise being one of them.

Evolution

Many songs originally turned up as instrumentals, with the lyrics turning up a year or two later (Awakening, Flow, Devananda, Sanctuary, Peace Time, Om Bodhana) while most of the chants and song/chant hybrids came with words and melody together (New Earth, Inside, My Soul The Silence, Om Namah Shivaya).

‘Love’ started out as a ‘Joy’ chant, morphing to a love chant which now forms the base chant of the song. The lyrics over the top came later.

Sometimes words would come to me suddenly (at any moment of the day or night) like ‘Fear feeds fear, love feeds love. Feast on a banquet of love.’ If words come before melodies, I never know initially whether they will grow into a full song, or combine well with the countless melodies I have received and struggle to keep up with. On this occasion it turned out to be perfect as a stand alone spoken piece – and where better to place it than before ‘Love’!

the making of follow your bliss®

Two discs!

We had so much material that we realized it would need to be a double album, and it made sense to separate the chants onto their own disc. As it turned out, there were two more chants that were very keen to be on this album, but time got away on us so they will have to be content to wait for the next album (which we have 11 tracks for already).

Bliss

All the way through both the recording and creating the graphics for the wallet and booklet, the intention and focus was for it to be blissful and nurturing, soothing and uplifting, with just a hint of encouragement to expand – all the while preserving the simplicity that characterizes our musical offerings.

What a privilege and what a blissful experience it has been, creating such a bliss-full album.