gfire & govinda

gfire & govinda

Electric Sadhana (Gulabi) Break out the aromatherapy and find focus while gfire & govinda conduct a transcendental Yoga session fueled by ambient electro-rhythms. Reciting mantras provided by Yogi Bhajan as a means to ease the transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age, gfire (aka Pam Mayo) administers Electric Sadhana with the fluency of a learned guru. Unfortunately, the seasoned local DJ and music instructor lacks the intonation that typically colors such Indian-derived verse with its enticing flavor. Granted gfire does a fine job of bending her inflections to match the accents she seeks, but there's something about her Western voice that gives her presentation an ever so slight, but vital air of inauthentic appropriation. Meanwhile, Govinda (aka Shane O'Madden) further cheapens the façade of a spiritual experience with his generic doldrums of sound manifesting as nothing short of half-assed tedium. There's no way in hell that enlightenment could possibly be this boring. Functional music certainly has its place in the market, but outdated hippie sentimentality needs to be identified as such. While Govinda sports a résumé that includes walkabouts into the worlds of Middle Eastern, Indian, Celtic, and Flamenco, this disc leaves one wondering if his transglobal aspirations are as noble as he might like us to believe. Point being, there's too much real Indian music readily available for Electric Sadhana to be considered any more than a blatant knockoff.