Vidura Barrios is a New York composer who has been making music for meditation and spiritual practice for more than twenty years. In 2006 he founded Inner Splendor Media, an independent label devoted to meditative and contemplative music, and over nearly two decades of releases he has found listeners around the world. His work grows out of his own long meditation practice and a lifelong interest in the sacred music of India. His new single "Shiva Shambho Kirtan," released on October 10, takes kirtan, the Indian tradition of devotional chanting, and sets Sanskrit chants to a modern world-music arrangement played and sung entirely by real instruments and voices. Barrios wrote the piece, and Kento Tachibana produced and arranged it. His hope is to bring this old, joyful practice to people who have never met it, and he insists you don't need to be a yogi to feel it.

The track runs about five minutes and goes straight into the chant, with no intro. A male voice leads, then a female choir joins him, and the chant keeps passing back and forth between solo and choir. The male vocals sound ethereal and deeply human at the same time, uplifting and grounding at once, and the choir is just as beautiful. The instrumentation barely changes, and that is exactly what a meditative chant needs: the percussion adds some movement, while the tambura drones underneath and holds the track together. By the last minute the repetition no longer feels like one, and you notice you've been breathing slower. Five minutes of calm, and a good thing to put on when the day gets too loud.