A Punjabi princess named Asha lands back on Earth after a thousand years of meditating in space. She’s thrown into a world she barely knows, one that is filled with pain but also love.
This narrative sounds more like it could be a futuristic film than a conceptual album, but if anyone is capable of surprising listeners, it’s 27-year-old American singer Raveena Aurora.
Raveena’s second album “Asha’s Awakening,” has listeners view the world from the perspective of a Punjabi princess. As she travels down from another plane, she experiences our foreign, strange world.
Raveena was raised with Sikhism, a religion practiced in the northern Indian state of Punjab, and much of her music draws on her culture.
Through “Asha’s Awakening,” Raveena fuses her New York and Punjabi identities. The result is an ethereal, angelic and visceral expression of the beauty around us.
Raveena’s voice drips like honey on every track as her breathy vocals dance over a mix of Indian drums, harps and mellow guitar harmonies.
On the opening track “Rush,” Raveena sings, “American fantasy, she's winding to the rhythm,” as Asha experiences the magnetic pull of the women around her.
She ends the song with Hindi lyrics, “Dil mera taam lo, Kehna to maan lo, Baaki sab jaane tho, oh,” which translates to, “hold on to my heart, say you agree, let everything else go.”
Almost every track on the album features Hindi lyrics which pay homage to the music she grew up with: classic Bollywood songs.
Many other first-generation Indian-Americans have the Bollywood songs of their parents’ era and today’s modern songs on their playlists.
Raveena intricately weaves both sounds, singing in a style similar to Ariana Grande with Hindi lyrics. The instrumentation is a fusion of classic Bollywood and R&B beats.
The sounds of traditional Indian bells ring gently in the background with an energetic backbone of beats on “Rush.”
The poetic lyrics from Asha’s perspective are a departure from her 2019 debut “Lucid” in which many of the songs revolve around the chaos and depression that followed a toxic relationship.
“Asha’s Awakening” is her return to peace and finding solace within herself and the world around her. Through Asha, Raveena finds the tranquility that was once lost.
On “Kismet,” which translates to fate in Hindi, Raveena calls us in to accept life’s bigger plan.
Behind a funky bassline and the sounds of a record scratching, Raveena reminds us that not everything is in our control, but life is more interesting when it sounds psychedelic.
Towards the end, a warped guitar solo plays into the bridge as she sighs in satisfaction, showing us that everything becomes much easier when you decide to let go.
It isn’t easy, and Raveena’s musical trajectory shows us exactly that. She went from the hopeless lyrics in “Lucid” to embarking on a joyful journey on “Asha’s Awakening.”
On “Kathy Left 4 Kathmandu,” Raveena sings about a lover following her to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
It’s a trippy song that opens with a warped synthesizer and continues the funky theme of some of the songs.
She sings, “She wants to fuck and trip and eat them flowers 'til she ain't blue,” celebrating the exploration of everywhere our minds can go.
There is so much we don’t know about life and the expanse of the human mind but it’s the exploration that makes the unknown more exciting.
Although her breathy voice can be hard to understand at times, the psychedelic vibes and Indian-American fusion make the album a transcendent experience.
“Asha’s Kiss” makes the listener feel as though they are hammocking in a garden filled with the brightest, most colorful flowers. A tender flute sways behind her airy vocals singing “akhon mein, akhon mein, Dekho” which translates to “look me in the eyes.”
In between verses, she deeply sighs while a subtle tabla and harp play in the background. The song ends with giggles and chimes as the listener floats away into a land of fairies where magic is the norm.
It’s easy to see the metaphor. The world is as otherworldly as it’s perceived.
Asha isn’t accustomed to our planet so she views the world in its purest form: natural and beautiful.
The last song is a 13 minute guided meditation which is an abnormal but also perfect way to end an album that is all about slowing down and appreciating what is around you.
Raveena whispers to us to “let [our] breath become like a flower” while the sounds of chirping birds and a magical sitar play in the background.
The listener is once again transported back to the land of fairies, but instead of imagining another world, they realize that it has been in front of them this entire time.
The entire album feels like a guided meditation: peaceful, serene and pure.
Raveena is grounded but divine. She explores psychedelics but also finds happiness in the natural world. She celebrates duality, showing us that there is an abundance of things to appreciate and explore from mind-altering drugs to peaceful walks in nature.
Sometimes, we all need to act like space royalty and pretend like we are viewing our surroundings for the first time so we can fully see the celestial beauty of our world.
