Lila (Dersy Remix) is a single, released on April 15, 2022, and it contains exactly one track. That scale matters. John de Kadt is a musician, poet, and storyteller whose work, by his own account, is devoted to "slowing the world down, even if only for a moment, and returning to the tempo of nature." For more than twenty-five years he has told ancient myths from indigenous cultures and mystical traditions, treating story as ritual and ceremony. He calls his performance form DrumStory. He is also a founding member of The Rememberers and the creator and producer of BlessFest.
Against that background, a remix is an interesting move. His live work is built around presence: a human being, a room, a handful of global percussive and melodic instruments. A remix hands the material to another hand, here credited in the title as Dersy, and asks what the piece sounds like when it is reshaped for a different kind of listening. This is a one-song doorway into his world rather than a full statement of it.
I'll be careful here: I can describe the context and the likely terrain, but I won't claim details of arrangement that I can't verify. What the facts support is that de Kadt's practice centers on percussion, melodic instruments from across the globe, voice, and a deliberate, unhurried pacing. The title word Lila, a Sanskrit term often translated as "divine play," points to a devotional frame.
A remix in this lineage typically offers a more spacious, rhythmically defined, production-shaped version of source material. Listen for how the pulse is handled, whether the voice sits forward or recedes into texture, and how long the track allows a phrase to repeat before changing. These are the questions that reveal the character of the piece. Mood-wise, expect the invitation his work consistently makes: to settle, to lengthen the breath, and to stop hurrying.
There is only one, and it is the whole point.
"Lila (Dersy Remix)" is the single track, so the guide is really about how a single piece unfolds. Because there is no sequence to carry you, the track has to establish its world quickly and then sustain it. Pay attention to three moments: the first thirty seconds, where the sound sets its tempo and tone; the point at which repetition begins to feel like a groove rather than a loop; and the closing stretch, where a remix often strips back or dissolves. The listening reward is in noticing how the piece moves between the grounded, earthy quality of de Kadt's instrumental world and the polish of a remix treatment.
De Kadt is described as a kirtan leader, and Lila as a concept belongs to the Indian devotional vocabulary, the world of bhakti, where play, love, and surrender are understood as one movement. Kirtan is call-and-response devotion, repetition used as a doorway rather than a limit. A remix pulls that practice toward the contemporary ambient and downtempo world, where repetition and texture serve a similar purpose of altering attention.
It also sits beside his storytelling work. Myth, ritual, and music have always been braided in his practice, so this single can be heard as one thread of that larger weave rather than a departure from it. I would not call it a strict kirtan recording. It is better understood as devotional-adjacent music, shaped by a remixer's ear, that carries the spirit of the tradition into a different setting.
This single will resonate most with listeners already drawn to conscious, meditative, or sacred-arts spaces: people who attend kirtan circles, yoga or movement classes, retreats, or festivals like the one de Kadt produces. It also suits someone at a threshold moment, such as the end of a long workday, a period of grief or transition, or a morning when you want to begin without noise. If you are curious about de Kadt but don't know where to start, a single track is a low-commitment way in. If you love his live storytelling, it offers a different angle on the same sensibility.
Listeners who want lyrical narrative, big dynamic arcs, or a full album journey may find it too brief and too contained. That is partly the nature of the format.
Give it a single, undistracted sitting. Headphones will serve you best, since percussion and low-end texture in remixes tend to reveal their detail in close listening. Evening is ideal, preferably with the lights low and your phone out of reach.
Try it twice. On the first pass, don't analyze; just let the tempo work on your breathing. On the second, follow one element at a time: the rhythm, then the voice or melodic line, then the space around them. If you have a ritual or practice of your own, such as sitting, stretching, or lighting a candle, let the track frame it. Because it is one piece, you can let it end and then stay in the silence for a minute. In de Kadt's work, that pause is part of the music.
