A note before we begin: the facts available for this album are limited. It is a 20-track compilation released on April 7, 2015, with no label listed and no track titles or collaborators supplied. This guide therefore stays with what can be said honestly: the album's shape, its context, and how to listen to it. I name no individual tracks, because inventing titles would misrepresent the record.
John de Kadt is not primarily a "yoga music" artist in the commercial sense. He is a musician, poet and storyteller, and his bio describes a through-line of devotion to "slowing the world down, even if only for a moment, and returning to the tempo of nature." For more than 25 years he has told myths from indigenous cultures and mystical traditions, playing percussive and melodic instruments from around the world in a practice he calls DrumStory. He is also a founding member of The Rememberers and the creator of BlessFest.
Against that background, a 2015 compilation of Sanskrit chants for yoga class reads as one facet of a larger project. The format is practical and functional, but the underlying impulse is familiar: use sound as ritual, a vehicle for remembrance. The "compilation" label suggests a collection assembled for a purpose, in this case the yoga room, rather than a singular studio statement. Listen to it as a doorway into his devotional side rather than a definitive portrait.
Without a credited instrument list, I won't itemize what you will hear. What can be said is informed by De Kadt's documented practice and by the genre's conventions. He works with a wide palette of percussive and melodic instruments, and his stated aesthetic favors unhurried tempo and nature's pacing. Expect that sensibility to shape the record: a pace that gives the breath room, vocals that serve the chant rather than perform it, and a mood oriented toward settling rather than stimulating.
Twenty tracks is a generous length, and that matters. A collection this size works less as an album to be followed arc-by-arc and more as a reservoir, enough material to fill a full class or a long personal practice without repetition. The cumulative effect of Sanskrit syllables repeated over steady, gentle accompaniment is the point. Individual moments matter less than the sustained field they build.
Because no titles are provided to me, I'd rather give you a method than a list. Treat the opening stretch as your orientation: notice how the first chants establish tempo and vocal tone, because that sets the template for the rest. Then look for the places where the pacing shifts, whether a chant that opens into call-and-response space or one that strips down to voice and a single rhythmic anchor. In a 20-track chant collection, the standouts are usually the ones where the repetition stops feeling like repetition and begins to feel like ground. Open the album on Spotify, let it run, and name your own signature tracks after a few listens.
Sanskrit mantra and chant sit within the broader bhakti current of devotional practice, where sung repetition is a path toward presence and surrender. Kirtan, the call-and-response form, is the most familiar Western descendant, and De Kadt is identified as a kirtan-leader. This album lives in that neighborhood, but its framing, "for yoga class," places it in the practical, studio-oriented branch of the tradition, where chant accompanies movement and breath rather than anchoring a standalone gathering.
That is a different register from his DrumStory and myth-telling work, though the common thread is ceremony. Where storytelling invites listeners into narrative, chant invites them into repetition. Both are ways of slowing time.
This record is best for yoga teachers building class playlists, practitioners who want Sanskrit in their ears without needing to follow a lead vocalist's performance, and anyone in a transitional moment who needs a gentle, structured way to quiet the mind. It suits people who are curious about chant but intimidated by the intensity of live kirtan. It is likely less rewarding for listeners seeking dramatic variation, lyrical storytelling, or production showmanship.
Choose an evening, dim the lights, and put on headphones or play the record at low volume in a quiet room. Sit or lie down, and let the first several chants pass without trying to analyze them. If you know the meaning of a mantra, hold it lightly; if you don't, let the sound itself carry you. Then try a second session paired with gentle movement or breathwork, the context the album was built for. Compare the two experiences. The album's real work happens in the difference between listening and practicing.
Given De Kadt's emphasis on slowing down, the most faithful way to hear this record is not to rush through all 20 tracks in one sitting. Let a handful be enough, and return another day.
