Released on August 30, 2019, Queen of Mantra is an eight-track album of Sanskrit mantra, and it is the record Wah!'s own catalog points to as the central statement of her mantra work. By then she had been playing bass guitar with her joyful rock band since 1997 and, by her own account, had been bringing kirtan to the West since the 1990s. The album arrives long after those beginnings, with the confidence of an artist who knows her form.
It is also a good doorway. Her catalog stretches from dance mixes and dub-inflected yoga compilations to the Healing Concert's lasers and projections. Queen of Mantra strips most of that away and presents the core kirtan sound without much to distract from it. Later releases such as Prabhuji and It's Friday Night widen the frame, but this is where the center of the work is easiest to hear.
The foundation is Sanskrit mantra sung over harmonium, with Wah!'s own voice carrying the melodic lines and the call-and-response shape that defines kirtan. In her online kirtan concerts she adds Ableton Live to vocals and harmonium. That studio-minded approach is part of why her recordings sound warmer and more produced than the unamplified room singing many people associate with the form.
Pacing is measured. This is repetition-driven music: a phrase is offered, returned to, and slowly worn into a groove. The mood is devotional but not solemn. Her rock-band background brings a steady pulse, and the overall feeling is closer to a gathering than a hush. I can't name individual players or a producer for this record, because the available information doesn't identify them. What the album gives you is the voice, the harmonium and the repeating shape of the chant.
I can't responsibly name individual tracks here. The information available confirms the album's eight-track length but not its track list, and I won't guess at titles. Instead, here is what to listen for across the record, wherever a track lands for you:
- The first entrance of the response. Kirtan lives in the moment a call is answered. Notice how the arrangement leaves room for the response, even on a studio recording where you are the one answering.
- The longest builds. In repetitive chant, the interest lies in small shifts: a slight lift in tempo, a thickening of the harmonium, a change in how the voice leans on a syllable. Find the tracks where those changes feel most deliberate.
- The closing stretch. Albums built on mantra tend to settle toward the end. Pay attention to how the final tracks release the energy rather than stop abruptly.
If you want the track list itself, the album's Spotify page carries it.
Wah!'s work belongs to bhakti, the devotional path in which sung names of the divine carry the practice, and her form is kirtan, the call-and-response chanting that originated in India. Queen of Mantra sits squarely there through its Sanskrit mantra, even as its production reflects the modern yoga and wellness world.
Two cautions are worth stating. No specific teacher or line of succession is named in the available information, so her claim to have brought kirtan to the West in the 1990s is best read as her own account. And purists of older, unaccompanied forms may hear the band-era warmth and studio polish as a departure. Both readings are fair. The album is devotional chant shaped by a Western yoga community, not a field recording of tradition.
A companion, Queen of Mantra (Instrumentals), was released the same day. It removes the vocals and lets the harmonium-led arrangements carry the mood, which makes the structure of the chants easier to hear.
This album suits the newcomer who wants kirtan without much else in the way, and the yoga practitioner who wants a devotional sound that feels welcoming rather than austere. It also suits anyone in a stretch of life that calls for steadiness: a period of stress, transition or burnout, when repetition itself is the comfort. The bumper sticker fans once made, "Less Stress More Wah!", captures that relationship well.
It lands less well for listeners who want a purely traditional experience, high-tempo electronic music, variety or ironic distance. The record rewards comfort with repetition and sincerity. Skeptics of wellness language may also prefer to take the music on its own terms and leave the surrounding claims aside.
Give it one uninterrupted pass, front to back, in the evening. Headphones help, because the interplay of voice and harmonium is the heart of the record and small details come forward in close listening. Sit rather than multitask.
The first time through, simply listen. The second time, try answering the call aloud, quietly, even if you feel self-conscious; the form is built for participation, and the album makes more sense once you have been inside it. If you practice yoga, it works as a seated opening or a closing wind-down. Then try the instrumental companion on another night and notice what you hear when the voice steps away.
