Let Go Into Love arrived on June 1, 2013, as a nine-track album from John de Kadt, a musician, poet and storyteller who describes his work as a devotion to "slowing the world down, even if only for a moment, and returning to the tempo of nature." That line is the best key to the record. The title is an instruction as much as a name, and the album is built to help you follow it.
De Kadt's public life has several strands. For more than 25 years he has told myths from indigenous cultures and mystical traditions, playing percussive and melodic instruments from around the world. He calls this work DrumStory. He is a founding member of The Rememberers, a trio that weaves ancient myths with original songs, and he created the BlessFest sacred arts festival. He is also described as a kirtan leader.
Within that body of work, Let Go Into Love is the album where the devotional singer comes forward. The storyteller's sense of ritual and ceremony is still present, but here it works through song and repetition more than narrative. Listen for a musician who treats a recording as a gathering space, not a performance.
I'd rather describe the feeling than list instruments I can't verify from the information at hand. De Kadt's known palette is a mix of percussive and melodic instruments from many cultures, and his stated aim is a slower tempo. Expect an unhurried album in which rhythm supports the voice, and the voice supports a feeling of surrender more than it displays technique.
Pay attention to three things:
- Pacing. Notice how long the music is willing to stay in one place. Albums in this vein reward patience, and the pleasure is in the settling.
- Voice. A kirtan-leading voice is a guide, not a star. Listen for how it invites you in, and whether it feels like an offering or a call that wants a reply.
- Mood. The title suggests tenderness and release, not catharsis. Treat the album as something that lowers your pulse.
I don't have the track list for this release, so I won't name individual songs and risk giving you wrong titles. The album's nine tracks are listed on its Spotify page, and the practical approach is to let the sequence do the work.
Here is how I'd find your own signature tracks:
1. The opening track. It sets the tempo and tells you how much patience the album expects. 2. The track where the voice first feels like a group chant. When the music seems to open space for you to join in, you've found the devotional center. 3. The final track. A record about letting go often puts its clearest exhale at the end, so notice whether it resolves or just fades.
After one full pass, mark the track where your breathing changed. That is your signature track, whatever its title.
The album sits close to the bhakti and kirtan lineage. Bhakti is the path of devotion through love, and kirtan is its sung, communal form, often built on call and response and repetition. A listener also needs to hear it as a Western-born, contemporary version of that practice. De Kadt's background in myth, poetry and ritual storytelling gives it an eclectic, world-music flavor, and it speaks to the broader field of devotional and sacred-arts music more than to a strictly classical lineage.
It shares ground with ambient music in its patience and its interest in atmosphere, but it differs in intent. Ambient music often asks you to dissolve into a space. Devotional music asks you to turn toward something, namely love, and to give yourself to it.
This album will mean the most to:
- People in a period of transition, grief or exhaustion, who need permission to stop gripping.
- Yoga, meditation and breathwork practitioners looking for music that supports practice without crowding it.
- Listeners who already love kirtan or sacred-arts gatherings and want a quiet home version.
- Anyone who has felt the pull of De Kadt's storytelling and wants to hear his devotional side.
It will likely feel slow to anyone who wants hooks, momentum or lyrical complexity. That isn't a flaw, since the slowness is the intention, but it's worth knowing before you press play.
Choose an evening, when the day's demands have ended. Dim the lights and silence your phone. Headphones will bring the voice and percussion close, though speakers in a quiet room also work well, especially if you're sitting with someone.
Play the album in order, start to finish, without shuffling. Nine tracks is a manageable length for a single sitting. Sit or lie down comfortably, and let your attention drift between the voice and the rhythm. If you have a practice, such as a candle, a few minutes of breathing or a short journal entry, use it as a frame for the listening, and don't try to analyze. The first time through, treat the album as a ritual more than a piece of music. On a second listen, you can notice details and find your own favorite moments.
Afterward, sit for a minute in the quiet. In a record that is about letting go, that silence is part of the track list.
