Jaiya’s new album is nothing less than a total call to human presence – a gentle invitation to the listener to attend to her senses, to the depth-quality of life, to the sound at the window – to her own fragile heartbeat. 

The album is overwhelmingly moving, melodically inventive, terrifically haunting, and arranged as if by a kind of magically trained wood sprite with 12 arms and 18 sets of ears – Bach’s equivalent in the faery realm perhaps.  But even more impressive is the record’s curious ability to immediately establish a “Centre” of presence, unpacking from there to fill the room with a living, palpable aura that is modern, fresh, and unexpected. 
 
Specifically, the album draws from an unlikely line of influences, including Indian mantra, Irish and Welsh folk, American jazz, North American First Nations’ traditional music, with even a notable hint of Sub-Sahara African flavour.  Invocation truly seems to mark a new era for sacred music, even boasting a rare and bold combination of instruments (where else might you hear the unique and somehow secret beauty of a penny whistle mixed with accordion and rhodes piano?).

From track to track, we find ourselves free to grow to infinity or shrink to invisibility, even simultaneously: to re-cognize our own self-brightness, and emerge as full witness.  All this upon a silky warmth of tone that carries an unmistakable message to the listener: “you can relax – you’re finally home.”
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