It’s extremely few and far between, despite sharing a lot of common methods and sounds, that ambient music that can truly be called meditative and EDM cross paths in a way that make them actually cross over. Quite often new age music is just a little too woo with not enough pop or dance cachet to light up the average EDM fan, and of course EDM is generally a bit too charged and fast for the spa or yurt. There are, however, a handful of artists who have truly cracked that code and successfully blurred the lines between ambient and dance. Massive Attack, Moby and Morcheeba come to mind pretty quickly on the EDM side of things, while acts like Rasa or Mohamed Assani may be tagged as more meditative but which translate to other genres and settings.
Chawa (English disambiguation: Hava) Lilith, a singer and songwriter who’s come to the US by way of Berlin and now splits her time between LA and Atlanta, has been releasing since 2017 but really found her stride with her newest EP, Euphonious and she’s about to join that small but prestigious number of true ambient crossovers. A massive departure from her previous offerings, Euphonious is largely beatless but nonetheless holds the weight and pop acumen that will take it out of the spa and, potentially, right to the festival stage.
Chawa Lilith says Euphonious comes directly from her own meditations, especially those of the last 18 months being stuck in lockdown in Los Angeles. If this sound is any indication of her meditative experiences, we can all assume she’s reached nirvana because it’s truly celestial. Smartly partnering with up-and-coming Atlanta producer Dawson Hendrix for the mixing and mastering, Euphonious earns its namesake many times over by way of the ambient sound work highlighting and elevating the vocals to a truly operatic level. The result is, well, euphonious.
The vocals being solid and the production being clean can only take one so far in the ambient game, so what really sets Euphonious apart from the rest? In a word, the songwriting. The way the tones and vocals have been put together, the work sounds incredibly fresh and modern despite the style being solidly in the meditative wheelhouse. With Chawa on instrumentals and Hendrix on mix, the album is easy to listen to in any setting, not just in meditation. The EDM minded among us could also easily see any of these tracks being set to a beat and remixed or even just used as break music in a festival set. Heartwarming and musically solid at the same time, Euphonious lives up to its name no matter where you plan to listen to it. It’s just good music.
While Chawa Lilith has played with a number of genres in her career thus far, Euphonious seems to represent a breakthrough for her, both musically and personally. Her confidence has clearly increased over the four years since her last album Persian Prince, and that clearly translates to her work and even how she presents her vocals. Experimentation is always a good thing for artists but here’s hoping she stays on this ambient path and maybe continues to work with electronic producers. The music world could certainly use this sort of uplifting work right now, and Chawa Lilith is clearly someone who can translate it to reach a huge audience.
Euphonious is out now and can be streamed or purchased on multiple platforms by clicking here.
