New Age composer Steven Halpern helped create modern meditation music when in 1975 he composed the chakra-based series of electric piano meditations, Spectrum Suite. For his 2001 release, Chakra Suite, Halpern remakes that album utilizing pure electric piano tones, chimes, synthesizer overtones, and, on one track, Tibetan singing bowls to create a pure sonic background for healing specified for each chakra. This is music that is felt directly in the body, as Halpern uses sonic waves to open and massage energy channels in the body, creating warm, flowing prana with whole notes that ring out and play off each other. Even listeners with no experience with chakras or meditation are likely to find themselves reacting to these strangely ambient, yet uncannily soothing, compositions.
Each in the series of seven tracks builds around a single note, which corresponds to a different chakra or energy center in the body, with electric piano, synthesizers, and Tibetan singing bowls resonating in overlapping waves that gradually envelop the listener in a healing cocoon of sonic warmth. Listened in order while meditating on the corresponding chakras can be a deeply moving and cleansing experience, but it's not essential to enjoy what Halpern has to offer. Nonchakra specific tracks such as "Sonic Satori" are built around specific magnetic-field frequencies meant to align the listener's brainwaves into harmony with the spheres. For listeners who have difficulty meditating, this track may just be the perfect gateway.
The cascading notes of the "Chakra Suite: 7th Chakra: Keynote B," on the other hand, are a pinnacle of cosmic awakening. The rounded healing notes of Halpern's keyboards cascade like a healing shower of light and warm water through your soul and spirit. In its way, "Chakra Suite" is sort of like the tune used to communicate with the aliens in the 1979 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The difference is that the alien Halpern is communicating with is your own body and spirit, aspects of the whole self that are often ignored or shut out by your raging, seething egocentric mind. In bypassing the ego, Halpern reaches your chakras and heals any damage resulting from this inevitable lack of communication, making one realize how little we know about ourselves and how beautiful our lives can be.