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“The Vedic seers and mantras deal in esoteric terms, and I also am pleased by such confidential descriptions.”
[Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.21.35]
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Click here to launch a special player to hear all these albums.
For details of how David composed this music, read his
thesis Sapta Svarah [312 KB PDF]
and the new Vedic Scales, Chords and Tonalities [1.2 MB PDF]
Albums
Friend of the Heart | Gopinath | Hare
Krsna Kirtan | Narottama | RagaJazz
Sri Nrsimha Sahasranama | Sri Visnu
Sahasranama | Talavan | Vipralambha |
You Will Attain Me
| Album | Title | Description |
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"Friend of the Heart" refers to Sri Kalachandji, the big Kṛṣṇa Deity in the Dallas temple where David composed some of these Harinam Kirtan arrangements in 1997. The Holy Name of the Lord has special potency to lift us above the mundane cares of material life and situate us in our natural spiritual condition. This CD is an eclectic mix of traditional Indian devotional music, jazz, rock, blues, funk and symphonic styles. The common thread, though, is devotion to God in His form as Radha-Kṛṣṇa. These are original English songs by David Bruce Hughes. UPC 634479303326 |
Friend of the Heart | Pop-flavored song I wrote in South Miami Beach in 1999. It's about the many fashionable but foolish young people who thought they were cool but actually had no conception of who or what they really are. It's an upbeat, jazzy setting in the style of BS&T: lots of horns! |
| Hare Kṛṣṇa Baby | Latin-style maha-mantra tune with a surprise at the end: it turns into a full-on Brasilian street samba, recorded live, with a screaming rock kirtan! | |
| Kalachandji | This is a very romantic Kṛṣṇa kirtan from the Holy Land of Vrndavan. I fell in love with the tune and the scale that it's in. I recorded it very early one morning when I was feeling especially ecstatic; you can hear this in my voice. The melody and countermelodies fit together perfectly. You can also hear Kṛṣṇa calling the gopis by playing His flute on the fifth note... | |
| Mantra Bossa | Setting of the Maha-mantra to a jazzy Bossa Nova tune. I wrote this arrangement of a traditional mantra tune while playing at Kalachandji's Restaurant in Dallas. It was a joke at the time, but now it seems to have a kind of light charm. | |
| Nanda Kumara | Traditional Hindi temple song (bhajan). Nanda kumar means 'the teenage Son of Nanda Maharaja'; in other words, Kṛṣṇa. | |
| Prabhupada Pranati | Traditional prayer of obeisance to the Spiritual Master, with an ecstatic, Latin-flavored kirtan at the end. | |
| Rainy Day Mantra | This slow, soft jazz setting of Maha-mantra is exactly what it says. This was a cool, rainy autumn morning in Hilo. The song was a spontaneous jam that expresses my mood on a quiet, slow day. It was recorded in a single take with vocal and piano. | |
| Where Are You Now? | Harinama mantra with full orchestration. This piece is a musical picture of the elephant procession every Wednesday evening in Mayapur. I lived in Mayapur for several years and the procession is one of my most vivid memories. I wrote and recorded the arrangement in Dallas in 1997. It is based on melodies and riffs by my dear friend Visnujana Swami, and is dedicated to him with love. | |
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Beautiful arrangements of traditional Vaiṣṇava songs by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, with melodies by Visnujana Swami. This CD is the expression of a sober, mature devotional mood in the early stages of renunciation. It has a serious atmosphere of regret for the mistakes and errors of life, and a deep nostalgia for the pastimes of Sri Hari in the spiritual world. UPC 634479307027 |
Gaya Gora Madhur Svare | This is an ecstatic bhajan by Bhaktivinoda Thakura in the mood of preaching the glories of the Holy Name of the Lord. |
| Gopinath | This is a song by Bhaktivinoda Thakura. It is the lament of a devotee who feels he has wasted his life in material activities and is begging for the mercy of his beloved Lord. | |
| Manasa Deho Geho | This song is also by Bhaktivinoda Thakura. A pure devotee wants to surrender everything—mind, body and home—to his divine Master Sri Kṛṣṇa. | |
| Nrsimha Pranam | This is an original arrangement of a traditional song of obeisance and glorification to Lord Nrsimhadeva, the handsome half-man, half-lion incarnation of Kṛṣṇa who protects His devotees. The words are in Sanskrit with free-verse renderings in English. | |
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This CD is a one-hour kirtan, or congregational chanting of the Holy Name of God. It is presented in a very authentic and traditional style from Bengal, India. The lineage of this style of chanting goes back to Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself. UPC 783797201224 |
Hare Kṛṣṇa Kirtan | The Holy Name of the Lord has the extraordinary potency of freeing the soul from material consciousness. By nature we are eternal spiritual living entities, but we have become ensnared in the material world, which is not our real home. As a result, we are in an uncomfortable and incompatible situation. Chanting the Holy Name reconnects us with the spiritual energy at our source, and provides an inner feeling of spiritual bliss. This brings us back into touch with our real nature and paves the way to ultimate freedom. This is a traditional mangalacaranam (auspicious introduction) followed by a long, mellow, steady kirtan in Srila Prabhupada's tune. It's great for background music or during deep meditation on the Holy Name. |
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Traditional Gaudiya Vaiṣṇava songs by Srila Narottama das Thakur, a great Bengali saint who lived and wrote about 400 years ago. His songs are full of great spiritual emotions and have inspired many devotees to advance to the highest platform of spiritual life. The melodies of these arrangements were composed by Visnujana Swami, a powerful and very pure renunciant who composed many exquisite and expressive melodies for traditional Vaiṣṇava songs. This CD is dedicated to his memory. UPC 634479244360 |
Gauranga Bolite Habe | This bhajan was a favorite of Srila Prabhupada. It is about the ecstatic state resulting from chanting the Holy Name of Lord Gauranga. |
| Hari Haraya Namah | This famous bhajan was sung by Sri Caitanya Mahprabhu when revealing the principle of the sankirtan movement. It is composed completely of the Lord's Holy Names. | |
| Radha-Kṛṣṇa Prana Mora | This wonderful and ecstatic bhajan expresses the love that a pure devotee feels for the original romantic couple, Sri-Sri Radha and Kṛṣṇa. | |
| Vrndavana | This bhajan describes Vrndavana, the highest planet in the spiritual world. The exquisite tune is an original melody by Visnujana Swami. | |
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My early experiments with crossover from raga to jazz styles. The pieces were recorded from 1996-1999 and include a cross-section of styles. UPC 634479303029 |
Gopinath Jazz | A 20-minute free jazz improvisation with piano and flute played over a repeating bass line. It is loosely based on 'Gopinath,' a popular Bengali devotional song. I wanted to take a popular spiritual song and give it an added psychedelic dimension as experienced by a true mystic. Gopinath is in an ecstatic, almost operatic style and when performed in Bengal, always moves people to tears because of its tragic theme of separation from the Beloved. The song was recorded in a single take in about an hour and a half. It is the first RagaJazz recording I ever made. Just a sample of the lyrics translated from the original Bengali: 'O Gopinath, please hear my prayer. I am a wicked materialist, always addicted to worldly pleasures, and I have no good qualities. O Gopinath, You are my only hope, and so I have taken shelter at Your feet as Your eternal servant... O Gopinath, weeping and weeping, this sinner begs for an eternal place at Your divine feet. Please grant him Your causeless mercy...' |
| Khammaj | This is a long composition (about 20 min.) based on Raga Khammaj. It begins with a pentatonic flute and zither free improv that goes through a transition to a heptatonic and then a chromatic jazz section in a 6-beat African rhythm.This cut is part of the larger Vrndavan-lila cycle of sacred song and dance. It is a dance that tells a story of the spirit world. A sadhu takes a spiritual journey, flying through the clouds. He has to pass through a dimensional gateway where he is tested. Then he hears a call from the spirit world. He follows this call and finds himself in an ecstatic dance with God. This is an attempt to depict experiences I had in my spiritual training in India. I created the concept for the song in 1998. It took about 15 hours to record and mix the entire 20-minute piece. | |
| Sandhya Vibhasa | A long RagaJazz composition based on Raga Vibhasa. It begins with an improvisation between the flute and zither that expresses the quiet time before sunrise. There is no fifth (Pa). The sky is lightening and something is about to happen. Radha and Kṛṣṇa are forced to separate and return to their homes. As They hurry home, They feel strong separation and have stunning flashbacks of the previous night's ecstatic loving pastimes. Somehow They recover enough to make the journey. The jazz part is in 12 (not 4/4 triplets but a real 12-beat tala). It overlays a diminished tonality on the raga scale. This cut is the best model yet for the RagaJazz style and it is a good expression of the moods of Vrndavan-lila based on my spiritual experiences. | |
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Sri Nrsimhasahasranama: The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Nrsimha is an esoteric chant for spiritual protection. This unique CD makes the full power of Sri Nrsimhasahasranama available in the West for the first time. UPC 634479303623 |
Nrsimha Pranam | This is an original setting of a traditional song of obeisance and glorification to Lord Nrsimhadeva, the handsome half-man, half-lion incarnation of Kṛṣṇa who protects His devotees. The words are in Sanskrit with free-verse renderings in English. |
| Nrsimha Sahasranama | The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Nrsimhadeva chanted by David Bruce Hughes. Hearing and chanting these powerful Holy Names of Lord Nrsimhadeva creates a shield of spiritual power around the worshipper that repels all harm. | |
| Preface | The Preface to my book Sri Nrsimhasahasranama: The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Nrsimhadeva read aloud. No material energy can surpass this spiritual armor; no magic, however powerful, can defend anyone who tries to harm Lord Nrsimha's devotee. | |
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The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Visnu is a spiritual classic of ancient Vedic lore. Sri Visnusahasranama is widely accepted in Eastern spiritual culture as the best and most certain cure for all the anxieties and ills of material existence. This is because Sri Visnusahasranama is composed exclusively of the pure Holy Names of God. UPC 634479303227 |
Preface | The Preface to my book Sri Visnusahasranama: The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Visnu read aloud. This powerful maha-mantra of The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Visnu makes it easy for anyone to utilize its power and eradicate the root cause of all suffering through the perfection of yoga and meditation. |
| Visnu Sahasranama Traditional (slow) | The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Visnu by SubhaLaksmi, slowed down for ease in pronunciation and learning. | |
| Visnu Sahasranama Traditional | The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Visnu by SubhaLaksmi | |
| Visnu Sahasranama | The Thousand Holy Names of Lord Visnu chanted by David Bruce Hughes. This transcendental sound vibration descends directly from the spiritual world, Goloka Vrndavan. It offers the highest benediction to the souls entrapped by the illusions of material existence, and leads to complete cessation of material suffering. | |
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I lived at the New Talavan spiritual community in 2004-2006. These are some of the pieces I composed and recorded while there. |
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya | A dramatic setting of the dvadasaksara-mantra in Eastern style. |
| Gaura-Purnima Kirtan | A group chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa maha-mantra led by David Bruce Hughes at New Talavan on Gaura-Purnima, 2006. | |
| Really Love You | This original song expresses a passionate desire to love God spontaneously without any restriction of religious principles or rules and regulations. This is raganuga-bhakti, or the highest platform of spiritual devotion to the Lord. See here for lyrics and additional audio. | |
| Flying | An attempt to express the ecstasy of chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa maha-mantra. | |
| Balaram ONBV | Another setting of the dvadasaksara-mantra. | |
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This music was recorded in 1996 during a difficult time in my life. I used to feel great longing and separation from my Spiritual Master and Kṛṣṇa. This spiritual separation is actually a kind of ecstasy. It is simultaneously bitter and sweet. UPC 634479303128 |
Vipralambha | A raga improvisation with solo flute over tamboura and harmonium drone. Vipralambha means the ecstatic mood (rasa) of conjugal love in separation. |
| Pravasa | Flute solo improvisation over a textured drone. Pravasa means separation by distance. Actual love grows through this feeling of separation. In fact, great masters of bhakti or spiritual love have praised pravasa because it leads to the highest ecstasy: pure love of God. | |
| Purva-raga | Solo flute improvisation over an orchestral drone. Purva-raga means preliminary attraction, like when the lover first encounters the Beloved's Holy Name or sacred Image. It is tender and tentative like a bud. | |
| Rupanuga | Solo flute alap (a tempo) improvisation over a sumptuous drone. Rupanuga means when ecstatic spiritual love reaches a saturation point, the lover's entire being is suffused with the flavor of the Beloved. | |
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Original English songs composed and recorded in Hilo, Hawai'i in 2003, after Bhaktisiddhartha had a profound spiritual experience on the island of Kaua'i. After camping by himself, chanting and meditating in an isolated jungle location for six months, he had a powerful vision that became the inspiration for this CD. You will have to listen to the music to find out more about it, but the whole story is there. UPC 634479244353 |
You Will Attain Me | In 2000 and 2001 I spent about six months camped out on the island of Kaua'i, just chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa maha-mantra. Finally Lord Sri Kṛṣṇa appeared to me in His beautiful spiritual form. And this is what He said... |
| Cool Bhajan Kutir | A humorous jazzy shuffle about my studio in Hilo. It rains very often there, sometimes all day long. | |
| When the Madness Passes | A song dedicated to my son Brion, who is a lead singer in a heavy-metal band. With any luck he'll get over it soon. | |
| Om Purnam | The Invocation of Sri Isopanisad, with a rock kirtan. | |
| I Will Sing for You | My vision of my life in Goloka Vrndavana, where I am a singer in the pastimes of Radha-Kṛṣṇa. | |
| Lalita Nisanta | A bossa-nova song in praise of Srimate Radharani, the Queen of Vrndavana. |
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