The Road

2015 release, the second album from Avasa and Matthew and the long awaited follow-up to Love Is King, Love Is Queen. Blending inspiration from various cultural traditions, the album's instrumentation centers around the acoustic guitar and harmonium played by Avasa and Matthew, orchestral strings composed by Robin Livingston with additional solos by Steve Gardner, flute from Todd Boston, tabla by Benjy Wertheimer and percussion from Gabriel Harris (the son of Joan Baez). The Road travels through varied etheric atmospheres, with celebratory melodic chants that inspire your feet to dance, distinct devotional ballads, Sanskrit mantra and lullabies of light. Avasa and Matthew's sound is a relaxed, tuneful blend of world, pop and their own unique devotional soul music, with anthemic aspects to many songs that are greatly enhanced by the duo's distinctively rich vocal chemistry. Their stylistic influences are diverse, ranging from James Taylor and India Arie to Bob Marley and Tracy Chapman; they currently cite Beethoven, Carlos Nakai, Deva Premal & Miten, and Krishna Das as inspirations. They share songwriting credits, writing both independently and together, always with the clear goal of creating music that nourishes the soul and inspires each listener to find the road to one's guiding moral compass in life. What they create with the Road is toe-tapping, heart-opening, incredibly catchy music that sticks with you, reassures you, and makes it hard indeed not to dance and sing along.