At events like the Glastonbury Festival, Burning Man, Mountain Air, Zenfest and Moontribe, tens of thousands of music-lovers have been wowed by hearing the subtle, mesmerizing tones of Rik's electric sitar amplified on massive sound-systems. While most Westerners are familiar with the faster, flashier sound of Ravi Shankar, Rik Sharaj was trained in the more esoteric and ancient temple tradition of slow, trance-inducing drones. On his recordings such as Mystica, Sitara Tantrica and Sons of Ganesh, Rik combines this transcendental sound with an eclectic array of acoustic instruments (cello, guitar, didjeridu, tablas and drums), voice, and digital effects played by a talented cast of collaborators.
The Sitar is one of the most sacred and transcendental instruments of East Indian culture. The traditions of the sitar are closely bound up with the discipline of Nada Yoga the mystical science of sound and its effect on the human being. Indian music is based on structured improvisation around the Sruti, or micro-tonal scales, creating a sound palette unlike anything heard in Western music.
Rik Sharaj was born in New York city, as a teenager Rik was a passionate participant in the 1960s psychedelic rock scene. He credits George Harrison and the Beatles for turning him on to the music of Ravi Shankar. When Riksharaj was 19 he flew to Amsterdam, and bought his first Sitar, then when Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, it seemed like the end of and era, he sold his Les Paul guitars and Marshall Stacks, and used the money to travel to India. A few years later in deep search for knowledge and answers to lifes mysteries he joined the Hare Krishna movement. Entranced with the chanting of devotional songs called "bhajans" or "Sacred Chants", he learned quickley to sing and play this traditional music and became famous world wide within a few years.
He went to India in 1973 and lived for 7 years in Vrindavan. Once in Vrindavan, the hometown of Swami Prabhupada, he received the name Rik Sharaj from the Swamiji. Vrindavan has over 5,000 temples in a 60 mile area, and immersed in the rich kaleidosope of Hindu religion, Rik gradually became exposed to many other currents. Eventually he left the Hare Krishnas and set out on his own, searching to understand how music embodies cosmic spiritual laws. Over the course of a decade he studied with some of the great masters of Indian classical music, among them learned sitar from Pandit Deva Chaudhury, Amjad Ali Khan, Asad Ali Khan, and vocal music from the late great Dagar Brothers in Delhi. In the process he became proficient in sanskrit, hindi, and bengali lanquages, and learned Harmonium, devotional chanting, and tablas, and mridanga as well as the sitar.
Over the years Rik Sharaj has played and recorded alongside stars like Stuart Copeland, Micky Hart, George Clinton, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Zakir Hussain, and Weather Report and many more. His current passion is performing at outdoor festivals and underground desert gatherings from the West Coast to the Southwest to the gold coast of Florida with the clans of Moontribe, Integral, LearningParty, Forest Jam, Shangrila, Gathering of the Tribes.
His most recent explorations have been in the arena of digital dance music, working closely with some of Southern California's best underground DJs like Lorin, Solar Angel, & Odysseus. Also a multi-instrumentalist and producer with a very distintive sound, Rik has recorded over a dozen CDs of his own music and that of his associates. He recently founded his own independent label, Mandala Music, based in California, alongside his own releases, Rik is constantly producing and releasing other artists such as celloist Micheal Kott, The Learning Party, assorted Musicians of Braja Mandala India, violinist Marcus Hawkins, with a new psytrance complilation on the way with many of southern Kali's hottest dj's.
