Jam Dass, 'Love, Jam, Remember'

(Self released, CD, digital)

I’m going to be honest: I thought I was being pranked when I first hit play on Jam Dass’ debut record, Love, Jam, Remember. There were a lot of submissions that day, so I hadn’t read much about the band, which is made up of musicians, yogis, Reiki masters and bodyworkers, mostly from Vermont, New York and Colorado. But as the drone of “Ganesha” opened the album and the chanting in Sanskrit started, I quickly reached for the liner notes. With calendar editor Emily Hamilton as my witness, I actually said, “What in the actual hell is this?” as I opened the CD booklet.

As I soon discovered, Jam Dass are the union of jam-band music and sacred kirtan mantras, or sort of calls to prayer in Sanskrit. And yes, they’re named after American yoga guru Ram Dass. Vermont musician and yoga instructor Michael Levin created the project after traveling to India and witnessing kirtan chants firsthand. A former member of the Phish and Grateful Dead cover band Liquid Lobster, Levin sought to combine yogi spiritualism with jaunty, highly-danceable-to-the-hippies jam music.

For listeners whose interests fall in the Venn diagram overlap of wellness movements and the music of, say, the Disco Biscuits, Love, Jam, Remember will likely hit the spot. The vocals of Levin and Melissa Rose follow the call-and-response nature of kirtan, so many of the songs feature just the two of them repeating the same lyric or two over eight minutes of jam rock. I could easily see a packed show of Deadheads at Nectar’s repeating back mantras to the band, so it’s not like there’s no market for Jam Dass and what they do.

Musically, the band is a tight unit, capable of making pleasing jam rock, mixing in tabla and a full drum kit and tossing slide guitar over drones. There’s actually some interesting interplay on songs such as “In the Chit Sabha.”

The new-age spiritualism can grow tiresome, however. The album’s low point might occur on “Everything,” when Levin and Rose start intoning, “Everything is everything, everything is everywhere,” sounding uncannily like a pharmaceutical jingle. Just about any song on Love, Jam, Remember would work as the soundtrack to an Ozempic commercial.

Viewed as a rock album, Jam Dass’ debut is a well-produced slice of adult-contemporary jam (which is absolutely a thing these days) that would slot nicely into any number of summer festivals. Marrying that to Sanskrit and yoga feels more convenient than introspective, resulting in a record of pleasant jams and bland platitudes. Maybe it’s me, but something about the idea of using rock music to relax just feels like misunderstanding the assignment.

Love, Jam, Remember is available at jamdass.co.