Throughout his career, three-time Grammy-winning artist Ricky Kej has frequently staged expansive, glorious productions for his enduring brand of new age music, working with dynamic orchestras from around the world in the process. For his 2024 album Break of Dawn, however, he’s scaled it all down in terms of the number of people involved. The US-born composer and producer, who has lived in Bengaluru since he was eight years old, tells Apple Music: “I did not go huge with this album, even though we did work with a small chamber orchestra in Los Angeles. Everything was [about] contributing to the melody. That was the most important thing.” Across nine soaring tracks on Break of Dawn, everything does indeed contribute to the melody. Whether it’s a rising vocal, an understated sitar or a magic flute, there’s a measured approach taken by the composer throughout. Some instruments drive a rhythm, whereas others hide in the background, adding to that overall sense of journey and serenity. The human voice features heavily on the record—but not as a lyrical vehicle. It’s treated like a central instrument, adding emotion, depth and power to the musical voyage. As Kej says: “People immediately connect to a human voice.” He also points out that even the flute—in particular the bansuri—is driven by vocal sounds, in that the first thing you hear is not the music but the drawing breath of the musician. Released via Universal Music India’s wellness music label, Vedam Records, Break of Dawn takes flight into ragas both classical and modern—but not necessarily in that order. There’s a fresh, inimitably Ricky Kej interpretation of the raga throughout the whole composition, alongside a keen focus on wellness, peace and harmony. Plus, the artist’s own heritage is always there in the mix. “No matter how much I try to make a Western song, there’ll always be some sort of an Indian element in it,” he says. The record’s inspirations were several for Kej, from visiting the island country Kiribati to being a long-time metalhead. Here, he takes us through Break of Dawn, track by track. “Blue Dream” “This is based on raga Bilaval. I had gone on a three-week trip to Kiribati. It’s very difficult to fly there. There’s only one plane that lands there every week on a Monday and that same plane leaves after about an hour. So basically you can either go to Kiribati for one hour or you can go there for one week. There are fishermen in every family. They usually have fresh catch for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I went in a boat with one of these fishermen and we went to an area over a deep part of the ocean and this guy jumped into the water to catch fish. You couldn’t see any land on all sides. Just water. The water was 40 or 45 feet deep and so clear. “That was when I composed this [track], inspired by just being there in the extreme quiet. The boat engine was turned off—it was absolutely beautiful and serene. It was so beautiful—almost untouched—because there’s no industrialisation there. I had my phone with me. Of course, the phone didn’t have any signal, but the recorder was there, so I just recorded this melody with my voice. I decided to develop it a year ago and I got in touch with [Canadian flautist and composer] Ron Korb and I played this melody on the flute on a keyboard. I sent it to him and he took it to another level.” “Break of Dawn” “The first person I recorded for this album was [flautist] Ravichandra Kulur. I took him into the studio for about three days. On ‘Break of Dawn’, he’s going into various notes and these improvisations and all of that stuff—yet it’s not sounding busy or fatiguing to the ear. He can make a complicated piece of music sound very meditative. That’s his specialty. “The song is about spirituality and based on raga Hameer, but it moves in and out of that. I’m a complete atheist but I do get a lot of messages on social media and even at concerts from people who say they’ve had a spiritual experience while listening to my music. For me, spirituality is all about how sometimes you experience extreme beauty—it could be the break of dawn, a sunset or a beautiful mountain. Or it could even be a beautiful woman or the birth of a child, which is so overwhelming to our senses that our primitive brain can’t understand the magnitude of this beauty. We are so overwhelmed by it that we attribute it to a higher power. This song is the least minimalistic on the album. I was trying to explore what it is that gives us that feeling of spirituality.” “Spiritual Love” “When it comes to a romantic relationship, there are moments—I would not say moments of sadness, but I would say moments of lull. There are also moments of joy. I tried to explore, through raga Hemavati, what those moments of lull and of joy would be. So that’s why there’s an interspersion between a violin and a flute—the violin showcasing the moments of lull and the flute showcasing the moments of joy to show the dynamics of a romantic relationship. I believe that, in itself, can be quite meditative. The moments of joy cannot be experienced unless you have the moments of lull—and that makes for a beautiful piece of music which can really take your mind on a journey.” “Moonlight” “The raga used here is Shudh Sarang and this particular raga is more of a daytime raga but I used it to showcase what I would consider to be an experience of moonlight. I made this tune in about 2018 when I’d taken a trip to the Kali forest reserve, which is in Karnataka. It used to be called the Dandeli forest reserve. The reason I went to the reserve was to spend time at the Kali River. “I got to a point in the river which has sort of been untouched by people because it’s before it reaches any human settlements. It’s stunning. I stayed there for about two nights. One night, I ventured out for a walk in the forest. There was a full moon and the entire forest was lit by just the moon. My inspiration for this track was actually the sound of the crickets. It’s very soothing but if you try to record [their noise], it sounds terrible. Acoustically, it sounds good. We haven’t reached a stage yet where we are able to record that natural sound perfectly. So then it was basically taking the sounds of the night and interpreting them through the instruments, through the vocals that Shradha [Ganesh] sang and through the flute, which again Ravichandra Kulur played.” “Moment of Bliss” “As the title suggests, it’s about bliss. That’s what I feel—my bliss comes from making music. I’ve been a professional musician since 1999 and over the past 25 years, I’ve never taken a holiday. The reason is that I would never know what to do on a holiday. So for me, my moment of bliss comes from making music. Every moment of my free time goes into making music. Like, even when I’m talking to you right now, I’m thinking of a background score for our conversation. Music is always on my mind. The raga is Maru Bihag and the idea behind it is about discovering that moment of bliss and how it’s [used to] create music.” “Ecstasy” “Ecstasy is said to be the end result of a journey. But what I did with this particular song is explore how it’s all about anticipation—and that ecstasy never happens in the end. It’s all about a journey—you feel as if you’re going somewhere but you don’t actually get there. That’s something quite reflective of my life. The way that I’ve always led my life is that, as the Gita says, you do your job and don’t bother about the result. Even if this album is not successful, I will still be extremely happy because I got to make this album and I got to work with people like Ravichandra Kulur, [musician] Siddhartha Belmannu and more. I got to enjoy myself working on this album. And, you know, I got to explore all of these different facets of my life through this album, so it’s something that I’m absolutely proud of.” “Awakened Hope” “Being an environmentalist, I’ve always felt that there are two ways to communicate the problems of our world, especially when it comes to climate change, species extinction, pollution—all of this stuff. I broadly classify them as the Greta Thunberg approach and the David Attenborough approach. The Greta Thunberg approach is basically showcasing doom and gloom and shaming people into action, which is quite effective in the short run but it probably doesn’t have a long-term effect because it does not change behaviours in the long run. The David Attenborough approach is about using love and hope, because he makes all of these beautiful films and documentaries which show a pristine environment. So his ideas make everyone fall in love with the natural world and hopefully, through that love, we’ll find it within ourselves to protect, conserve and sustain our world. So that’s what this piece of music is about. It’s about optimism.” “Embers of Time” “This is inspired by time itself. At the end of the day, I believe that time is the best healer. Kamala Harris would call it ‘the significance of the passage of time’. Many times, when I am very depressed or upset about something, it may not be a huge problem or dilemma, but your brain tricks you into believing that it is at that particular point in time. You might feel like your life is over but, if you give it time, you will get over it. And then you just laugh at it because in the larger scheme of things, it didn’t matter at all. That’s what mental wellness is about—reminding yourself that there is a way out of wherever you are.” “Euphoria” “I listen to a lot of heavy metal. I’m a closet metalhead. When we talk about music for mental wellness, it’s about different kinds of music for different people. You can have the softer, more meditative music—as they say, the ‘boring’ music. But for some people, it’s different. So when I’m in the car or on a plane, if I want to be energised or if I’m depressed about something, I’ve got a playlist of metal—it has Pantera, Cannibal Corpse, Sepultura, Metallica, Limp Bizkit on it. So this track for me, it came from asking—in my style of music—what would be the equivalent of heavy metal? That’s where [singer] Sheila Samuel’s vocals came in. There’s also a vocal sample that I used from a sample library I’d purchased. This was the fastest song that I came up with for this album. I think that within not even a day—maybe three-quarters of a day—this particular track was fully finished. The reason I called it ‘Euphoria’ is because that’s what I feel when I listen to heavy metal music.”