Karen Salicath Jamali’s OM Mare Shangri-la marks a striking new chapter for an artist whose musical journey began in an extraordinary place. A Danish-born American composer, pianist, singer-songwriter, guitarist and visual artist, Jamali began composing after a near-death experience in 2012 that profoundly reshaped her understanding of consciousness and connection. After years of creating dream-inspired piano music, she now steps into the role of vocalist and lyricist for the first time across a full album, bringing her voice and acoustic guitar into the musical universe she has spent more than a decade constructing.
The album’s opening track immediately establishes that otherworldly atmosphere. Strumming guitars pluck gently beneath deep, heavy strings that writhe through the arrangement, while Jamali’s thick voice sings with a sensational, almost elemental presence. Her imagery of waves, swimming seals, sunlight and an “ocean of the seals” turns the sea into something larger than scenery, it becomes a meeting place where thoughts, love and memory continue moving beneath the surface. The repeated waves in the lyrics mirror the music’s own cyclical quality, as though the song itself is drifting with the tide.
“Never Forget Who You Are” takes that sense of connection further. Mysterious, deep strumming and plucked textures accompany Jamali’s rich low-range voice as she trails softly through the verses before soaring with greater intensity. As rhythm gradually enters, the song becomes more animated without losing its meditative core. Its lyrics move from grass, wind and sand toward the vastness of stars and galaxies, repeatedly returning to the belief that humanity comes from the same source.
That idea becomes the album’s emotional gravity: beneath its unusual imagery and dreamlike musical language is a persistent insistence on togetherness.
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Review by: Naomi Joan