Jai Uttal, Thunder Love

"I feel like this album is about opening up to love—finally," he says. "That involved letting go of a huge part of me that said 'I don't deserve love,' or on really bad days, 'love doesn't exist.' For me, it's taken big catharses to change those deep internal patterns. I've immersed myself in a great number of spiritual practices, but truly embracing human life…that's what brought me through the times of terrible darkness and addiction." Thunder Love is, in many ways, a sonic approximation of darkness giving way to dawn. But in its depiction of the first rays of a new rising sun, there's an acknowledgment of the shadows that came before, shadows that Uttal addresses with bold directness on songs like "Bolo Ram (Let the Spirits Sing)," a multi-layered, densely-percussive piece that ranks with his most personal outpourings.