Karen Salicath Jamali’s First Full Vocal Album My First 9 Songs as a Singer-Songwriter
Release: August 28, 2026
Worldwide Distribution: Warner Music Group

OM Mare Shangri-la is my first full vocal album and the beginning of a new chapter in my music.

For more than a decade, my musical world was centered around the piano. Music came to me through dreams, often early in the morning,  they still do, and I would simply follow what I heard.

Then, unexpectedly, the music began arriving with words.

I started singing. I returned to my acoustic guitar. Some songs came through dreams, while others appeared spontaneously as I sat with the guitar in my hands. Little by little, these nine songs became OM Mare Shangri-la.

The Meaning of OM Mare Shangri-la The title can be translated as“The Cosmic  Ocean Paradise.”

Its meaning reaches back to a head injury and a near-death experience in 2012. During that experience, I found myself outside my body, far out in what felt like an immense universe and ocean of consciousness. I experienced this cosmic ocean as something we all come from and are still part of.

OM represents the cosmic sound — the vibration and sound  I experienced as fundamental to creation and to the structure of the universe.

Mare, meaning sea or ocean, represents the vast cosmic ocean of consciousness from which I believes we all come and to which we remain deeply connected.

Shangri-la represents the lost paradise — a paradise humanity has forgotten while living within the temporary experiences of earthly life.

This paradise is not simply a physical place. It is something we remember through love.

One of the deepest understandings I carried back from my near-death experience was that we are separate and that

 we only exist in love.

That understanding became the spiritual thread running through the album.

Love is where separation disappears.
Love is where we remember who we are.
Love is where the forgotten paradise begins to return.

The title OM Mare Shangri-la grew from these experiences and from the understanding that has remained with me ever since:

We are connected more deeply than we know, and love is what remains.

Although this is my first vocal album, I don't experience it as leaving my earlier music behind.

It feels more like another doorway into the same world.

The dreams, intuition, consciousness, stillness, and inner experiences that have shaped my piano compositions are now finding another form through words, voice, and acoustic guitar.

This is part of what I call Quintessence Music—the philosophy connecting my music and visual art through dreams, intuition, consciousness, stillness, and the heart.

The People behind the Album

I am deeply grateful to the extraordinary mastering engineers who became part of OM Mare Shangri-la.

Maria Triana, is an acclaimed mastering engineer with 2 decades of experience, at Sony Music she has worked with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Wayne Shorter, and Sting, and many more. She mastered four songs on the album.

Gary Gray, an award-winning composer, producer, and engineer whose career includes projects connected with Disney, 20th Century Fox, Hollywood Records, EMI, and CBS, mixed & mastered and is the producer of three songs.

Austin Leeds, an internationally experienced producer, recording artist, remixer, and engineer with a career spanning electronic music, production, and major-label releases, mixes & mastered Seeds of God.

I am deeply grateful for the sensitivity, experience, and care they brought to these recordings—and to all the wonderful people who have helped behind the scenes, encouraged me, believed in these songs, and helped this album find its way into the world.

OM Mare Shangri-la will also be submitted for consideration for 

The 69th GRAMMY ® Awards in Best Contemporary Folk Album.

I hope that when you listen, you find your own place inside these songs.

Perhaps somewhere within us, we still remember the lost paradise.

❤️ Karen Salicath Jamali