I hardly expect to learn about new music while chatting on Google Chat with a fellow soccer fan on a Tuesday afternoon, but that’s how I came to know about Laya Project. The music definitely resonates with me; I just recently came back to the US after a fifteen month stint in Malaysia. The songs are as diverse as the regions they originate from – South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Laya Project is the brainchild of Sastry Karra, an executive producer at the record label Earth Sync in India,  who wanted to document the sounds of the regions devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Twenty songs from Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand come to life in this exquisitely beautiful recording.

This album definitely takes me back to that day in late March when I was on a train in Sri Lanka on my way to Kandy from Colombo. Like that train ride, this album is witnessing the extraordinary in the simple and the ordinary. It’s beautiful.

Here’s the “Glorious Sun Remix” from Laya Project: