Ilka de Gast, PsyD, a California based singer-songwriter hailing originally from the Netherlands, announces the release of her debut album, the eleven-track, “Ocean Of Light: Music To Soothe The Soul.”
De Gast is a sound healer, Wisdom Healing Qigong and meditation teacher, researcher, and licensed psychologist. For the past thirty years, she has worked with multiple sacred sound healing modalities from around the world, including the ancient art of overtone singing, i.e., the art of creating two vocal notes simultaneously.
Ilka teaches her classes online as well as in person in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA, and leads sacred sound retreats internationally. Ilka’s meditation music is featured in Dr. Joe Dispenza’s advanced meditation retreats as well as at several other venues around the world. As well, “Spirit Eyes,” the first track on the new album, is featured in the short film, “Journey to the Heart,” which will be released soon.
After studying overtone singing in London, England, with Dr Jill Purce, who having learned this ancient technique from Tibetan and Mongolian chant masters in the Himalayas, was one of the first to bring overtone singing to the West, Ilka discovered that the use of overtone singing could bring a sense of calm and joy to people and animals alike. Ilka, then in her late 20s, first discovered this when she began using the technique in a variety of settings, including a communication research program with dolphins at Epcot Center in Florida.
After the other research participants and trainers went home for the night, Ilka would sit by the side of the pool and overtone sing to two beautiful dolphins who had been kept in cement tanks for many years. The dolphins were aggressive with their trainers and often drifted listlessly in the chlorinated water. As soon as Ilka would begin to sing, they would leap up from the water, “dance” around the pool, and come to rest only feet away from her. As she continued to sing, the dolphins would lock their eyes on her while moving their heads from side to side. Ilka sang to the dolphins for the remainder of the program and also reported her discoveries to the founder of The Dolphin Project, a dolphin rights group.
The magical connection with the dolphins through sound remained with Ilka as part of her intrinsic fabric. Many other unexplainable and profound spiritual experiences along the way opened de Gast to the realization that there was something more than this physical world and the five senses; a spiritual dimension that lies beyond the veil.
Ilka became fascinated by the field of Cymatics – the effect of sound on matter – and started creating her own music in 2021. She began combining the other-worldly sound of overtone singing with her regular singing voice to create soothing, relaxing, meditation tracks. As well, Ilka brings a variety of other instruments into her music and actually learned to play the Native American flute for her second song, “Abalone Skies.” Ilka has been fortunate to collaborate musically on the album with two award-winning musicians and audio mixing, mastering engineers, Tommy Graven and Hank Kalleen.
Each of the eleven compositions on the album takes the listener on a sacred sound journey of relaxation and meditation, helping to soothe the soul, and access inner wisdom and joy. Ilka’s musical inspiration comes from the powerful, expansive Pacific Ocean. She spends many hours on the cliffs of the Bodega Bay Headlands, connecting to Source and allowing melodies and ideas to flow through to her while enjoying the stunning vistas, the company of whales and seals, and pelicans flying overhead.
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