Ajeet's catalogue reads like a long walk from the mantra-built records of her early years toward something more rooted in story and home. Sacred Waters (2013) held music for Kundalini Yoga meditations. At The Temple Door (2014) wove songs and mantras together with harmonies from Snatam Kaur. Darshan, Haseya, Shuniya, Indigo Sea, the LUNAR EP, the live Voices Like Rain and Let It Breathe followed. In 2020 she moved back to Ireland and began working from her home studio.
Soften arrived on 3 March 2026 as a four-track single, and it belongs to the Ireland-based chapter of that arc. Its title song also appears among the ten songs of Slánú, the album she released later in the year. That makes the single feel like an early window onto a larger body of work. It is a first look at where the music was heading, and a way to hear the idea of softening before the full album arrived.
The single's four tracks are "Soften," "Heartbeat," "From The Water" and "Viento." The last three had each come out as singles in late 2025, so this release gathers them behind a new song.
Ajeet's music, in her own descriptions, moves from traditional Irish folk toward mystical, meditative soundscapes, and that tension between song and stillness is the lens to bring to Soften. Her recordings tend to rely on layered harmonies, acoustic and electric guitars, hand percussion and Celtic harp, as on Voices Like Rain. Her band also brings together musicians from Spain, Ireland and the United States, and harpist-vocalist Aisling Urwin is a longtime bandmate.
What her body of work suggests is a patient pace, voices placed close and warm, and a mood built to settle the listener rather than push them somewhere. The title itself is an instruction as much as a name. Expect music that asks you to loosen your grip.
"Soften." This is the new song here, and it is the natural entry point. A title song on a four-track single carries the thesis of the release, so listen to it first and then let "Heartbeat," "From The Water" and "Viento" follow. It also resurfaces on Slánú, which makes it worth comparing across contexts. Hear it as a single, then notice how it sits among the album's other songs, such as Healing Song, Heartbeat and only you know where peace is. The titles alone show a record preoccupied with tenderness, healing and rest, and "Soften" fits that company.
What to listen for is how the song handles its own central word. A song about softening can only land if the performance does it too: the breath in the vocal, the room left between phrases, and whether the arrangement lets silence do some of the work. Ajeet's strength has long been that her songs carry folklore, dream images and myth without feeling heavy, so listen for imagery that arrives gently instead of being announced.
Ajeet's music sits at a crossroads. It carries the repetition and devotional intent of the mantra world that shaped her first records. It also carries the Irish folk tradition of her background, with its love of story and passed-down tales. Add the ambient, meditative pull of her later soundscapes and you have a devotional music that isn't tied to a single form. Soften is best heard as a modern devotional song: prayer-adjacent and meant for the body as much as the ear, but speaking in the plain language of a folk singer.
This single will mean the most to someone who is tired in a way that effort can't fix. That might be a person in a season of grief or recovery, someone coming off a long stretch of overwork, or anyone who has been holding themselves rigid against hard news. It suits yoga and meditation practitioners, who will recognize the roots of her earlier work. It also suits listeners who come to devotional music through folk and want it without ceremony or heavy doctrine.
If you prefer high-energy kirtan with big group singing, this may feel quieter than you want. The invitation here is inward.
Give it a quiet evening and headphones. The point of a record like this is closeness, and headphones let you hear the small things: a breath before a line, the way harmonies stack, the texture of the instruments under the voice.
Play the four tracks in order, once, without doing anything else. Sit or lie down, let your shoulders drop on the first listen, and don't try to analyze anything. On a second pass, return to "Soften" alone and follow the vocal line. If you keep a ritual, whether tea, a candle, a few minutes of breathwork or journaling afterward, this is the kind of music that rewards it. Let the last track end, and sit in the quiet for a minute before you reach for your phone.