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GRAMMY-winning producer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Kabir Sehgal is kicking off his new lofi series with bells and beats: retro reflections on the holidays, lofi vol.1, out now. A seven track collection of cozy grooves, ambient sounds, loops, and nylon guitar-plucked melodies, the new release is classic, chilled-out lofi music, but with real story and a beating heart.
Inspired by Christmas standards and the crackling warmth of the holiday season, bells and beats is a testament to a more universal experience of home and belonging, one that transcends place or time of year. Made with field audio Kabir recorded across the globe, from Grand Central to Muscat, Oman, and the Bavarian town of Helena, Georgia to the Palace of Versailles, it’s a musical evocation of the stillness felt between Christmas and New Year’s, and a reminder to use that stillness to stop, listen, and really hear the world and people around us.
After a string of high-profile collaborations with everyone from Lil Jon to His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Kabir made bells and beats out of a desire to make something completely on his own. Something reflective of his vision alone, something like the music he himself uses to relax, something easy. Not low-effort or unthoughtful, but something that could melt into the ears and just sink into the listener’s psyche. Lofi, but made with the same level of intention and with the same attention to detail put into the big collaborations.
Between the nylon guitar and the field recordings, bells and beats’ found sounds transport listeners to a different place - and state of mind - on every track. On “angels in grand central,” it’s under the station’s Celestial Grand Ceiling, where, after leaving the rushed lifestyle (and commute) of his banking days, Kabir was able to finally stop and make out the painted stars and Zodiac signs above him. On “tell me in vaduz,” it’s the streets and the Vaduz Cathedral in Liechtenstein, where bells Kabir recorded lead into a building beat. On his take on “We Three Kings,” “kings of muscat,” it’s the waves and wind of Muscat, Oman, paired with a bluesy, Middle Eastern-sounding guitar solo that cleverly invokes the original song’s lyrics of another Middle Eastern setting, Bethlehem’s plain.
On “hark the home,” it’s Kabir’s childhood living room on Christmas morning, complete with faint audio of his dad saying “Do you like it? Get another one” during present-opening. And in “auld lang stanley and sone,” it’s an old friends’ apartment off Central Park where Kabir used to ring in the New Year, at a party that was a tradition until it wasn’t anymore. “As we get older, the things we hold dear are gradually removed like people and places we love. That’s life. But at least we have music to help us cherish those memories,” says Kabir. The way we experience the holidays and the emotions they can bring up vary so much by person and situation - bells and beats captures that range.
Enjoy the holidays, find a little zen, and watch out for volume 2 of Kabir Sehgal’s lofi series in 2026.
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