It's Saturday night and a handful of people quietly file into Yoga on Centre, kick off their shoes, grab yoga mats and blankets, and stretch out on the bamboo floor.

Steve Sciulli of Life In Balance sits cross-legged at the head of the room. He looks like a cowboy zen-master in a straw hat and white hair flowing to his shoulders. His weathered face is hidden behind heavy black-rimmed glasses, and he's surrounded by an array of musical instruments, a laptop computer and a mike stand. He fiddles with the computer and then grabs a flute and fills the air with warm, ambient sounds.

Ami, his wife, prepares the huge array of quartz crystal bowls for action. She moves them with childlike wonder, an inch here, a half-turn there, making sure they are perfectly placed. She gently rings her finger cymbals three times, so that each clear tone resonates high above the flutes. Then she reaches for her mallets and delicately strikes two large bowls, causing a vibrational drone to fill the room.

The sound healing meditation session has officially begun.

Anyone who remembers seeing Steve Sciulli in his early days playing fiery punk with the band Carsickness, world music with Ploughman's Lunch or sitting in and stealing the show from the dozens of other bands he's played with might think that his new direction is a complete departure from the past.

They would be wrong.

Sciulli's career weaves a common thread in the musical tapestry of his life. He's always breaking new ground, always staying ahead of whatever music scene he is involved with -- Life In Balance, his current project, is no different. "I judge the musical experience by thinking, 'If I heard this coming out of a bar, would I go in?' "

By taking the listener's experience and putting it at the forefront of what he is creating, he has once again turned the tables upside-down and conjured up music that is meant to be seen, heard, felt and experienced.

Life In Balance started in 1997 when Steve and Ami came together personally and professionally. Both were exploring the relationship of health through sound and its effects on the subconscious. Eight months later they married in an intimate ceremony officiated by a shaman on a private farm in Smicksburg, Indiana County, with a few friends in attendance.

The progression of music grew with their relationship as they criss-crossed the country performing sound healing meditations wherever they were invited. In these "sessions," they listened to feedback from the participants and tweaked everything from their tonal modalities to spoken monologue in an attempt to usher the listeners to a place of relaxation and healing in the subconscious mind.

"For the most part, we work under the assumption that what a person needs, they already have. We provide the sonic environment for the healing to happen within their own DNA strands."

You'll hear a lot of talk about DNA and energy forces coming from the pair. They bill themselves as "pioneers in ambient and trance-inducing electro-acoustic music -- balancing tradition with sacred technology."

You'll also hear them inviting the listener to "plug into the cosmic transmission to support your own transition." This sounds like a bunch of New Age speak, but even a casual listener who may not spiritually subscribe to the belief system of Life In Balance can't help but to be affected after sitting through one of these sessions.

Ami, whose primary instruments are crystal bowls, explains, "When you are close to the bowls, you physically feel them -- the vibrations are like a sonic-healing reiki massage. It's just massive."

The bowls are made of crystal quartz and range from 14 to 20 inches in diameter. Additionally, there are four higher-frequency alchemy bowls that incorporate other substances from the earth -- rose quartz, moldovite, indigo and gold. Each bowl produces a drone-like sound with a unique tone and vibrational force. They are "activated" when gently struck on the rim with a mallet. The sound and the vibration grow larger and louder as the user moves the mallet around the rim in a constant motion creating a centrifugal force.

After a few years, Life In Balance was getting recognized for its efforts, ending up on the playlist of the nationally syndicated public radio show "Echoes," making annual visits to Denver to perform at the International New Age Trade Show (INATS) and accepting the invitation of keynote presenters for the Universal Lightworkers Conference in Boca Raton, Fla.

During this time they started to move in a more forward musical direction because of the undeniable changes in the political and environmental landscape. "After a number of years of relaxing people, it was time to wake them up. We really became aware of one's responsibility to each other and to the planet."

The group has started performing with more percussion and added a second element -- electronic dance-trance music. The newer wave includes an electronic woodwind instrument, traditional and Japanese flutes, bowls and some other fun things. Now, the pair is working both ends of the spectrum: sound healing meditations for those longing for a quiet introduction to the inner self, and an all-out world-jam for those looking to explore within some controlled chaos.

"The meditative or reflective ambient music is what we call the 'inbreath,' " Steve says. "The external global electronic trance dance music is what we call the 'outbreath' -- this motion keeps us alive and gives us a natural rhythm."

In Denver, they had a mini-revelation. "We were asked to do a showcase to the New Age music industry" -- at INATS, where showcases were quiet meditative affairs. "We were looking down at hundreds of vendor booths where everyone was selling their own brand of spirituality. We decided that we would use our showcase to put the final nail in the New Age coffin and create a post-New Age sound -- we were going to blow the roof off the place and call it a day."

They played their set and pumped the intensity up further and further until the drones of the bowls had the hall shaking. Everyone was staring and dead silence fell when they finished their set -- then the place burst into applause. That week, they struck a record deal with Koch Records.

Last summer, they set out to record their new release, "Om to Ohm," which firmly lays down action from all levels. Steve Kornicki and Maurice Rickard contributed their musical talents while Steve laid down new sounds on the electronic woodwind instrument and lap steel guitar. Ami's "bowl family" continues to grow with her collection of chimes. Steve laid down all of the basic tracks in an astounding three days when he retreated to a cottage in Somerset to work. "Working within the electronic realm, it was just so easy to get super clean takes that were really fresh."

After all of these years toiling to make it, Scuilli has no regrets. "Working in the early days, the music was more about attitude than musicianship. Life In Balance is not what we do, it's who we are. The arc and the attitude of Life In Balance is different and I would never belittle those early experiences -- I learned to trust the music and never compromised my core creative beliefs."

Watching the duo perform is like seeing water spring forth from a natural fountain. There is nothing forced about it. Together, they are hopeful about the future and not focused on material success. "We want to achieve a critical mass and be little sonic Johnny Appleseeds. We roll into town, leave a mark and see how much it has grown the next time we come around."