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Archive for the ‘Soma’ Category

Grails (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 30, 2024)

Posted in Grails, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Soma on July 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 30, 2024] Grails

My friend Eleanor told me about this show and I immediately grabbed a ticket.

Grails opened with a mellow almost spooky instrumental with Jesse Bates playing synth and flute.  Alex Hall did something with his phone in front of his guitar’s pickups.  I wonder what app he was using.

Then the whole band kicked in drummer Emil Amos (who was incredible but who I couldn’t see very well because of the keyboard in front of me) played a delicate rhythm.  I stood almost in front of Ilyas Ahmed who played guitar in so many different styles, he was marvelous to watch.

And there was a keyboard player in the back who I literally never saw but who was playing low end and waves of sounds.

As the song progresses, Bates played slide guitar–a pretty melody  over the waves of music.  And the song builds and builds.

Through the course of the night, there were excellent bass lines, some wild drums, and more flute.

The whole night set was terrific.  The moods and emotions that they conveyed through these instrumentals were terrific.  What was interesting/amusing was the videos the venue showed behind the band. I don’t know if the band had any say in the video but I enjoyed screen shots like “Rivers turn to blood” and what looked like someone having a psychedelic trip.  At one point during a quiet moment I saw Amos look up at the screen and chuckle.

The set ended with Origin-ing–a fast bassline with some terrific starts and stops as the band was totally in sync.

It was a great show and I’m so glad I got to see them live.

  1. Word Made Flesh ♦
  2. Sisters of Bilitis ∇
  3. Immediate Mate ♠
  4. New Prague Ψ
  5. Burden of Hope ß
  6. Belgian Wake-Up Drill ≡
  7. Lord I Hate Your Day ß
  8. Evening Song ∇
  9. Sad & Illegal ∇
  10. Origin-ing ∞
∇ Anches En Maat
ß The Burden of Hope
≡ Black Tar Prophecies, Volume II
∞ Burning Off Impurities
Ψ Chalice Hymnal
♠ Doomsdayer’s Holiday
♦ Redlight

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Soma (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 30, 2024) [GRAILS]

Posted in Grails, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Soma on June 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 30, 2024] Grails

I saw Soma play at a church in Asbury Park.  The night was an evening of cool video projections and transcendent music.

I really enjoyed their set which was based around sacred music inspired by Krishna.  At the church I really couldn’t see them because lights were low so the projections on the walls would show up better.

At this show the whole band was visible and I enjoyed seeing the vast array if instruments they played–including two double-barrelled flutes and a shell (I’ve never seen anyone blow into a shell to make a sound before).

The music has a trance-like element with repetitive phrases, chanting and simple percussive beats.  At this show a woman sat cross legged on the floor as soon as they started.  And a guy on the side occasionally burst out in joyous affirmation–which I thought was weird, but which the bands seemed to find normal.

There are two main vocalists and virtually every song is a call and response in which the rest of the band (and crowd) sing along.  I enjoyed watching everyone playing their instruments up close and seeing the random assortment of instruments that they were playing as well–so much percussion. (more…)

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Luminous Abstract presents Sonic Mass featuring Soma (Trinity Church, Asbury Park, NJ, March 1, 2024)

Posted in Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, Cementation Anxiety, Soma, Tramutanas, Trinity Church on March 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 1, 2024] Soma

Soma is an acronym for Sacred Order of Mystic Apogees.  It’s unfortunate that they go by Soma as there are about a half a dozen bands named Soma.  They are a New Jersey based band that plays spiritual/religious music.

I will display my profound ignorance of Indian/Hindu culture by saying that I realized by the end of the set that they were singing mantras like Hare Krishna, but I don’t know if only the Hare Krishna movement (?) sings this refrain.

I did look up some information about the Hare Krishna movement and learned this (from NPR)

The Hare Krishna movement is a branch of Hinduism, formally known as Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Its name comes from its chant — Hare Krishna — which devotees repeat over and over. It was started in the 16th century by Sri Chaitanya of Bengal (1486-1533). He emphasized the worship of Krishna and believed that chanting the names of God was so powerful that in addition to one’s own meditation on them, they should also be chanted in the streets for the benefit of all.

So that’s nice.

The band’s instagram handle is soma_kirtan.  Kirtan is (according to wikipedia) a

genre of religious performance arts, connoting a musical form of narration or shared recitation, particularly of spiritual or religious ideas is a call-and-response or antiphonal style song or chant, set to music, wherein multiple singers recite the names of a deity, describe a legend, express loving devotion to a deity, or discuss spiritual ideas

There was no call and response at our set but there was a lot of chanting. (more…)

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Luminous Abstract presents Sonic Mass featuring Tramutanas (Trinity Church, Asbury Park, NJ, March 1, 2024) [SOMA]

Posted in Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, Cementation Anxiety, Soma, Tramutanas, Trinity Church on March 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 1, 2024] Tramutanas 

The only thing I could find out about Tramuntanas online (in addition to their Instagram page) is this cryptic statement on their website:

Tramuntanas, a new instrumental duo from Baltimore, features Asa Osborne (known for his work with Zomes, Lungfish, and the Pupils) and Canadian sound and video installation artist Shan Collis. The duo will release their debut album in 2024.

So imagine my surprise when Tramuntanas (which means the north wind, I believe), turned out to be a trio.  Asa Osborne was on bass (a great bass sound), Shan Collis played keys (and I assume triggered the amazing visuals) and a third person played sax.

I’m not usually one for saxophone, but this gentleman (whose name was never given) was great.  He played elliptical lines and sounds–solos but never lengthy guitar solo type solos.  He accented the otherwise simple music and his sax was haunting throughout.

Unlike Cementation Anxiety, Tramuntanas’ songs were all short–3 minutes or so.  Some were super catchy with great bass lines, others were pretty and meandering.

Of the three bands, I enjoyed their lights the most–they really synched up with the music nicely.

I’m really quite curious to hear what their recorded output will be like–they have a bandcamp page but there’s nothing on it.

Such a mystery!

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Luminous Abstract presents Sonic Mass featuring Cementation Anxiety (Trinity Church, Asbury Park, NJ, March 1, 2024) [SOMA]

Posted in Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, Cementation Anxiety, Soma, Tramutanas, Trinity Church on March 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 1, 2024] Cementation Anxiety

This night of shows was curated by Luminous Abstract, “a production, design and artist collective” who do “audio visual events and projection mapping antics.”

It’s hard to find very much about them (aside from their instagram page, but they seem to occasionally curate a Sonic Mass (I believe this is the fifth one).  The events are listed as

Sonic Mass: An Audio Visual Experience to benefit the Trinity Church’s well being Program.

Donations were appreciated and they raised $500 for the Food Justice Program at Trinity Church, which strives to meet the immediate needs of hunger in Asbury Park and to organize within the community to prevent hunger and injustice in the future.

So that’s pretty awesome.

Cementation Anxiety was added to this bill just before the show started, so I didn’t have time check them out.

I have since discovered that the band is basically the solo project of Kyle Nelson from the punk band Bodiless (who I didn’t know).

Spotify says the band is a

sonic departure from the intensity of Bodiless, Cementation Anxiety still endeavors to explore the catharsis present in both genres—predominantly through guitar—but also field recordings, oscillators, noise machines, and hardware tools.

It was pretty bizarre not being able to see the musician at all.  Occasionally when the projections were more bright, you could see Nelson with his guitar, but I had no idea how the rest of the sounds were being generated.

So it was a kind of wall of sounds.  He played guitar (which may have been a tweak too loud, especially compared to the other bands) but it was really interesting to watch (when he was visible) because his strumming didn’t seem to directly relate to the music that we were hearing.  There must have been effects galore on his guitar because he would strum really hard and the you couldn’t hear the individual strums like you would in a punk show, it was like the intensity of the wave of music just got bigger.

He switched guitars a couple of times and that changed the timbre of the music.  It felt old school industrial, but not.  It was powerful, bordering on overwhelming.

I later chatted briefly on Instagram with Kyle and he told me that the first half of the set came from his EP Liminal Instability and the second half was from an unreleased album coming out in May.

It was a cool way to start the night and the visuals were a great accompaniment.

Much applause goes to Luminous Abstract and the three bands.

(more…)

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Devandra Banhart / Soma (Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, October 13, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, Devandra Banhart, Soma on October 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 12, 2023] Devandra Banhart / Soma

About ten years ago I was really into Devandra Banhart.  I enjoyed his weirdo folkie vibe and thought that he was a good deal of fun.

And then I seemed to lose track of him altogether.  I haven’t listened to him in ages.  I see that he’s cut his hair but he still looks like a wild, fun hippy.

His new album was produced by Cate Le Bon, whose sensibilities are wonderfully oddball.  The new album is pretty streamlined with lots of synth  I think it’s too mellow for me.

Soma is Soma Kirtan a New Jersey based musician.  It’s unfortunate that he goes by Soma as there are about a half a dozen bands named Soma.  It’s possible that this SOMA stands for Sacred Order of Mystic Apogees.  I can’t find much else about him/them.  Their music is beautiful traditional (I think) Indian music.  It would be fun to see this live too.

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