#arji oceananda

[tomdork]

Circle of Celebration by NOUS with Laraaji and Arji OceAnanda

[stickymessy]

[dustedmagazine]

NOUS, Laraaji and Arji OceAnanda — Circle of Celebration (Our Silent Canvas)

Photo by Christopher Bono

Circle of Celebration by NOUS with Laraaji and Arji OceAnanda

Laraaji lets out a huge belly laugh at several intervals during this ecstatic set of musical meditations, part of a lifelong practice of seeking physical and spiritual health through hilarity. In his laughing meditation classes, the artist teaches that the laugh strengthens breathing, the nervous and circulatory systems, and, above all, it feels good to do it. It is a way of reaching the infinite, not as Western tradition does it, through suffering and isolation, but instead through joy. Circle of Celebration is all about that joy, achieved not just through laughing, but through buoyant, rhythmically pulsing compositions, that float and bound through time and space, like a moonwalker freed from ordinary gravity.

The album is primarily a collaborative process between ambient spiritualist Laraaji, who sings, laughs and plays an ethereal electronic zither, his touring partner and kindred spirit Arji OceAnanda also singing and playing a variety of percussive and electronic sounds and Christopher Bono of Nous, a shifting collective of artists convened to explore the spiritual dimensions of music. Bono and the two others met at a yoga retreat, thrown together at an empty lunch table between sessions and bonded over a shared love of meditative practices before they knew that they were all musicians. When that common thread emerged, Bono invited the pair to his Dreamland Studios where they meditated and improvised with a like-minded group of players on the NOUS I and NOUS II albums. Circle of Celebration is the fourth NOUS undertaking, and the one that puts Laraaji and OceAnanda at the center of its mystic exploration.

The cuts are long and open-ended, blossoming out over time with layered textures of synths and electronics, pounding drums and a great variety of alternate percussion instruments, cascading, intercrossing vocals and the natural sounds of water, stones and wind. The ensemble is heavy on drummers. In addition to the core three, Greg Fox of Guardian Alien, Thor Harris of Swans and Angels of Light, Greg Mcmurray from So Percussion and Kevin McMahon all contribute forms of percussion. Shahzad Ismaily does his usual restrained magic with electrics, guitar, bass and drums. As you might expect, the improvisations have a lot of rhythmic parts, but they are subtle. Things shake and rattle and jangle and pound, but only within the context of the music, which swells in an organic way, moving forward but also remaining meditative and centered.

The thrill of these pieces comes, in large part, from the vocals, with solo lines that unfurl in silky waves, and muttering rhythmic communal choruses that support them. You can hear both the quest of the individual and the reassurance of the group in this singing, with leadership shifting from Bono to Laraaji to OceAnanda as the spirit moves them. The singing is also ecstatically non-verbal, or at least non-English, with phrases made of exuberant “heys” and “bah-bahs” and “oom-a-lay-has,” expressing joy but not narrative. Some of the phrases may be mantras (like “Hari Ram”), but others have the aura of speaking in tongues, the spirit running on ahead of the mind to find epiphany.

It is hard to express exactly how uplifting this music is, how it creates a bright, lucid, dreamlike space and maintains excitement and calm somehow simultaneously. If you find yourself needing good, positive vibes some gloomy December afternoon, when your Twitter feed is about the end of everything, and it’s cold and you’re out of energy, put on Circle of Celebration. You might even try laughing. You’ll feel better.

Jennifer Kelly

[sneek-m]

Arrive Without Leaving by Laraaji, Arji OceAnanda & Dallas Acid [Flying Moonlight, 2018]

♪ Listen: “This Much Now” | Stream/Purchase via Bandcamp

[burlveneer-music]

Laraaji, Arji OceAnanda and Dallas Acid - This Much Now from new LP Arrive Without Leaving (Flying Moonlight)

ARRIVE WITHOUT LEAVING combines LARAAJI and Arji OceAnanda’s masterful therapeutic sound baths with DALLAS ACID’s immersive synth and gong work to create an album falling somewhere between progressive new age and ambient minimalism with an astounding beauty. Mixed and recorded by Jeff Zeigler (The War on Drugs, Mary Lattimore, Kurt Vile). LARAAJI electrified zither, mbira, percussion, electronics, voice, ThumbJam electric violin, samples Arji OceAnanda percussion, ThumbJam strings, ThumbJam flute, Peruvian cacho seed pods, hand chimes, mbira, shakers DALLAS ACID Linda Beecroft steel tongue drum, gong Michael Gerner Moog synthesizers, Mellotron Christian Havins Moog synthesizers, Mellotron

[sawdustandgin]

This collaboration between Laraaji, Arji OceAnanda, and Dallas Acid feels like a dream. Or perhaps it just sounds like a dream, given their focused ambient musings. The group came together for a six-hour session at Brooklyn’s Vibromonk Studios, and from there they recorded five tracks; those are now part of a record called Arrive Without Leaving, due out this Friday. Pre-order.