Aïsha Devi: A Sonic Meditation

For Aïsha Devi, art is a means of pushing against cultural boundaries. With an interest in dislocating pop culture, her practice is guided by meditation, channelling metaphysical research, ritualistic practice and healing frequencies into sound, performance and visual art. Born in the Swiss Alps with Nepalese-Tibetan heritage, Devi has incorporated her transversal identity into her practice by exploring the sonic application of monastic practices. 

Since releasing her debut album Of Matter and Spirit via Houndstooth in 2015, Devi has released two more albums and collaborated with Chinese artist Tianzhuo Chen on a string of videos, as well as performances together with the Asian Dope Boys collective, most notably at The Barbican and The Broad Museum (LA). More recently, she composed for and performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra at London’s Queen Elizabeth Music Hall. 

In June, the experimental artist and vocalist will collaborate with set designer Emmanuel Biard to present “Les Immortelles” – a mystical performance of her latest album “Death Is Home” which blends cyber-spiritual ballads together with ritualistic club tracks. Ahead of this spellbinding show, SLEEK speaks to Aïsha about meditation, the process of translating her sounds to the orchestra and what the future of music looks like.

SLEEK: How did you find your way to music?

Aïsha Devi: I first discovered singing when I was a child. The conditions of my upbringing were violent, and singing in nature imagining whole gothic requiems while walking the dog became a  liberating power. It emotionally freed me and opened a whole new world. I  could finally exist beyond the abuse. 

After I graduated from art school with a degree in graphic design, the hyper creativity mode I encountered in art school faded and the perspective of working solely on a 2D medium wasn’t animated enough for me. I  remembered how singing had me feel vibrant and I felt the urge to create instrumentals that could support my vocals. I opened my laptop and didn’t launch Illustrator but Ableton instead and the geek morphed into a neophyte shaman.

S: Your sounds are described as otherworldly, as though they don’t belong to this planet. How would you describe the planet of Aïsha Devi?

AD: My initial stimulus was exclusion . I had to create a world where I could feel belonging outside of this reality. Music became the fabric to generate my own universe where I could redesign my fate, express my hybrid identity, transcend the 3D, and emerge as multiform. In the process I realised that music is the order and the disorder of the intangible; I injected my theories into sonic techniques that initiate an augmented state of consciousness and generate decorporealization. This otherworldly feeling is a trance where spacetime and gravity are dissolved, an initiation that guides one to the Aether.

S: Can you tell us more about your process when making a track?

AD: Meditation, mantras and chanting are techniques of autohypnosis and are the essence of my production. I am deeply influenced by ancient religious and pagan rituals. I alter spatial and physical perceptions by mixing ancestral knowledge and physics using specific frequencies, non-diatonic sequences, infinite reverberation… Some structural aspects and choices for intentional tones are theoretical but all the rest is empirical, ecstasy and alchemy.

S: When did you begin to explore your spirituality?

AD: The whole concept of spirituality has been drained and turned into a capitalist well-being promotion. I prefer to describe my syncretic approach with the idea of metaphysics, a concept that encapsulates all knowledge of the invisible. 

S: Is performance a form of mediation for you? How do you feel when you’re on stage?

AD: I love for the performance to be different from the record – the context of experiencing the music is changing so the initiation should be adapted from a micro introspective experience to a macro infinite ceremony for collective healing. When I hit the stage, I’m already in an alternate state of consciousness using my body as a resonance cage to amplify the frequencies and the vibrations; a sort of superconductor that connects present minds and bodies to alternate realms.

S: You are about to release the live recording of “Aethernal Score’’, your commissioned piece for the BBC Concert Orchestra which was performed at Southbank Centre in 2021. Tell us about the process to translate your electronic productions into orchestral instrumentation.

AD: I wanted to produce one continuous organically flowing piece with themes from my two preceding albums and original material; it was composed with a narrative articulation and dramaturgy in order to feel like a film soundtrack. Witnessing my music which was composed in introspection being translated into a score and played by a full orchestra was mind blowing. 

Robert Ames, who orchestrated my piece, completely resonated with my will to enhance the orchestra’s full spectrum, exaggerate it’s physical impact and allocate certain instruments to specific ranges of frequencies. Since my piece contains some binaural moments and it’s unnatural for a classical ensemble to hit quarter tones, I decided to play along with the orchestra to be able to provide the precise frequencies which would ensure the brainwave effect I aimed to induce. Orchestral instruments don’t produce sub frequencies so I wanted to bring the subs into the equation and generate a wall of sound with the lower frequency impact you experience in a club. 

S: For your show at Sónar this year, you’ll be performing your 2023 album “Death Is Home” in collaboration with scenographer Emmanuel Biard. How did this collaboration come about, and what can we expect?

AD: I had met Emmanuel twice when he was touring with other artists. We realised while talking after my shows that our creative substance and language was very similar. So when planning the new show “Les Immortelles”, I reached out to him and during our first video call we had a near-telepathic level of communication. I sent him precise intentions, requesting specific illusions and supernatural phenomena; a multidimensional odyssey scenario which was practically impossible to create, but he did it.

S: Sónar is looking to the future of music through platforming the realities of the now. To you, what does the future of music look like?

AD: More transdisciplinary raves for more collective enlightenment.

Sónar 2024 returns to Barcelona from 13 to 15 June. Get your tickets here.