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Sing Sing Sing
I am bliss!
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MAHAMAYA
ETHEREAL
EXPERIENCE
DEMO REEL
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Mahamaya Ethereal Experience
"An ethereal experience established upon the vibrant sounds of the exhilarating World Music scene, the Mahamaya Experience has continually basked in its ability to transcend the listener into a ‘non-ego’ driven spiritual existence. Consistently challenging musical conventions, their experimental delineation of sentience serves as the crux to their enlightened and numinous approach to music." Reviewed by Mike Owen
Ranjit Makkuni - Mahamaya's Ethereal Experience featuring Ranjit Makkuni
by Beachsloth, November 2022.
An absolutely magical trip, Ranjit Makkuni presents a truly psychedelic experience on “Mahamaya’s Ethereal Experience featuring Ranjit Makkuni”. Things start and stop on a dime. His nimble fingers across about an entire history. Whole generations of sound get filtered through his razor-sharp vision. Rhythms prove to be of the essence as they are a life-affirming quality to the music. Vocals too feature their own honeyed aspect. Layer upon layer comes together, torn asunder, and reconfigured in completely dazzling ways. How it all pops with such color the work sprawls out to the infinite. Word choice matters for the general thrust of the work has an optimism to it, informing the listener to stay grounded in the here and now. Live in the present has a particularly sweetness given the undue amount of stress humanity unnecessarily puts upon itself.
Nods emerge to some of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar’s stunning forms. Much like Zia, there is that deliberateness even in the faster movements. The whole trip has that similarly immersive presence for it is easy to get lost in the whole of the sonic spectrum. Little modern flourishes do adorn Ranjit’s atmosphere however, giving it a distinctively contemporary version off the ancient classical stance. By allowing for the cross-pollination between the new and old, it further emphasizes the need to be in the present.
The subdued open belies the more hyperactive tact ready to be explored. Less of a single song and more of a series of suites the piece rolls through in a gleeful, carefree expression. Percussion goes for the tactile. Much of the song rests within this delirious blur. Honestly there is a lot of physicality to be found in the work. Over the course of the many textures the rippling effects result in something quite beloved. So much soul expresses its over the entirety, making sure that the entire feeling has a sun-drenched quality. For the final stretch all of these previous pieces and moments are revisited further adding to the cyclical nature of the track.
Ranjit Makkuni confounds listener expectations on the celebratory “Mahamaya’s Ethereal Experience featuring Ranjit Makkuni”.
Mahamaya Experience (Feat. Ranjit Makkuni) –
Mahamaya’s Ethereal Experience | Track Review
Mike Owen, November 2022
The World Music outfit returns with a captivating demo reel.
An enterprising movement combining the natural resonances of Southeast Asia with elements of Jazz, Rock, and Funk, Mahamaya Experience imparts an overwhelming sense of authenticity in an industry otherwise saturated with derivative sounds and repetitive ideas.
Fronted by legendary sitarist, Ranjit Makkuni, the World Music outfit has continuously delivered distinctive melodies, with Makkuni’s sharp playing and gravitation towards a mystical ambience crafting some exceptionally spiritual pieces of music.
A collection of demos, improvisations and excerpts from both current and pre-released music, Mahamaya Experience’s latest phenomenon has been coined as a “demo reel”. Combining their perceptive writing and vast soundscape to form one epic, spontaneous, near 9-minute track, Makkuni’s eclectic taste and dynamic composition emanates a sense of passion and hope right across the reel. While its structuring is certainly unorthodox, the spiritual body of ‘Mahamaya’s Ethereal Experience’ is graced with an extensive range of emotions, each of which align to form one coherent body of work. Symbolic of Ranjit Makkuni’s work to date, each of his influences conflate to deliver some of the most culturally diverse music currently being released.
Opening with the vibrant rhythms of ‘Samba Sitar’, Makkuni’s signature sympathetic strings quickly come to the fray, with the track’s unlikely stylistic combination inducing a real sense of psychedelia. Resurfacing later into the demo reel, the exhilarating pace generated by Makkuni’s detonating sitar as well as the bustling samba percussion, breathes boundless energy and life into the track, whose colourful, flourishing melodies serve as a representation of the biodiversity which resides within the rainforest. Equally painting a vivid landscape is the excerpt taken from the emphatic single, ‘2 Trains’, a pentatonic scale improvisation whose freely entwined melodies signify the endless capacity of life, where at any given moment two strangers can become two soulmates.
Expanding on the plucky reverberating buzz of the sitar, ‘Mahamaya’s Ethereal Experience’ also exudes optimism through some transcendental vocal performances. Containing fragments of the unreleased tracks ‘Village Songs’ and ‘Bliss is inside’, the ethereality of the demo reel is enhanced by these hypnotic passages. Aligning with Mahamaya Experience’s stance on nature, the former of these serves as an eco-awareness track, whose imposing message of sustainability is issued through provocative lyrics and alluring vocal harmonies. The elongated ‘Bliss is inside’ culminates the demo reel using a pentatonic minor hymn, with its eloquent signification of self-worth once again portrayed through the discerning combination of entrancing vocals and Makkuni’s intricate sitar skills.
Combining their most evocative tracks with some beautiful, melodic passages, Mahamaya Experience express the diversity of their musical scope, whose fusion of intense improvisation and exuberant Brazilian Samba induces a truly captivating body of work.
