Aïsha Devi

Chal Ravens

Hi everybody. Welcome to lecture number one of RBMA Bass Camp, my name is Chal, Chal Ravens, I’ve been working with RBMA for a little while, I’ve got a show on Red Bull Radio called Top Flight and today, well we have a guest who has been called “the high priestess of cybernetic conscious music,” which I think I like. She initially gained recognition some years ago now, but had a kind of a personal transformation maybe six years ago into her current style. She’s released several EPs and albums on the UK label Houndstooth and on her own label Danse Noire. She’s just about to release a new EP and has just... Or you’re in the middle of touring Europe.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah. I’m basically always touring.

Chal Ravens

Always touring. We’re going to hear a little bit about her, I think, quite unique approach to making music, her name is Aïsha Devi, please welcome her. [applause]

Aïsha Devi

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Chal Ravens

There’s quite a lot to get through, but you wanted to do a bit of an introduction yourself to talk about the concept of frequencies. Yeah?

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, exactly.

Chal Ravens

Go for it, talk to us about frequencies first.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah I think because my approach to music is very much connected to that idea, that I think electronic music is the last contemporary medium that accesses ritualistic music and I think that electronic music is the platform for collective consciousness and actually inducing that kind of collective trance when we go into the forest and we rave together and we get that kind of elevating feeling and a kind of a communion and elevation together.

So for me I started to get aware about that when I start meditating and I learned a lot of about meditation, through meditation I learned a lot about what is actually music? What is sound? Are we talking about the invisible order? Because music is intangible, you cannot catch music, it’s in the air. It’s the frequency in the air, it’s through radio, it’s something that doesn’t really exist, it does exist only in our ear and it does exist also physically in our body.

So are we only talking about the invisible? Not really, because actually in quantum physics and modern physics theory it’s acknowledged that the origin of every matter, everything that you see, every form and un-form is actually manifested by a vibration, and a vibration is a frequency. So we can definitely say that sound is the source of every, the living, what we see, the matter. So I think that’s why ritual music is so important for me is that with good intention you can, and that’s what I’m aiming to do, produce music that is able to transcend to other dimensional spaces. We currently live in the 3D so we see stuff, we acknowledge the existence of the CDJ here or the computer, but there is acknowledgement of 11 dimensions, and scientists still don’t know how we go there. And I’m quite sure that with good intention in music you can actually transcend and elevate ourselves to upper dimensions. And I’m trying to produce music that is anti-gravitational. So that you maybe have seen some images of a frequency that is able to levitate things and I think that we are actually able to produce this kind of sound with our body, our voice and with specific frequencies from the computer.

And I think that pop music actually is very submissive to our human condition that we have to stay in the 3D, but electronic music actually goes elsewhere and we can experiment with this and it’s very empowering for me to use these techniques because I can feel the reaction when I’m playing live and I have actually different little tricks to produce this kind of altered state of consciousness and I apply that to the music and also the voice.

The voice I mean, it’s... Every instrument in the world is vibratory, you know you play the piano, you hit a note and then it will actually tap on the chord that will vibrate, that produces the sound, same with a guitar, same with a wind instrument, you blow and then it will actually activate a blowing and vibratory thing. So I think the voice is the most powerful vibratory instrument that exists, every animal has their own vibratory speed, and every human has a different vibratory speed. I don’t have the same voice as you have, everybody has their own signature and their own frequency and that’s what’s really interesting. And that’s what’s actually used in ritual music by shamans for instance, to guide people through invocations, through mantra, it’s used by ancestral culture. And it’s only in the Western countries that we don’t acknowledge that, that the voice actually can induce entrancement and healing. It has healing factors and I’m trying to use the voice a bit like a shaman too, as a kind of a guidance through a trip that you could have with music. I’m producing also music to put you in a certain state with your brain, and my voice will actually act as a kind of a shamanic guide, as if you take ayahuasca and you need a little bit of light to guide you through the trip.

So I use different methods, I used binaural beats in the music which consists a little bit... I don’t know if you know what binaural beats are. Basically you have two different frequencies on the left and on the right and your brain will have to do work to integrate [them] because it’s not natural to have two different sources of frequencies. So it will make you work actually, reorganize all your synapses and it will produce a kind of modified state of consciousness. So I use that in the music, but I also use that in the voice and it’s very interesting because on the production you can record your voice, put a certain tone of your voice on the left and a certain tone of your voice on the right and then [to] un-tune both voices will provoke that kind of magic actually, where your brain will not understand this voice as a human voice but a kind of a supernatural human voice. So this is one of my tricks so if you want to use it, be free to experiment because it’s very powerful.

I also use a lot... This is actually maybe very prominent in my live set, the exaggerating use of reverb and delay. You know in pop music, when you hear pop music now, I like pop music, but it’s very again submissive. It’s very framed. The use of the voice is super compressed and it really stays inside that human condition of the voice, it’s a bit of auto-tune, but nothing really crazy. You have to go outside of the pop music to understand that [the] voice has a bit of experiment as a different tool, like in metal music guttural voices are performed. In dub and reggae the amazing use of delay and echo that transform the voice. And that actually, that’s why reggae or dub music puts your mind and your body in another reality, because I think that reverb represents space and delay represents time and the three dimensions still have that time and space. And if you expand the reverb and the delay you can actually transcend these dimensional realms. So I’m using huge reverbs and huge delay that actually... Normally if you go through a program, you, any kind of a plug-in that is mimicking reverb that has that name, you can mimic the reverb of a room, you can mimic the reverb of a tunnel, you can mimic the reverb even of a cave. You can mimic the reverb of a church, but this is only mimicking space that does exist on earth, so I like that idea to produce a reverb that doesn’t exist on earth that is so huge that’s almost cosmic.

And so it’s actually, your brain will integrate this space as a non-earthly reality and it will put your brain into again a non-human condition. It will expand the space in your brain actually and put you in a trance.

Chal Ravens

I think when you’re playing live the voice comes through in an even stronger way than when you’re hearing it on record obviously, because you can see you actually doing it. Can you tell me, I mean you’ve mentioned this a bit with setting yourself against pop, but tell me how your approach to your voice differs from pop music, differs from someone who is making electronic music and singing over it?

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, I really think that pop music uses voices as information. And I think they have stories to tell, when they’re doing songs about, “Oh you left me, I have a broken heart.” It’s all about the information, so that has a kind of, not awareness about the frequency of the voice. Of course you have a voice that touches you and really gets into your bones and you’re moved by it, but it’s something very unconscious and actually the treatment of, again in pop music, is very squared and doesn’t go outside to transcend our human condition at some point. It’s always referring to very anecdotic things. And I think that it’s not that I’m against pop it’s just that I feel connected to ritualistic music, I feel connect to invocation and that’s also why I love electronic music because it has that ability of infinity.

For me electronic music is that space where the pattern is repetitive, where actually when I’m playing it’s good because I’m in a trance, I’m improvising, and it’s very much the impact of the audience they have on me and that kind of ping pong, responding to a certain energy. And I will never sing the same, so I don’t even know, I’m in that space, where I’m in a trance and I try to put people in a trance. And also with that idea behind my mind to heal people, you know, and I don’t think pop has that intention. Apart from selling. And I think more and more musicians now gather this kind of knowledge and know how frequencies impact our body and our mind and has the ability, I think that music has the ability to reorganize ourselves and even change our DNA because this just a representation of the mind, it’s the perception.

Chal Ravens

And you’ve explored some other singing styles as well, haven’t you? Like throat singing.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah exactly. Throat singing is something that comes naturally with meditating and as I have ancestor... I mean my father is from Nepal, I’ve always been... I grew up in Geneva in Switzerland so I felt a bit oppressed by that Calvinist system and everything so I needed to grab myself onto something that was different, something that I could connect with and I plunged myself into Asian ancestral knowledge. It’s not about religion, it’s about the knowledge of Hinduism, pre-Hinduism, the Vedic notion, the Buddhism and even Paganism and Animism you know, where voice and ritual music, and music actually was used as the essence. Music is actually, it’s an incantation, it’s a collective healing and it’s normally performed by a priest, so yeah.

Chal Ravens

Can you explain how throat singing actually works?

Aïsha Devi

So throat singing, it came across to me with Tibetan monks and they would actually have a ritualistic session, like kind of a prayer and they will start [with a] very, very low pitch and they will sing for one or two hours and then it will increase speed and increase pitch. And it’s very natural because every frequency has a connection with your body so when you are in a club and the subs are really banging, and I love that actually, when I play live it’s one of my most important priority that the subs are physical, it’s not, the subs are not a tone, the subs are actually a breath, a massage, and I like that massaging subs, you know. And they would start very, very low with a sub that’s kind of the weighting of the body and the highest they go in frequency and the highest you feel it in your body and then they will finish with a kind of enlightenment with the highest frequency here [points to top of head]. So throat singing and maybe all the Kargyraa singing, the Kume, Tuvan singing, Mongol polyphonic singing, actually is a kind of special resonance that you can do with your body.

So throat singing you will actually make a resonance, you find a resonance cage in your lungs that will act and produce a second resonance. So you have your fundamental resonance and with the vibration of your cage you will have a second one and it’s magical because actually you feel your whole body vibrating, especially in the throat singing that is low, I like it. And it will again act a little bit like a binaural because the second frequency is a bit detuned compared to the first one. So you get the oscillation that will provoke magic in your body and I don’t know if I can do it now. I will try. It’s really like something like [gives example of throat singing].

So yeah normally I need to train a little bit more but you can have a little glimpse of the... And what’s funny with the human frequency range is that our range is in between, depends for male and a woman of course, but I was always frustrated not to have a deeper voice, and our frequency is between 100 hertz and can go until 8K or something like that, so it’s quite small in the range of instruments. And I was always frustrated not to have other voices and when I discovered [throat singing] I was happy actually that you can disintegrate the idea that you have one voice, and you can actually develop multiple voices.

There is also the Kume, they are doing the resonance in the nose, I cannot do it, it’s really, really difficult because you have to find the resonance in the nose, it’s quite... But I’m working on it, but it’s just a kind of initiation thing that goes with the music, with the idea of finding the right frequency that will make everybody levitate.

Chal Ravens

Can we go backwards a bit then, because you’re actually a soprano, a classically trained soprano, right? Can you tell me a bit about your early experience with music and were you in a choir or what kind of singing were you doing?

Aïsha Devi

I mean, it was mainly an amateur choir, but I learned the techniques, I learned the rules, how of course you have to breathe, but the problem for me in classical music is that you are square into a technique and there is a right and a wrong, and for me music has no right, no wrong. I mean for me producing music, you know the rules and you break the rules. It’s all about, that’s why electronic is so empowering because you define your own territory and there is actually no limits. And I always train with this voice, and I love to use it as a soprano, it has also an impact. Classical music sometimes has also that idea of entrancement, with the poly-harmonization, the way it was also performed in churches, but this was used to hypnotize people for a certain idea, for a submissive idea or for religion. Again, I’m using all this little technique I’ve learned and grabbed them and transfer them into another place and hijack the clubs with this, because I’m still using sometimes the soprano voice in a performance, yeah.

Chal Ravens

What was your first encounter with rave specifically?

Aïsha Devi

The nature, I mean forest. In Switzerland, there is that very traditional idea of raving, collective rave, but in nature. It would be very secret. You have to find your friend, where is it? There is that excitement, you are doing something illegal, and it’s very empowering and very gathering, and you feel you belong almost to a little cult? It’s been very powerful, because it’s the first time I had subs going through my body, and actually all this let-go vibe where you feel that music has so much power on your bones, so much power on yourself, and you’re transformed. I think for me, raving was a transformative experience.

The first time I heard electronic music, it was Pan Sonic live, and it was only harsh noise and frequency. I was, oh my God, I almost puked, I must say. I felt like something that was very violent and brutal in my body, but I loved it, because that was like the waking up call. That was the thing that music has such an impact on you, just frequency. I realized that I needed to use this frequency to spread some knowledge and the power of frequency is real actually, yeah.

Chal Ravens

You were releasing for quite a long time until the sort of rebirth, I guess, as Aïsha Devi. Can you tell me a bit about that experience? I believe there was a particular moment at which you decided to return to your real name, is that right?

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, I think again, I found myself, because my family is not typically Swiss. I mean my half-sister is from Jamaica, my father is from Nepal, my stepfather is from Tunisia. He’s a Tuareg from the deserts, so I mean I integrated all these different perspectives in the world and never found my place really in Switzerland.

I think every strong transformation in me happened in nature, abroad [away] from Switzerland. Yeah, it was in the desert. It sounds a bit cheeky, but I was meditating in the desert and I felt so small. I heard noises, because even in emptiness and even in the cosmos, sound is there, sound, space, space is sound, you know? I felt that, and I realized that also in my music I didn’t need to put so much information. Actually again, space and reverb does organize the song as an energetic field, and it came to me like a knowledge, and I decided that... No, I didn’t decide actually, it came to my mind. Of course my real name is Aïsha Devi, it’s Sanskrit and it made sense with the path I was on.

Chal Ravens

It’s interesting that you mentioned dub and reggae at the beginning as well, because I think there are lots of similar ideas happening here. This idea of perhaps there being information that isn’t immediately given. Are you actually a fan of dub and reggae?

Aïsha Devi

I love all kinds of music, but I love this kind of music that puts you in an altered state of consciousness. I must say that dub and reggae really has this impact on my brain that I realize if you smoke a joint or you don’t smoke a joint, whatever. It’s a science and it has this impact on my synapses and I go away. I’m not belonging to this particular world, and it’s exactly like I have a track called, “I’m Not Always Where My Body Is.” This is exactly the feeling I’m talking [about] with dub you know.

Chal Ravens

It was important for dub as well, because so much of dub and reggae is about an imagining, a return to Africa, and also a connection with ancestors, you know?

Aïsha Devi

Exactly, and the way actually griot, for me hip-hop, for me hip-hop is also one of the only genre, if we can still talk about genre, hip-hop is one of the only genre in pop music that has that kind of entrancing quality. It’s the storytelling, of course there’s the information, but the debit of the voice, the frequency, the tone of the voice of the rap actually is a mantra, as a kind of the griot in Africa telling stories and healing people. It has very much that ability again to hypnotize you.

Chal Ravens

Are there any particular rappers that you like?

Aïsha Devi

I used to listen to tons of old school rap, but I like the mumble rap now, because it does illustrate exactly that idea, that words… It’s the same with... If you listen to mantra, or you do mantra and you do your mantra and then at some point the word doesn’t even mean something, it’s the frequency that lasts.

Mumble rap, actually for me it has that transformation in your body, the word is not even important, it’s the resonance and the consonants and the tone of the voice. It’s interesting also to see that it’s different from a language to another. When I speak French, my voice is lower than when I speak English for instance. Every language has their own entrancement ability, but actually it was a bit studying that’s why mantras in Sanskrit are very effective. Because I’m learning a bit of Hindi and in Hindi the voice is very guttural, so you will really use [makes guttural sound] you can hear a little bit of the claims of almost polyphony when you speak Sanskrit. This happens in your body and of course in your throat, and then it’s relayed in your whole body and then you vibrate. Probably Hindi makes you vibrate a little bit more.

Chal Ravens

Can you tell me what the words are?

Aïsha Devi

The words are magic ritualistic words, it’s the frequency. It’s mixed between Sanskrit and the best way to put your throat and mouth that will give the frequency to entrance.

Chal Ravens

You’re not writing lyrics?

Aïsha Devi

I do, I do, there is a specific thematic normally I like to talk about. Then it’s a free field, normally when I record it’s like a meditation or ritualistic session. I record four voices, four-track, I record maybe one or two hours in one flow. I get in a trance and what you can actually hear on the recording is 1% of it, because I like that idea that I’m totally out of space.

Chal Ravens

Tell me a bit about your studio, your set-up and what you would do to create the track like that, what’s gone into it?

Aïsha Devi

I’m very much concentrated on my laptop, because it’s a bit my base. For me the laptop is my brain extension, and I love to use... As long as I love to use the machines live, because I think I love the interaction between the oscillation and the gesture that has the impact on the oscillation and then the oscillation changes and the audience feels that there is the gesture, impact, the sound, I love that.

I’m using the JP-8080, Jupiter, which is an amazing machine that was produced in the ’90s and used for making basically trance music, like those huge trance anthems, because it has the specificity of the super saw [oscillator]. The super saw is actually binaural by itself. It’s two un-tuned frequencies, again, always coming back to that binaural thing.

Chal Ravens

Could you break down what a super saw is and why it’s a trance sound?

Aïsha Devi

A super saw is basically a frequency that is combined with a second frequency. A saw, you get different oscillation, but the saw is very much like the saw, like up and down like that. It’s very squared, I mean, very scratchy. Yeah, scratchy, exactly, it’s very scratchy. With the super saw, this is the saw, and the super saw is the combination of two frequencies, and one is a little bit altered, one is a bit un-tuned. It will act exactly as a binaural, and it will fuck up your brain literally. Especially because it has that scratchy ability, you can go on a high, the high frequencies are insane. Because again, the low frequencies are impacting here, the medium here, high here, [points to different part of body] and the highest frequencies will work on the highest part [of your body] and on your brain actually.

Chal Ravens

It’s the trance sound, isn’t it? It’s like when you think about…

Aïsha Devi

Exactly, yeah, trance music is named after this, that idea of trance.

Chal Ravens

If you’re recording maybe for an hour with your voice and getting into a trance yourself, but then you’re fixing that all up on Ableton and arranging it, how do you maintain a sense of extra dimensionality and all of these things when you’re looking at a screen? Do you ever find that just being on a screen takes you out of that?

Aïsha Devi

No, I don’t actually, because when I do EQ you look at your EQ and you do a little bit like that [moves knobs]. For me, EQ is in my head, it’s all a specialization in my head. It’s the same with my computer. All of my computer is actually there in my head, it’s in my brain. This is just a transposition of it, so I’m not stuck in a screen, I’m still in my brain.

Chal Ravens

That must be a skill that you’ve acquired through years and years of use.

Aïsha Devi

Maybe it’s the practice, or maybe it’s just depending on individualities. I don’t know, I cannot talk for other people, but it’s just that for me it’s the best, my best medium, and I have the feeling there’s nothing interfering between me and my ideas, and me or my impulses.

Chal Ravens

Sorry, so what were you saying that you use for your live set-up that would be...

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, for the live set-up it’s a bit different, because I have the Jupiter, the machines, and I use an effect for the voice, which for me is the best. I’m not using it for projection, but for live for me it’s... I’ve tested all of them, but it’s so lush and it’s digital but it still has the warmth and it keeps the warmth of my voice.

I don’t know if I can say names of it, yeah, it’s the Space Eventide, I don’t know if you know it. It’s like a stomp box like that, that you normally use for guitars, but I found it amazing on the voice. It does exactly make what I was telling you before about that idea of building space, especially [space] that is out of this world.

Actually, it’s funny, because the preset names are a little bit like that. It’s called the Spacetime, but the preset names are continuum, mega, I don’t remember, but mega dimensional or something. Yeah, actually people who produced the machine know that, they know that reverb can actually project your brain into altered state of consciousness.

Chal Ravens

Are you able to recreate the frequency effects that you want live? I imagine that must be quite difficult depending on the stage.

Aïsha Devi

With the voice you mean?

Chal Ravens

With everything I guess.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, with the voice definitely, because again, it’s finding the frequency that will elevate, it’s all about trance. If you are in a trance you eventually go there. With the music, definitely with the Jupiter. All of my production for live, I like to use all of the spectrums.

I like to stimulate of course the bass, with the bass, but basically I do a wall of sound. Of course, when I’m sending super high frequencies, they are super harsh. If you don’t hear the lower spectrum, it will feel unbalanced, it will feel super uncomfortable. But as I’m sending all the frequency range, it’s really balanced. I really take care of not staying in a little range, but actually cover the whole range, which is not only audible for human actually, because supersonic, there are frequencies above a certain K that you don’t hear and also sub you don’t hear it, you feel it. I like that idea to expand, and I’m quite sure that the more you stimulate this sound with our ears, the more you will be trained to hear them at some point. Animals can, why can’t we?

Chal Ravens

Right, there’s something for the animals if they want to come to your show, they’ll get a different experience.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, definitely.

Chal Ravens

Can we go back to meditation, because there’s been quite a lot of... Meditation has been absorbed into a mainstream narrative recently as this mindfulness thing, that the workspace has mindfulness and so on. Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences and how you think meditation can affect creativity I guess?

Aïsha Devi

For me, meditation brought me to gather knowledge and brought me some knowledge. At some point, when you meditate, you forget your body, and you understand a little bit the frequency. You understand that this is just a representation, and you have the sense and the perception of other manifestation.

It depends on the people again, but I’ll learn the breathing, I’ll learn... It helped me a lot to sing actually. What I learned with soprano singing was very oppressive at some point. Learning to sing when you’re meditating is all about the breathing. You follow your natural air, I would say. It helped me to breathe, it helped me to sing, but it also helped me to understand again, space again, that breathing and space is not empty. It’s a bit like a poster in graphic design, like the space... In a poster, there’s not only information, there’s space. Actually the space will organize the thing, you know? Space is as important as the tone, I understood that with meditation.

Chal Ravens

You trained as a graphic designer, right?

Aïsha Devi

Yeah.

Chal Ravens

Do you feel like you still see things in a sort of visual way sometimes?

Aïsha Devi

Oh, definitely. As an observer on the world, definitely. A transduction about fact and anecdote into something that is intangible sometimes, idea concepts, yeah, definitely. I kept that.

Chal Ravens

I don’t know which one it is, but I have read that there’s... Obviously you have a belief that meditation, that frequency can actually affect you on a cellular level. Somewhere I’ve read that there’s a track of yours that makes you younger. Tell me more.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, I mean, again, when I produce music, I have intention behind the music. It’s like for me, a good movie is a movie that has different layers of comprehension. You can enjoy it only at an entertainment level, or there is another more subliminal thing in the movie. I like to produce music like that, music that is enjoyable to hear or not on purpose. Yeah, I put frequencies and information in there that actually have an impact on your cells.

Chal Ravens

You’re going to have to explain it a little bit more, because come on.

Aïsha Devi

Yeah, it’s very specific, and certain frequencies... You can see that in... I don’t know if you know what cymatics is? I don’t know if you know. It’s a little system you can build by yourself. You can put some sand on the kind of plastic that you tense. You put sand and then you would use a... How do you call that?

Chal Ravens

A tube.

Aïsha Devi

A tube, and then you will send with your voice some tone, some frequency, and then you will see actually that the frequency you are sending to the sand, will organize...

Chal Ravens

Well I have seen that.

Aïsha Devi

… the sand actually and you will create pattern in the sand. It can be even more visible with some professional thing. You can find that on the internet. But I built my own, I wanted to see the effect. I had to see that with my eyes that actually frequency organizes matter. And the highest you’re singing the more delicate the pattern will be on the sand. It’s very impressive at some point. So acknowledging this, you realize that this certain frequency has the same impact on your system, on your nervous system, on your bones, on your cells, on a very atomic level and I think that’s what interests me in music, that you have an atomic impact on people. So that’s what I’m... Using certain frequency to have that atomic impact on people.

Chal Ravens

I read an essay recently, which I would massively recommend, it was in The New Yorker and it’s by The New Yorker music critic called Jia Tolentino and she grew up in Houston and she talks in this essay about how she spent the first 15 years of her life attached to a megachurch on the outskirts of Houston where thousands of people come and it’s strict, evangelical Christianity and then at about 15 years old she is losing her faith a little bit or questioning and she sits in the car and puts on the radio and because it’s like 1999 in Houston it’s DJ Screw, and she discovers chopped ’n’ screwed and it changes her direction in life basically.

Then she fast forwards 15 years later. And she’s talking about the drugs that she’s taken in that time and when she’s tried lean and then mushrooms and acid and she talks basically about trying to understand what it is about both religion and music and the drugs that are somehow connected. That she’s reaching towards something that’s the same thing. I only read it the other day and I felt like that had a complete connection to what you’re doing. Maybe the drugs, maybe not. But this connection between music and not religion, but a spiritual yearning seems to be something that runs right through your music.

Aïsha Devi

But yes, definitely. Again, the essence of music is not entertainment. The essence of music, it’s ritualistic. I mean if you go further as we can go, music was there to bury people. Music is there to announce a verse, it’s something very connected to our initiated trip at some point. And music was used to heal people like the shaman, you know, and then Judeo-Christianism entered the scene and they actually cut people’s power. The ability they had with music, they burned the witches in Europe. So they actually erased all knowledge that was connected to the invisible, like the power of music. And they took this knowledge to perform it for themselves, you know, to expand Judeo-Christianism and that’s why it’s really connected because actually when you go to a church you have again the big room. So a big reverb, of course it’s a trick, you know when you sing... I used to go to the church when I was a kid and when I was singing in choir in a church, you feel something definitely with the poly-harmonization that it’s entrancing, they know about... I mean the church, Judeo-Christian knows about trance. The pieces that were written for religious communion. It’s using exactly poly-harmonization.

But the Western world has a problem to only, and especially also in pop music, only using the diatonic scale, which is only the 5ths, the 7ths. It’s always a kind of close harmonization. You know, and I like to look to the non-diatonic scale. The byzantine scale, the pentatonic scale, Chinese, I use a lot of semi and quarter tones also when I’m playing live because I think this is the entrancing tones and this is something that we’re not aware in a Western society how music, again, is like a drug because it is not only chemical drugs that have an effect on our brain connections. But music does too. So I think you can induce altered states of consciousness as almost a druggie state with music, you know. So of course.

Chal Ravens

All three of those things produce all altered states of consciousness to an extent. What’s it like to have all of that in mind and be working towards those ideas but still have to operate in a system, in this system, and to still have to obviously earn a living and play gigs and sell records hopefully. And does that feel, do you feel conflicted about having to kind of promote yourself or be part of the wider...

Aïsha Devi

I don’t really promote myself. I’m very bad at this. I don’t feel conflicted because when I play live it’s the gathering I’m waiting for. And I kind of, I like that idea of hijacking the clubs. You know, ’cause I got a chance to play on the best soundsystem in the world. I mean you get this huge Funktion-One thing, huge subs and it’s there and I’m using actually that huge hi-fi definition soundsystem to spread the knowledge, because my idea of experimenting maybe if you come to a live show is going away with the feeling there’s something happening, you know, you like it or you hate it, but there’s something happening maybe in yourselves or something.

Chal Ravens

OK. We have time for some questions. If anybody has any questions or would like to think of one. I’ve got a microphone here if anyone has got anything. Oh, straight away. That’s good. OK. Let me turn it on for you. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I’m going to come over.

Audience Member

Oh, okay. Yeah, I have a question. In the song we heard besides the reverb and the cutting of the vocals, did you alter them in any other way? Like stretch them or...

Aïsha Devi

Definitely, yeah, I did. I like, because again, like I was always frustrated with the idea of having a voice that is this range. So I love to pitch and alter the voice and you know like this is also the effect. When you hear, you recognize a human voice that is pitched so much. Like I think it’s plus 12 or something. It’s really one octave more. I cannot sing like that. That’s very frustrating. But it does have an impact again on the brain. I love doing this. I think it’s just, it does open some different territories that you are not able… And I think electronic music is so empowering. You can do this, you know we have the freedom to do it. So do it.

Chal Ravens

Are there any other kinds of vocal processing kind of tips that you might have or a little like shortcuts, or…?

Aïsha Devi

As I love to provoke and produce kind of ethereal voices, a lot of people, a lot of sound producers will say never alter the main channel of the voice. Never put effects or reverb on the main channel because it will alter the voice, the core of the voice. And I do the opposite. I do almost put every effect on my voice channel because then it will give, it will put out the weight of it. And I love that ethereal disintegration aspect of it. Yeah.

Chal Ravens

Anybody else? Yes, please.

Audience Member

Yeah. I have so many questions. Oh yes. I was wondering like, I actually have two questions. Like when you, when you play something, when you’re in the trance and you have a booking, do you think about the room you’re in and do you alter the music depending on the room and the people in the room? Because I find it… I think I do similar music and I’m very interested in trance music, like the Egyptian zar ritual, and everything, everything that’s trance I think is universal. But I find it very hard to perform it in spaces that are not, that I feel not, are not accepting of that kind of meditation stance. And how do you think about that?

Aïsha Devi

I think it’s our mission to transcend this and I think we are here now. That’s, that’s the reason why, and it’s interesting because of course you’re going to be playing in galleries, you’re gonna be playing in museums, you’re going to be playing clubs. There’s many different set-ups and I played in also in many different countries where stereotypes are there for sure. But I think electronic music is the best medium to contradict this and to actually erase all of these stereotypes. But in term of sound for sure, I will work with the room a lot. My sound check actually sometimes are two hours long and for me the sound has a priority, I could not have time to prepare myself but the sound needs to be really, really carefully EQ’ed in the room. And that’s also why I love to play in clubs because normally you have an especially good soundsystem that is balanced for the room. In museums sometimes a bit more difficult to adapt, but you always, I guess you also do that, you always have to take advantage of the room. For instance, if you have a huge space and the reverb, use the reverb. And of course it’s also a response with the audience. But I think we are here not to please people at some point we are here with some information that might sabotage, at some point, the system. So...

Chal Ravens

I like the idea of the kind of Trojan horse of electronic music being seen as maybe that just hedonistic, and the rave culture being seen as hedonistic, but you’re kind of doing some psy-ops underneath it. Was there another one?

Audience Member

Yeah. Thank you for, I just want to say thank you for talking about this and in what I think it’s just so great to hear somebody speak about like music, like a magical practice almost. But my question is about your live set-up. Do you use a special like mixer for your voice or like when you live mix?

Aïsha Devi

No, actually I am playing on Ableton Live and I will send separately all the channels. I separate the sub, I separate the kick, I separate all the synthesizers and I separate the voice. So every signal has a special frequency spectrum. And then the voice, I will send my voice in the mixer, send it [to] an auxiliary [for] the effect and then send the effects and the whole mix of the voice to the console. So it means [sending] to a stereo output for the music, which I already like EQ’ed myself, and then two-channels for the voice. So it’s two distinctive things, but I like to have control myself on the voice so I can really, really have an impact on the reverb and on the effect of the voice.

Chal Ravens

Cool. Anymore? Yeah. You can have your other question. That’s fine.

Audience Member

Yeah. I was just wondering how long do you allow like one sequence of a song to play, because you talked about like Tibetan monks doing the same tone for over two hours and have you like analyzed how long it takes for people to get in trance or if it’s more an individual or collective?

Aïsha Devi

It’s a very interesting question ’cause I thought about that yesterday actually. You know, like you have the pop format, the pop format, it’s three minutes something. They have to put a lot of information in that three minutes. I used to make longer tracks exactly for that purpose because it’s like ambient music. You see that ambient music doesn’t follow the format and extends and of course the trance can happen in a longer duration. And our brain needs to be stimulated. But I’m trying now to be a bit more concise and to put all the magic possible in a synthetic way.

And I think we normally would need more like six minutes something. But with a lot of tricks and a lot of the intention has to be concentrated on that idea of entrancing people then it could be a bit shorter in, in a track that is recorded for a record or something. But during live for sure, the live, I’m building the live in an intention of elevation. So the frequency starts with a slow, it’s more slow motion and you have the subs, and of course this is, the structure of the live is different and we have the duration. I’m playing one hour normally, which is a good, I think it’s a good duration. So then you don’t have the fatigue because it’s quite, can be quite brutal. Sometimes you need to purge a little bit, you know, and yeah.

Chal Ravens

Six minutes. It’s actually quite convenient. I think that’s, yeah, that’s easy. If that’s all, then I think we’re going to say thank you so much. It’s nice to have you. [applause]