Surya Botofasina: Ashram Sun

In the early 1980s, Alice Coltrane built an ashram on fifty acres in the Santa Monica hills. A space for musical practise and Hindu studies, it closed in 2017 and was burned down by wildfires a year later. As a child, Surya Botofasina grew up there with his mother amid mountains, veggie food, peace lessons and devotional chants. For this album, he returns in spirit to the childhood home that still inspires him.

Ashram Sun was produced by Carlos Niño, a near-shamanic figure who includes plants among his chosen instruments. But the kind of mindful music offered here has been lazily lumped in with New Age sounds and yogic lifestyles. One could say that the wellness industry used ambient music positively, if only for cheapened and contrived versions to flood the market. Lee Underwood, ex-guitarist with Tim Buckley, says: "The concept of New Age was misunderstood and still is. The best of it leads us upward, away from repressive social conditioning, towards lovingness, playfulness and joy. In today's frightened society of greed and violence, these higher states of mind are nothing less than revolutionary." Likewise, the writer Justin Hopper describes re-enchantment in nature as an act of resistance against late capitalism.

Each track here slowly unspools out of trance, drone and melodic improvs. "North Triunfo Canyon Road Front Gate Shanti" gently pummels with synth pulses, as Botofasina's piano shards come right from Herbie Hancock's crystalline cavern. Probing sax and organ pipings on "Ashram Sun Sai Anantam" mix with heartfelt vocals, the cries of a temple pilgrim.

"There Will Be Brighter Days" proves that noise doesn't always mean high volume, despite Angel Bat Dawid's operatic gospels, Niño's cymbal gusts and a free jazz fantasia merging into something Zenlike. With its harp-like tinkles, "Avatar Bookstore Bal Vikas" brings an icy serenity, yet could melt the hardness of muscle and bone.

Elsewhere, Randal Fisher's woodwind billows throughout "Chumash Pradesh Mandir Steps Reflection," a Szun Waves-type number with shimmery keys. Mia Doi Todd's mysterious vocal patterns work like therapy on "Thru Her Wisdom Eye," as if we the listeners aren't merely being sung to, but are being sung ourselves. "Turiyasangitananda Eternal Pranams" pays homage to Alice Coltrane with its Yamaha organ clunks and throbs over Niño's array of percussive spangles. Theatrics come via "(The Circle) Of Compassion" and MidnightRoba's starry vocals, like some higher power just dropped by on Broadway. "Our Cottage To Across the Stream" then has the simplicity and purity implied in its title, with twinkling bell notes akin to birdsong.

"Your Soul is Perfect (Supreme Uniter)" comes grooving in like Ashley Henry for the final track. Botofasina's mother, Radha, duets with her son in a mystic vocal rapture, as if routing demons who might be lurking in their sanctuary. There's a Hindu proverb which goes, "If you get it once, you have it forever." It is obvious that the Botofasinas got it once and never let go.

Botofasina talks up his music in terms of serving and offering, as if his work is a homemade feast. Ashram Sun feeds every cell, every atom and fibre of one's being. It rejects an automated existence, in favour of humans who seek meaning. And that, as noted above, is both resistance and revolution in itself.

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