Interview: Mantravine, the local band fusing psychedelic sounds with wellness rituals

I’m the music producer for Mantravine and also teach music production. On the side, I distribute music and organise events with Chill Sessions Records. 

In 2012, I came back from a music festival in Australia and my friends from Starlight Alchemy invited me to compose for their production at the Flipside Festival. It was an incredibly psychedelic show featuring dancers, crystal balls, visuals, musicians and voila… Mantravine was born. 

Currently, we have Farhan Remy on trumpet and keys, Isuru Wijesoma on a double-neck Indian classical and electric guitar and our singer ArunDitha (FKA Deborah Emmanuel). Over the past few years, we also had talented musicians like Eriko Murakami, Karen Denise de Silva, Eddy Fleitas del Sol and Tolga Sezer. 

Mantra is a Sanskrit word that is a sequence of sacred utterances repeated in full presence with the intention to change an outcome. 'Vine' is a Latin word that is a climbing plant that grows on the bodies of trees and buildings, facing the light and dark, seeking to reach the sky. Mantravine is an expression of love through sound to experience divine connections with people, planet, consciousness and positive transformations. Check out what happens on planet Mantravine in our video here. 

Music has never been unimportant. Consciously and unconsciously, it has the power to connect people with each other and themselves. Over the past two years, I saw lots of people interested in learning, creating, collaborating and healing with music. I believe people connected with music more deeply for healing during the pandemic.

Initially indifferent, not realising how intense it would be. Over time, it’s been challenging to understand why music has been victimised for so long and only select venues have the honour to put up live shows meaning certain genres were effectively diminished.

We've been blessed with opportunities to create music for poets like Marc Nair for his book “Handbook of Daily Movement,” a series of Tamil poems put together by Sing Lit Sounds. We also worked with Arunditha (FKA Deborah Emmanuel) to create a radio show for Singapore Writer’s Festival and musical poems for the Arts House.

Additionally, we had online concerts that helped raise money for humanitarian projects like the Ocean Purpose Festival and the World Food Program. Recently, we pulled off some live medicinal collabs with The Moon and performed at some insane crypto music art show with Mischief Makers and Radarboy at UltraSuperNew Gallery. 

Last year, we collaborated with yoga teachers and musicians to create online yin yoga and kundalini yoga classes where proceeds went to support humanitarian projects in India such as Karwan e Mohabbat and the Gyanada foundation.

I also run healing meditation sessions where I use the “love” frequency to help people connect deeply with themselves and expand the love vibration. Because of the online nature of these projects, it's beautiful how it continues to have a long term impact where people can access the medicine on YouTube whenever they want. 

Music has the power to heal the self and unite communities. Sounds affect the atoms vibrating on our bodies and as such can heal our physical and mental states and increase our ability to feel love. Music can also heal by bringing people together to serve projects.

We're releasing our first odd time album called Asama. I’ve prepared an exclusive video for Time Out here. At the end of January, we're sharing music with the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity to support kids in Poland who lack medical facilities. In March, I’m looking forward to presenting a live show with one of my favourite photographers Gaetan Boisson for his sick photography and generative AI art exhibition 'assassiner la magie' at UltraSuperNew gallery.

Every year, we explore a new musical theme and this year is going to be looking at ancient tunings and shamanic tribal grooves. We have more shows planned for this year and hopefully an overseas festival but with evolving rules, it’s tricky to announce early because of unpredictable rules. If you’d like to catch us live I recommend joining our mailing list where we share the inside scoop on live shows, music, videos, meditation sessions and more.