Music video animated by the amazing Danski Tang
“I had just seen Jai Uttal perform at the Marin Center and was floored by his song “Jaya Jagadamba”. I felt the song touched the ‘ananda’ in my heart, or the divine sweetness, so deeply. I wanted to write something on that level and mix mantra into my songs, as I felt there were some things about my spiritual life that I could only express that way. I know I started with a bass loop I found in Trilian, a program I used quite a bit on this record. I can’t really remember point A to point B after that first initial choice, which happens often in my songwriting as it feels more channeled than written.” – Jenny Gillespie Mason / Sis
Vibhuti is an emotionally concentrated yet musically roving document of spiritual awakening by Sis, the recording project of Jenny Gillespie Mason. A series of healing dreams led her to want to create music that could be the expression of her own “vibhuti,” the Sanskrit term for the divine spirit in the human body. The result is an album that merges spiritual life with a constant, restless search for the new in one’s music.
During the time of making the album, Mason encountered the books of 20th century Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo and his partner, the Mother. Their words implore humanity to recognize its divine origins and future of ascension. Songs like “Mother’s Grace,” “Bow to Your Wilderness,” and “Mystic Spider” sprang from Mason’s study of their luminous teachings, while “Pregnant in Bhutan,” “Center of the Heart,” and “Splendor,” draw from intimate stories of her life as a woman and mother in the light of a deepening spirituality.
Never satisfied with what came before, Mason sought to make a sparkling, joyful aural landscape just as a painter would with a newly formulated collection of hues. Each sound, from the Afghan rubab to the harmonium to a Yamaha C-3 synth, is its own particular, soulful creature inside a colorful pastoral. Vibhuti bridges all of Mason’s sonic loves: new age, instrumental, synth-pop, jazz, and world music. Mason worked with longtime collaborators Brijean and Doug Stuart on percussion, bass and production, and invited Will Miller of Resavoir to play trumpet and Devendra Banhart to play electric guitar on two instrumental tracks “Jugaspa” and “Cave of Plenty.” The result is an artist talking intimately with herself and with God, in the hopes that the listener will join the conversation and bring their own depth of inner experience.
Sis
Vibhuti
(Native Cat Recordings)
Street Date: June 21, 2024
Pre-order it HERE
Track list:
1) Cave of Plenty
2) Mother’s Grace
3) Bow to Your Wilderness
4) Splendor
5) Jugaspa
6) Pregnant in Bhutan
7) Rose Gold Shoes
8) Center of the Heart
9) Mystic Spider
10) Stargate Road
