When Surya Botofasina was growing up on an ashram in California, he had no idea that his mentor, a woman he knew as Swamini Turiyasangitananda, was also known by millions around the world as Alice Coltrane. As a teenager on a visit to Los Angeles, he was astonished to see devoted fans greeting her like a rock star, rhapsodising about how her music had changed their lives. Botofasina now makes devotional music inspired by his late mentor, often working with the likes of Carlos Niño, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Dwight Trible and André 3000, part of a fertile Los Angeles scene that explores the overlapping spaces between jazz, ambient and devotional music.
Much of Ashram Sun aspires to the condition of nature, with instruments replicating babbling brooks, birdsong, chirruping insects and the rhythms of the wind. But this is an unpredictable and volatile take on the pastoral. There Will Be Brighter Days starts as a gentle, amniotic throb that slowly mutates into something tempestuous, with Botofasina hollering in tongues while clarinet player Angel Bat Dawid and guitarist Nate Mercereau spray out free improv. Chumash Pradesh Mandir Steps features Randal Fisher’s ecstatic flute over Bofotasina’s rumbling piano accompaniment, while (The Circle) Of Compassion starts as a piece of insistent minimalism that starts to break out of its straitjacket as woozy synth guitars and the torch-song vocals of MidnightRoba kick in.
