Masma Dream World – A GRAVE IN A LUCKY SITE

Today, Masma Dream World has announced her new EP, A GRAVE IN A LUCKY SITE, due out Sept 26th via Valley of Search.

A limited-edition cassette release of PLEASE COME TO ME will also feature the 3 new tracks. To preview the collection, she’s shared “KALA,” a transportative reverie of atmospheric drones and vocal chants.

The EP’s three songs are culled from the same sessions that yielded PLEASE COME TO ME, her sophomore album released earlier this year to critical acclaim, including a coveted spot on the cover of The Wire Magazine. The album was born from an extensive period of time spent deepening her spirituality through meditation, Hindu mysticism, and Advaita Vedantic texts.

“Knowledge is a destination beyond the thick veil of suffering, a treacherous path that treads lifetimes on different timelines, always reaching for the divine,” she shares. “You travel it until you meet a death that is final, and you realize that you were never born.”

Masma Dream World is the experimental project led by Bhakta artist, producer and healer Devi Mambouka. With roots in Gabon and Singapore, Mambouka is a child of the world. She recalls rainforest rituals and the presence of ghosts and spirits throughout her childhood in Gabon before immigrating to The Bronx. Here, instead of forests, she lost herself in record stores and began a spiritual, educational journey, DJing and immersing herself in NYC’s nightlife. She studied religions of all kinds but found her guides in magic, maternal Hindu ancestors, the Black Madonna and Kali, the Hindu goddess of creation and destruction, and the mother of the forgotten ones.

Her father was from the indigenous Bahoumbou tribe of Gabon, while her mother is Bengali and Cantonese from Singapore. Her influences are global in scope. The mystical experiences of her travels are incorporated into the music, like the church bells on today’s single, or spontaneous singing inspired by a visit to La Vierge Noire (the Black Madonna) in Rocamadour, France. While walking through a cave, the spirits led her to record her voice, so she pulled out her phone. That recording appears on “The Island Where the Goddess Lives” and the sound is echoey and distant, reversed language going back through time. There are field recordings from her visits with her family in Singapore and the temples and rice paddy fields of Bali.

In the isolation of a bitter Wisconsin winter surrounded by the Northwoods, her connections to the spiritual unseen world deepened. When she returned to her mother’s apartment in New York City, she stumbled upon old, damaged tapes of spiritual lectures from her late aunt’s collection and saw it as a sign to begin work on the album.

Masma Dream World turned heads with her 2020 debut Play at Night, a record that established the multi-instrumentalist as a singular voice, combining field recordings, throttling bass, skittering electronics and traditional Gabonese rhythms for an awe inspiring, transportative sound.

Her album from earlier this year, PLEASE COME TO ME, was preceded by singles “O, Dark Mother,” “Pordeno Me,” “PLEASE COME TO ME,” & “Ancient DNA.”

Those who have experienced Masma Dream World live know it’s unparalleled, a haunting combination of field recordings, performance art, and awe inspiring vocal performances. In two weeks she’ll perform in New York’s Ridgewood neighborhood before heading to Europe for a run of festival appearances, and returning for shows in Philadelphia and New Hampshire.

TOUR DATES

Sept 19th – Ridgewood, NY @ Intercom

Oct 1st – Zagreb, HR @ ZEZ Festival

Oct 25th – Innsbruck, AT @ Positive Futures Festival

Nov 1st – Belgium, BE @ La Botanique w/ SUNN

Nov 20th – Philadelphia, PA @ The Rotunda (Fire Museum Presents)

Nov 21st – State College, PA @ Manny’s Live Performance Space

Nov 22nd – Keene, NH @ Nova Arts at Brewbakers

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