SYNOPSIS:

So… what do you think it is you’re listening to here?

It’s paired with our episode on fungi, so perhaps that gives a hint…

This is actually a musical track (a modular synth track) made by the power of a mushroom’s bioelectricity. It’s called 'Mushroom Dance'.

The artist who recorded it is Tarun Nayar, living in Vancouver – and he is formally trained in Indian Classical music and educated as a biologist. Now, he makes music with mushrooms. He recorded 'Mushroom Dance' with a red-belted conk; a type of stem decay fungus that was found growing on an old fir tree in the forest near his house.

The Canadian-Indian musician's Modern Biology project uses modular synthesis along with homemade synths and other analogue gear "to improvise with the natural vibrations of a certain place and time – via plant bioelectricity, latent electromagnetic radiation, and even the earth’s resonant hum". Like human skin, a mushroom skin possesses electrical properties which can be transposed into sound.

Nayar used the bioelectricity, or biorhythms, of the mushroom "to inform the main synth lead line by using small changes in conductivity to trigger note changes in the synth".

I love how his art makes the electricity around us palpable and harmonic. As he says:

🌱🎛🌿
organismic music

let’s protect wild places ✨
listen to plant ragas 🌱🎶

Watch the TikTok clip along with video of Nayar at work below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGjiqKCsFEA&feature=emb_title

Full album https://sxl.fm/mushroomdance

Vice Article https://www.vice.com/en/article/88g8xx/this-guy-makes-music-out-of-mushrooms-and-its-a-trip

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