I recently spoke to Seb from the band Wyatt E., who has followed a similar path to OM in taking heavy sounds and transmuting them into something that is more spiritually focused. With the tagline “We write Music for Gods”, Wyatt E. takes you on a journey into the past, which leads to “ancient Gods, forgotten cities, and lost civilisations”, where it feels like you’re entering into a carefully curated ritual, rather than just listening to music. When asked about his own spiritual relationship, Seb responded:
I’m not much of a spiritual person in my private life. But when we started this band and began building the concept around it, it felt like we were tapping into some form of spirituality. In a way, it felt like we could sense the shape of God, whatever that means.
And just to be clear, like I said, I’m not a spiritual person at all. In fact, I don’t have much respect for monotheistic religions in general, and even less for modern cults in particular.
Still, I really had this strong impression that music could lead us toward a kind of enlightened path.
Their music often utilises a lot of drone and extended repetition, with a clear focus on creating something more akin to a ‘sonic pilgrimage’. As Seb put it:
That’s literally what puts us in motion. Our music is meant to be the sound of a historical exile, which, through today’s lens, can be interpreted as a pilgrimage. And the trance-like repetitions are, musically speaking, the most natural process to reach that state.
I first saw Wyatt E. live while on a small dose of LSD at ArcTanGent festival in 2024 after my bandmate (who knew my taste in music very well) insisted that we check out their set – I’d not heard of them before, but I had faith that my bandmate wouldn’t steer me wrong, and they turned out to be one of my favourite bands of the whole weekend.
Dressed in black robes and masks, two drummers utilised the heavy sounds of tom drums in a shamanic fashion to structure the sonic space, along with swirling guitar tones, repetitive riffs, and deep rhythmic bass lines. Their music pulled me into something that felt more like a ritual than just a live performance, and I was utterly captivated by the feeling that this band had tapped into something from a higher source. This might have been just something that my altered state of consciousness was projecting onto the music, but I was really impacted by their performance, with the sense that I had stumbled upon a ritual that was perfectly timed for tripping on acid.
When speaking to Seb more about the spiritual aspect of the band, he said:
Within the conceptual framework that surrounds our band, the phrase « we write music for gods » felt like the most fitting way to describe what we were doing. In that sense, I see myself more as a pure musician opening doors to places where people can find whatever they’re looking for.
Thinking about music in this way, as something which can facilitate a mystical or spiritual experience, lends to the idea that utilising these different concepts of drone and repetition can allow for a kind of ‘psychoacoustic purification’. The way in which we perceive the sound can have a direct impact on our psychological state of being, where it acts as a facilitator to bring us closer to these mystical states. Could this kind of music create a similar space to more traditional ritual settings?
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