Erika Grant is many things: a multi-talented musician, a music teacher, an astrologer, a float facilitator and has just added to her quiver of sonic talents a purveyor and creator of gong baths. She is interested in, amongst many things, how deep relaxation, rest, spirituality and music intersect.
She has played with a myriad of bands in all sorts of guises, to name just two Cookie Brooklyn and the Crumbs and the marvellous Orchestra of spheres. She has also performed in many festivals both here and abroad, such as the Fertility Festival, and has made multiple live soundtracks for the Wellington Film Society, including the recent live soundtrack screening of the F.W. Murnau 1926 black and white movie classic masterpiece Faust. She graduated from the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand and was awarded the 2009 Chapman Tripp award for outstanding music composers.
Erika talked to us primarily about her new gong baths experience, but we did squeeze in a few questions about some of her many other musical adventures and beyond. We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Erika for taking the time to talk to us about gong baths and her many other musical activities, and for providing such an illuminating insight into her world and work.
A huge thank-you also for providing an exclusive gong bath recording for the interview (you can hear that at the end of the interview). All music is copyright Erika Grant and used with kind permission.
This interview was done in conjunction with Caffeine and Aspirin, the arts and entertainment review
show on Radioactive FM.
For more information on Erika’s Gong Baths and future dates, you can visit her Facebook page.
For information about her astrology sessions, you can visit her website.
And to borrow just a few of the musical projects Erika has been involved with click below.
Mirror / Orchestra of Spheres
“Orchestra of Spheres’ fourth full-length is their longest and most ambitious work to date, as well as their most hypnotic, with a greater presence of trance-inducing mantras among the genre-busting dance grooves usually heard on the group’s albums. Mirror also boasts fuller orchestration than their other efforts, with shamanic strings and colourful horns/woodwinds taking greater precedence than before. More universally conscious as well as more introspective than their past works, Mirror vastly expands Orchestra of Spheres’ scope while maintaining their kinetic energy and exploratory spirit. ~ Paul Simpson” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as Vinyl.
Vibration animal sex brain music / Orchestra of Spheres
“There are so many elements at work in Orchestra of Spheres’ brand of “future funk” music that it would seem an ambiguous wash if it weren’t so carefully calculated and specifically articulated. On their sophomore full-length, OOS’ vibe is more rhythmically complex than on 2011’s Nonagonic Now, and their studio approach is slicker, to boot. A skillful yet seemingly ragged blanket of squiggly synths inside a field of criss-crossing African, South American, and funk rhythms, chanted vocals, wah-wah guitar, and splattery percussion goes straight to the belly bone. ~ Thom Jurek” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as Vinyl.
Brothers and sisters of the black lagoon / Orchestra of Spheres
“Orchestra of Spheres’ hand-crafted fusion of prog rock, psychedelia, indie rock, and world music continues to baffle and impress on their third album, 2016’s Brothers and Sisters of the Black Lagoon. Rhythm is the one hard and fast rule that Orchestra of Spheres observe, and they take on something a bit different on each track. “Trapdoors” and “Walking Through Walls” are built around mutated Juju and Afro-beat patterns. Brothers and Sisters of the Black Lagoon is clearly the work of a profoundly gifted band, and they’ve created something honestly fascinating on this album. ~ Mark Deming” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as Vinyl.
Panthalassa / Fraser, Alistair
“Panthalassa was the super ocean that surrounded the super continent Pangaea during the Palaeozoic-Mesozoic era. Panthalassa, the album, is an abstract and impressionist work in which conceptual ideas are explored through the luminous ngā taonga pūoro playing of Al Fraser, the evocative atmospheric soundscapes of Neil Johnstone, and the virtuosic drones and textures created by guitar player Sam Leamy. And Ocean Harp from Erika Grant. The album explores a unique sound world through the use of hydro-phonic recordings of migrating marine animals from Cook Strait/Raukawa. These recordings, made and supplied by NIWA, present a very rich and diverse sonic environment, which may change in the future due to the diminishing of native marine species.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Nonagonic now / Orchestra of Spheres
“Track List 1. Hypercube, 2. There Is No No, 3. Rotate, 4. Spontaneous Symmetry, 5. Eternal C Of Darkness, 6. Hypersphere, 7. Isness, 8. Toadstone, 9. Boltzmann Brain, 10. Ulululul ” ( Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as Vinyl.
Covid colab : a NZ lockdown music collaboration
” A Covid lockdown fundraising album created by some of New Zealand’s finest musicians remotely during lockdown. Featuring Contents : Borne aloft Al Fraser, Ruby Mae Hinepunui Solly, Michelle Velvin, Milo Meldrum, Nikau Te Huki , Defy Maz Hermon, Nikita Tu-Bryant, Johnny Lawrence, Deanne Krieg, Johnathan Nott , Glass mountain Benjamin James, Caroline Bay, Tom Watson, Annabel Alpers, Samuel Scott Side B: Counting down the days Ryan Prebble, Erika Grant, Ben Lemi, Estère Dalton, Flo Wilson, Cass Basil , The phone call Samuel Scott, Caroline Bay, Stef Animal, Anita Clark, Benjamin James, Disguise David Randall Peters, Peter Hamilton, Ayrton Foote, Rachelle Eastwood, Letitia Mackenzie, Precipice Brooke Singer, Anna Edgington, Ben Lemi, Deanna Krieg, Grayson Gilmour.” ( adapted from Catalogue)
