What is The Future Sound of Yoga?
By Michelle Taffe
What is The Future Sound of Yoga? This is the question I found myself asking when I saw it billed on the opening night of the Bali Spirit Festival in March this year. Curious to hear the yogic future in music, I went down to ARMA (Ubud’s museum of modern art and host to the musical program at the festival) to find out.
Stepping down through the multi-leveled magical tropical gardens of ARMA is like going through the looking glass into wonderland. Each level of the garden is more enchanting than the next, and at night the sculptures cast lifelike shadows in the moonlight and the frangipani flowers look like the hands of a Balinese Legong dancer striking a pose.
As I was passing the pale blue floodlit swimming pool on about the fourth level down, I heard the soft dub dub of rhythmic beats floating up from further down the garden. I almost slipped as I started hurrying down the next flight of stone steps where I came to a lotus studded miniature river, with an arched stone bridge crossing over to the concert area. Expecting the Cheshire cat to challenge me to a riddle in order to pass, I hesitated a moment before skipping across the tinkling stream.
A seamless mix of musical styles
Suddenly I merged with the sea of yogis who were dancing ecstatically to uplifting beats, their bodies flowing through a seamless mix of musical styles from trance to house to souring vocals and everything in between. Up on the stage was a blond pixie enchantress twirling to the rhythm, backed up by a DJ, the pied piper of Hamlin expertly directing the energetic ebb and flow of the crowd on a musical journey with a flick of his finger.
So, this was The Future Sound of Yoga, I thought to myself, pausing mid flow to gaze around and the shining happy sweaty people all around me… I think I like it!
Unlike the more often than not chemically enhanced experience of a traditional rave or dance party, the atmosphere at The Future Sound of Yoga event in Ubud was one of pure unadulterated spiritual joy, with smiles all around and a palpable positive loving energy in the air, all of this no doubt helped by an intense day of yogic stretching of body and soul.
Angel and Matt Singmin
Currently based in Sydney, Australia, Matt and Angel – the dynamic duo that make up The Future Sound of Yoga – met six years ago at the Glastonbury festival and bonded over a mutual passion for yoga and music. At that time they were both working in corporate jobs – Matt in banking and Angel in advertising, but Angel was already training to be a yoga teacher, and Matt’s passion for music was ever calling him away from the number crunchers of the finance world.
Always practicing yoga at home to music, it was something they decided they’d like share with others. And as Matt was transitioning out of the corporate world and into the music profession full time, he envisaged a way to use the evolving new technologies in electronic music made possible by Ableton Live software to create a seamless yoga to music experience in a way that was not currently happening in the yoga world.
Starting DJing in bars and parties around Bondi (Sydney) in 2009, that summer Matt – together with a collective of Sydney DJs – ran a night called Wildlife, a Balearic beat inspired weekly event every Saturday that was a hit with the Sydney dance crowd.
Launching The Future Sound of Yoga in January 2010, they began running regular events at yoga studios all around Sydney. Word got around and suddenly the Sydney yoga community was buzzing with this new yoga and dj thing. Before too long they were filling the yoga studios every week, and started getting calls to perform at yoga festivals and conferences nationally and internationally.
A standard FSOY session lasts about two hours, starting with an hour of asanas, following with half and hour of dancing and ending with half and hour of wind down – all smoothly flowing to carefully selected music that sets the mood and fits with the sequences.
Appearances at International Yoga Festivals
Now just a year and a half later, they are regularly sharing the stage with internationally known yogis at events around the world, giving them the opportunity to travel and live the Global Yogi lifestyle. With a string of well established festivals under their belt, including the Hawaii Spirit Festival, the Bali Spirit Festival and the ‘Evolution’ Hong Kong yoga conference, they have also got behind the scenes and started up their own weekend retreat outside of Sydney called the Phoenix Weekend. Clearly the days spent at the corporate coalface have not been wasted on these two enterprising creative spirits.
Currently in London as I interviewed Matt on Skype, they are now up to their eighty-third performance, which adds up to about one a week since they launched FSOY a year and a half ago, and this is just the beginning. The stage is set for an electrifying future for this ever evolving musical yoga experience. Keep your dials / wifis / and ipods tuned…!
For more information about The Future Sound of Yoga visit their website, where you can download a free Yoga Mix podcast.
For information on the Phoenix Weekend, visit the website or logon to their Facebook page.
Matt and Angel can be contacted at hello (at) futuresoundofyoga.com.
