It was a photograph of a synthesizer that first caught Steven Whiteley’s eye. In 2018, Whiteley, a composer living at New Mexico’s Upaya Zen Center, came across an unusual Instagram post from the Bay Area’s Green Gulch Farm Zen Center: Danielle L. Davis’ modular synthesizer, sitting on the porch of a yurt. Before long, Whiteley traded life in Santa Fe for a residency at the Marin County retreat, bringing along little more than a laptop, MIDI controller, and classical guitar. There, the two musicians bonded over Pauline Oliveros’ philosophy of Deep Listening, which posits drone music as a path to heightened states of consciousness, and jammed in their free time. Eventually, both left Green Gulch for Oregon’s Great Vow Zen Monastery, on the banks of the Columbia River; granted time to pursue creative practice, they zeroed in on their sound, performing free-flowing improvisatory music on piano and electronics for monks and fellow students. In 2019, after their respective residencies ended, Davis and Whiteley moved to Portland, where they used a wealth of acoustic and electronic instruments to bring to fruition ideas that had germinated in the monastic environment.
Despite its genesis, the music on Soundness of Mind, Liila’s debut album, isn’t always serene. Placid electronic tones are offset with pinwheeling synthesizer melodies; thrumming xylophone patterns punctuate breathy choral pads reminiscent of 1980s sampler presets. They summon a rich, unpredictable, and often surprisingly lively sound. On “Nazīr,” a spindly beat of sticks, harp, and bells approximates an arte povera take on a hip-hop rhythm. Whatever the layperson might assume that electronic music grounded in Zen practices ought to sound like, this 28-minute album frequently upends expectations; it is as playful as it is reverent, and the heady results push at the limits of what “meditative” music can be.
New-age sensibilities are at the heart of two of the record’s most captivating tracks. “Not One Not Two” twines droning synth pads with a long, meandering piano fantasia against a chattering backdrop of birdsong. It’s difficult to discern exactly how many elements are in play—synthesizers bleed into bird calls; the piano might be the work of two hands or four. Perhaps that’s the reason for the title, which paraphrases a principle that the influential Sōtō Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki Roshi described as “the oneness of duality”: The track teems with disparate yet complementary elements, flickering between buzzing union and gentle discord. “Whale Song for No One” is similarly drifting and even more complex, flecked with robot chirps, virtual choir, and cicada-like buzz. With its pulsing marimba and bells, it feels like a response to Visible Cloaks’ take on Japanese ambient traditions, while the title suggests a winking awareness of new-age cliché.