Aasma resides in deep forests, high altitudes, flowing rivers and the vast ocean – presenting an ode to nature and creating spaces for clear mind and presence.
Blending field recordings, vocals and layered instrumentation, the resulting tracks are raw and ethereal, inviting listeners to relax and connect with our surroundings.
Using samples recorded across Japan, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Spain and Austria, ‘Mountains’ transforms physical magnitudes into ethereal, otherworldly songs.
Epic Ambient
Mountain Meditation
Elemental Calm
Sources artists on influences, creative roots, inspirations, rituals and their releases on the label.
Photography by: Fabian Bengtsson
Words by: Jamie Collins-Adams
One slip and you might die? Experimental artist Aasma does concede that making field recordings up steep mountains contains a mild element of peril. It’s part of what draws them to these spaces as spiritual and meditative places. “The mountains don’t care if you’re there. They remind you you’re just part of the planet.” For their new release on Sources the artist visited six in total across different countries, making field recordings they felt captured the character of each. There is something sublime about these altitudes which resonates deeply: “Sometimes mountains feel like a meditational drug, a highway to presence.” ⬤
“The mountains don’t care if you’re there. They remind you you’re just part of the planet.”
Aasma’s character-building approach has seen the artist create an ‘Elemental Odyssey’ of releases, with different instruments embodying the qualities of earth, wind, fire and water. The songs on Sources starts the air edition of this series, with the mountains “mapped out” as “different characters and different worlds” across Japan, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Spain and Austria. Prior to this was fire; “built around the story of a campfire and going back to the basics of music, of pop, of singing, creating and playing together”. The epic narrative for water took listeners “out of the harbour, into the waves, through a cave and then the edge of the world” and as part of their work as a multi-instrumental sound facilitator also saw Aasma performing sound baths on boats. Characters and narratives help, in all these cases, as another form of meditative process; “throughout life I feel that I get less and less interested in my own ego. Through characters and stories I can experiment, convey specific messages and carefully choose which expressions I can contribute with.” As with being deep in the mountains, it’s a way to strip away pretentions. ⬤
Recording was not without its challenges (think rain, hail, and microphone stands blown over by wind) but the artist also found inventive ways to create intimate textures with an imaginative DIY approach. Using stone pits, trees and their own body as shields against the wind helped capture a wide spectrum of sound; “I recorded a bit from inside a bush, where it was easier to hear the rain without the wind fucking up the mic.” One gets the sense that Aasma is as resourceful as they are creative, though they insist the mountains are the true co-authors of this project: “Ultimately you’re kind of orchestrated by the nature, by the mountain, what you hear there and how it moves.... You just shape what nature gives you.” ⬤
“I’m fascinated by what we don’t see but feel – the hidden realms.”
The journey to make this record has been an adventure, and one you suspect would be a bit overwhelming for studio-based musicians. By Aasma’s own admission these are spaces where you have to relinquish control of sound to the elements, so what drew them to these elevated heights for this project? The answer is simple: “I just want to make music that encourages people to go out and dare to really listen deeply to the world around them.” The resulting recordings are at once an epic and mysterious call to the wild. ⬤
Mira Aasma writes, produces and performs experimental music inspired by the elements under the artist name Aasma.
Residing in deep forests, misty mountains, flowing rivers and the vast ocean, Aasma presents odes to nature while creating spaces for clear mind and presence. Totemically transforming waves, wind, rocks and root systems into narrative stories and characters, their work shimmers between the textural lines of dream-pop, ambient and experimental.
Based between Bohuslän and Berlin with Swedish/Estonian heritage and a childhood shaped by choir-singing and drums, Aasma's multi-instrumental approach weaves voice, gongs, bowls, field recordings and flute into deeply meditative sound healing sessions.
This record for Sources is part of her ongoing 'Elemental Odyssey' project, exploring how sound can bridge nature and humanity through the four elements.