What is an ambient sound bath?

Just like a regular sound bath you may have attended or heard about before, where a facilitator uses traditional sound healing instruments like bowls, drums, chimes, gongs and rattles to create a safe sonic space for relaxation, reflection and self-healing, except I use 4 CDJs and a mixer with effects to produce a layered soundscape and intentionally establish a similar sonic space.In order to do this I use a range of sounds I’ve collected or created over the years, including recordings of those traditional sound healing instruments, along with various drone sounds, minimal ambient music, field recordings and vocal elements to construct a journey into sound that incorporates consciously chosen frequencies, rhythmic elements and certain musical intervals, structured along the lines of a traditional sound bath but played over a powerful sound system so that you can really feel the vibrations as well as hear them.

Where did the idea come from to start playing these kinds of sets?

It’s actually been a really long journey, but also a natural progression in many ways, starting with playing chill out rooms at raves in the early 90s and my love of ambient music from that time. Then about 10 years ago I started DJing for yoga classes at a friend’s yoga studio and found that I really enjoyed playing for the savasana at the end. This is the point where everyone lies down motionless, in corpse pose, and they’re invited to let the mind be still and allow the body to integrate what it just did in the practice. This integration part really resonated with me, and the contrast between movement and stillness provided the opportunity to play sounds for the mind and spirit as well as the body, which seemed a perfect accompaniment to the pose.

How did Be Hear Now come about?

When I moved to Brisbane I started doing Be Hear Now events at Black Bear Lodge, nights dedicated to sound and stillness, where I played ambient music before and after my friend Alexis Star took us on a journey with her beautiful crystal singing bowls.
 
The next major evolution came during Covid when, like many of us, I was being challenged in both my professional and personal life. I started to explore sound in many contexts, but primarily as a wellness approach to personal healing, which led to me to begin formally studying sound healing and developing the idea of unique sound journeys and sound bath DJ sets.
 
As a musician I'm always collecting new instruments to play with, as are my other musician friends, so we collaborated and started creating sound journeys to bring these experiences to people in various venues around Brisbane. It's been a new way to connect with audiences both inside and outside the club and festival environments I've been accustomed to for a long time now.

Can ambient music be therapy?

Absolutely! In fact, I think just about any music can be therapy. It’s all frequency and vibration, and it relates to your own personal frequencies and how music and sound resonate together with them.
 
Dancing for hours to house and techno is definitely therapy, as is jumping around and slam dancing to punk music or meditating with a mantra. It’s really blown my mind to gain a much deeper understanding of how music and sound has the ability to change our mood, inspire us, release frustration, calm us down... not to mention stimulate our bodies and deepen spiritual practices.
 
Ambient music just works at its own level and is often more consciously created to be beneficial to your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. There is actually a whole movement of ‘functional’ music being created for different purposes, whether that’s for healing, to trigger the relaxation response, or to aid sleep or study. There’s a whole range of applications for using music and sound in ways that are beneficial to us and I feel like we’ve only just scratched the surface of the potential of sound and vibration, and the science is finally starting to catch up to what some of our ancient ancestors have known about the power of sound for thousands of years.