Bomba Estéreo has made an impression since catapulting onto the worldwide music scene in 2015 with their album “Amanecer” and the hit single “Fiesta,” that includes Will Smith. Whereas they have been nominated a number of occasions over time for Grammys, Latin Grammys, and Billboard Music Awards, they’ve but to take dwelling a trophy. This 12 months could possibly be their 12 months: Bomba Estéreo is up for 4 Latin Grammy nominations, together with album of the 12 months for “Deja” and report of the 12 months for “Ojitos Lindos,” a collaboration with the largest Latinx star at present, Unhealthy Bunny. They’re additionally nominated for a Latin Grammy within the class of finest Latin rock, city, or various album for “Deja.” Much more, they’ve solidified themselves as a drive behind the scenes, garnering lead singer Liliana Saumet and multi-instrumentalist Simón Mejía with album of the 12 months nominations for a second time: Saumet as a songwriter on Unhealthy Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti,” and Mejía as a producer on Fonseca’s “Viajante.”
It is fairly apparent that the band hailing from Colombia are onto one thing with their soul-rocking music and spirit-moving rhythms. For this reason Bomba Estéreo is certainly one of my favourite bands, and never simply because I like their music. I can really feel their music. That is very true throughout their stay performances. I’ve attended two Bomba Estéreo live shows, and at each exhibits, my soul journeyed. It went far past something I might really feel bodily; this was deep. My spirit felt free, shining brightly in numerous colours and lights. And the good factor was, I knew that others round me had been feeling it, too.
So, how can music, particularly at stay performances, contact us so deeply on an emotional degree the place we will have profound spiritual experiences, each personally and collectively? “On the most simple degree it pertains to our understanding in [the] cognitive science of embodied notion,” says Dr. Alexander Khalil, an ethnomusicologist on the College of Movie, Music, and Theatre on the College School Cork in Eire. He explains that for a very long time it was believed that alerts got here by way of our senses and went into our mind, which then processes the sign. For instance, we see folks dancing, the sign is shipped by way of our eyes to our brains, and we acknowledge that it is occurring.
“Now, cognitive science has moved away from that and moved towards an understanding that our cognition is embodied, which means we expect with our complete our bodies and we really feel feelings with our complete our bodies. So, you form of hear together with your physique, too.”
“Now, cognitive science has moved away from that and moved towards an understanding that our cognition is embodied, which means we expect with our complete our bodies and we really feel feelings with our complete our bodies,” Dr. Khalil provides. “So, you form of hear together with your physique, too.”
This made me take into consideration a magical time after I was on a seashore in Puerto Rico with my buddy, Cindy. I shared the profound impression Bomba’s music has had in my life as we listened to “Somos Dos” from the”Amanecer” album. Seconds later, my buddy seems to be up, and standing just a few toes in entrance of us on that seashore in Puerto Rico was none apart from Liliana, Bomba’s lead singer! We each sat surprised for a second earlier than approaching her and explaining the connection. Her husband merely smiled and mentioned, “The Universe is talking.”
It most definitely was. Similar to Bomba’s music speaks to my soul and I, considering with my complete physique, really believed I manifested her presence on that seashore on that magical day. “All the things is power. All the things is vibration,” says Rose Peña, a sound healer based mostly in Jersey Metropolis, NJ. “Sound in essence is the purest type of intelligence.” Pair that with the ambiance of a Bomba present, which completely attributed to the non secular moments I skilled throughout their stay performances. In October, at New York Metropolis’s Palladium Occasions Sq., Bomba Estereo had an altar centerstage with prayer candles, crystals, and choices. All of the devices had been lined with flowers, and you may odor the faint scent of palo santo smoke within the air all through the venue. These elements set the temper, but it surely was the music that sparked the soul journey. At one level in the course of the present, a buddy turned to me and mentioned, “I do know what you imply now as a result of I really feel it, too.”
“If somebody makes a really intense sound, it instantly maps onto your physique, and precisely how it will really feel to make that sound.”
“If somebody makes a really intense sound, it instantly maps onto your physique, and precisely how it will really feel to make that sound,” Dr. Khalil explains concerning the collective expertise. “So, you perceive one thing about that particular person’s inner state with out consciously considering, ‘That particular person feels tense.’ You simply really feel it.” The identical exists when somebody is experiencing a non secular second as I did at Bomba’s stay performances. “When folks produce sounds that come from a distinct kind of state, like perhaps a really meditative state, which regularly could possibly be an extended vocalization or one thing like that, you additionally really feel how that feels and also you perceive it in an embodied method relatively than understanding it together with your thoughts like, ‘Oh, that particular person is having a non secular expertise,'” Dr. Khalil explains. “You really really feel it, and it is mirrored in you as a result of our emotional states on this method are form of contagious.”
The components to Bomba’s secret sauce embrace the gaita flute, a tambor alegre, an electrical guitar, a keyboard, and the magic combination of Mejía instrumental expertise with the hypnotic vocals of Saumet. It is troublesome to pigeonhole the eclectic band into one style; they carry a symphony of sounds, together with cumbia, reggaeton, electronica, hip-hop, dubstep, and extra. The musical sancocho Bomba Estereo serves up is tasty for the soul, and the mixture of sounds solely provides to its sabor.
“Sound has a really highly effective affect to vary your state of being with out you having to do something however hear.”
“Sound has a really highly effective affect to vary your state of being with out you having to do something however hear,” Peña says. “Via your pores, your cells begin to take in that power and subsequently match the frequency of no matter you are listening to.”
Like Bomba Estéreo’s music and stay performances, Peña goals to boost the vibration within the individuals who attend her sound baths. “Sound works by way of your mind waves and may change the frequency you are on,” she says. “Because the facilitator of the sound, it is all by way of intention. The place will we wish to take you? Like whenever you went to the live performance, there was intention behind it when she was sporting her outfit and he or she’s bringing within the non secular aspect to it. There’s intention behind it, and that is actually the place all of it begins in an effort to deliver the group to that deeper state.”
Peña says we’re largely working from the beta brainwaves, which is a state of go, go, go. However by bringing your state of being to theta waves, then the thoughts, which has a robust impact on the physique, it modifications your vibration to a extra open, receptive, calm state of being. “When that occurs, your physique relaxes, your cells chill out, your nervous system relaxes and as soon as that occurs, you unify with that a part of you that’s nonphysical,” she says. “As folks start enjoyable, they’re releasing resistance, releasing blockages, and opening up.”
So, the following time you are at a stay efficiency of your favourite band or just having a celebration in your kitchen, let go, let the rhythms and sounds take you to new heights, and dance like nobody is watching! It is therapeutic for the soul.
“You heal at a mobile, non secular, and emotional degree,” Peña says. “If you unify with that a part of you that is infinite, that is the place the magic occurs.”
