Archive for the ‘music’ Category

our latest shamballah gathering in cape town, held 5th june at novalis ubuntu institute was a successful evening filled with magic and heart connections!  we received a mini golden pyramid of peace that arrived from the airport in cape town and brought straight to the event!  we had luscious raw food from earthshine!

for more photos see our album on facebook here.

the mini golden pyramid of peace amplifies our prayers and intentions for peace and a new world of shamballah

we had a nice mix of indigos, children, and elders! the children where happy to perform their "bubble magic"!

so many people were excited to get in on the african drumming magic, the energy was high!

noel and natalie did a raw food demo and blew peoples' minds with their raw pizza!

raw pizza from earthshine = a divinely inspired slice of heaven

a ritual dance performance brought in more shamballah energy

we did chi gong to move and ground more energy

and everyone danced it up to the sounds of DJ matek in the radiance of the pyramid!

matek has been busy in the studio working on tracks for his upcoming 2nd album, and there’s also an internal fire remix album dropping in the meantime.

check out the official matek page – you can listen to internal fire in its entirety, purchase the album, or connect with matek directly!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ep7fwusv90]

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twindragon [aka matek + vanessa nova

The last few months have been pretty crazy and we’ve been busy with some exciting projects, and it’s been a while since we’ve posted something. So here’s a bit about what we’ve been up to:

Early in March, we shared some of our songs at an amazing event in Cape Town, The Prayer of Peace for the Princess, an event in partnership with Dr. Masaru Emoto, Dr. Gudni Gudnason of the Modern Mystery School, The Golden Pyramid of Peace & The Blessing of Lake Biwa.  

It was an honour for us to be among the diverse musicians and performers to participate.  Many different people from varying backgrounds, religions and tribes–including Xhosa, Khoisan, Rastafarian,  Jewish, Sufi, Muslim, Hindu, and Afrikaans–were invited to offer up prayers to bless the water and to bring in the vision and vibration of peace on Earth.  Craig offered up a sincere and heartfelt personal prayer and Vanessa offered up this beautiful prayer by American Poet Laureate Maya Angelou: 

Father, Mother, God,
Thank you for your presence
during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.
Thank you for your presence
during the bright and sunny days,
for then we can share that which we have
with those who have less.
And thank you for your presence
during the Holy Days, for then we are able
to celebrate you and our families
and our friends.
For those who have no voice,
we ask you to speak.
For those who feel unworthy,
we ask you to pour your love out
in waterfalls of tenderness.
For those who live in pain,
we ask you to bathe them
in the river of your healing.
For those who are lonely, we ask
you to keep them company.
For those who are depressed,
we ask you to shower upon them
the light of hope.
Dear Creator, You, the borderless
sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the
world that which we need most—Peace.
 

jónsi and alex

ok, so i already knew this, craig told me, but rediscovering that the lead singer from sigur rós is a raw foodist is very, very exciting.  it may be old news to some, but i don’t care because sigur rós is one of my favorite bands of all time, and on some days they ARE my favorite band of all time and you all know how excited i am about raw food.  jónsi and his partner alex are both certified raw food chefs and they’ve created the most adorable and endearing downloadable recipe book called the Good Heart Recipe Book as well as their own recipe show.

as i type this, craig is flipping through the recipe book and we’re both giggling with delight at the DIY artwork and the luscious photos and recipes, as we’re drooling and wishing that we could eat now.  but alas, it’s past midnight, we’ve already had our raw hot cacao (with carob substituted because we’d stay up all night).

jónsi and alex are living the life that we aspire to, we’re so close, believe it, we will also be travelling the world, playing our music, making delicious raw food and teaching people how to make delicious raw food, making art and exhibiting art and generally having lots of fun and making lots of magick.  yay for jónsi and alex!  they get the raw magick superhero stamp of deLIGHT!  check out their website at jonsiandalex.com

one of our favorite bands, gothenburg’s little dragon, has a new album in the queue, and we are just loving it!  the cd hasn’t left the car for a week and we’ve been driving around all over cape town from century city, to newlands, to town, to camp’s bay, to seapoint, and back, with the majestic mountain looking down on us, while we blare this album on repeat.  fresh music.  yes!

twindragon is the brainchild of craig (matek) + me (vanessa nova).  the story of twindragon, and how craig and i met, is quite an exciting and heartwarming story and i’m happy to tell it.  in early 2009, we were both sitting on opposite ends of the globe, plotting and praying to get to toronto for our teacher’s and healer’s training program with the modern mystery school.  it was quite a leap for both of us to get there, but neither of us had any idea what would be in store for us and that our lives would never be the same again.

craig says he noticed my energy as soon as i walked in the room.  he knew that he needed to talk to me but didn’t know why.  by the second day we were fully into the training and while i was talking with his friend fred, we struck up a conversation.  if my memory serves me correctly, it went a little something like this:

fred: so what do you do?
vanessa: i make music.
f: oh, my friend craig here makes music also.
v: oh. awesome!
craig: what kind of music do you make?
v:  i sing and make electronic downtempo, dubby, trip hop stuff.  but mostly i’ve been making dubstep.
c: oh wow. i make dubstep too.
v: heyyy, i think i know who you are.  i’ve heard your music before.  that’s cool!  we should work together.  let’s make a track!  what programs do you use?
c: i use reason.
v: oh wow, cool, me too…

and then class resumed and all the while i was thinking, as soon as class is over for the night i can ask him if he wants to hang out and work on some music.  but as soon as class was finished, here comes craig asking, “so, would you like to go work on some music now?”  and of course, i was so down for that…

we spent the rest of the week together after class into the wee hours of the night collaborating on what was to become “elemental state”, our first song.  our creative process flowed so magickally that by the end of the week we had a track!  the week’s exciting events culminated in an impromptu shamballah gathering, which gave us the perfect opportunity to share what we’d just co-created.  performing with craig was so much fun!

with all the fun we were having, the week went by so fast and all of a sudden it was time for me to head back home to san diego.  in the atrium of the hotel, i was saying my farewells to friends i’d made from all over the world.  in the back of my mind i was wishing i’d been able to say good bye to craig.  he was in some other training.  our friend lisa from bahrain, mentioned that she’d say goodbye to him for me, that she’d love to hear what comes of our track, and that she loved our energy together–”you guys are like galactic twins!”

i think lisa’s comment may have been the seed that spawned the name of our collaborative effort, twindragon.  it’s a project we’re both super passionate and excited about and brings forth the best of each of our talents.  we’ll be dropping an EP shortly after I arrive in south africa and we’re already slated to take the stage at afrika burn and earth dance cape town in september 2009.  we invite you to follow us along on yet another exciting adventure.

and just to whet your appetite a bit, check out that fated track.

“elemental state” by twindragon

love, vanessa

music is something that vanessa and i are both really passionate about.  our mutual love of music is something that brought us together in the first place.  music also has the potential to unite humanity in general.  we’d like to share a bit about some of the music projects we’re involved in.

i go by the artist name matek, which is a character i created as an avatar to express my creations.  last year i released my debut solo album, entitled “internal fire”.  it had been a long time coming.  it followed the release of my debut EP, which i released in september 2008.  the EP consisted of 5 tracks that i’d been working on throughout the year, and was called the “lightflow EP”.

my EP received a really positive response, which inspired me to shift gears and finish off my album.  so from september-november 2008 i spent most of my time in the studio, recording and mixing what would become “internal fire”.  it was comprised of a few songs that i’d already been working on, combined with songs that seemed to appear out of nowhere while i was mixing the existing tracks.  i love it when that happens!

most of the recording and mixing was done during that period, and by november i had an album that was an eclectic combination of post-hiphop, electronica, 8bit video game sounds, new wave dub, combined with elements of dubstep and dance.  the sound of my album has since been described as both galactic and tribal at the same time, which i think is pretty cool, as galactic tribal culture is a key aspect to shamballah.

once the album was mixed, i spent a week designing and programming an interactive interface, which contained the lyrics and some of my art.  completely DIY and totally self-published, i had my first album, which was also an interactive multimedia release.

i travelled to ireland in late november for some metaphysical training, and while i was there i started hustling my album, and got an incredibly positive response.  while in ireland, i had the opportunity to perform some of my music on an acoustic guitar at a shamballah gathering, and managed to get my album into a record store in dublin.

i had my album launch in cape town in december, performed a new year set at an outdoor festival just outside cape town, started hosting monthly shamballah gatherings in the city, and got my album into the middle east and japan.  a few weeks ago i signed up for a digital distribution deal with reverbnation, and my album will be available to purchase from amazon, emusic, itunes, napster and rhapsody by late august / early september 2009.

in april 2009 i was off to toronto, canada, for more training.  toronto was exciting.  i met vanessa there, and we got to perform together at another shamballah gathering.  which leads us to our next post…

here’s a downloadable track from my album:

“luma” by matek

you can listen to the entire album, plus additional tracks, here.

click here to become a fan of matek on facebook.

love, craig