BAND OF THE WEEK: SHANA FALANA

“In the Light” by Shana Falana shines with an unmistakable autumnal brightness, not illuminating dark corners of the mind so much as showing them not to be corners at all, but rather rounded, intersecting circles, eternally connected, reflected and repeating, repeating, repeating.

That being said, it doesn’t mean we know anything at all about Shana Falana, the person nor the music, nor whether or not there’s exists any space in between those two entities.

We don’t know when it was that we first heard Shana Falana (and we don’t know that it matters – though, speaking of not-knowing, the first time we recall making a point to remember the name was upon reading the liner notes to “Bowing Not Knowing to What,” last year’s extraordinary and enduring debut from It’s Not Night: It’s Space, to which Falana lent vocal ambience).

We don’t know exactly what was on Falana’s mind when she recorded the six musical mantras that make up “In the Light.” We don’t know the significance of the cover art, with it’s skyclad animal totem, somehow linked to fuzzy, faux-fur hats. We don’t know if Falana ever spent teenage hours alone in her bedroom, drifting toward deep space while contemplating the metaphysics of graffiti in general, and the heaviness of “In the Light” in particular, overwhelmed with the melancholy of never being invited to sit cross-legged on the shag carpet of the Starship. We don’t know if that’s just us (though we suspect it was).

We don’t know what it is about the opening moments of opening song “Dizzy Chant” that delivers to us a delirious delight, making us feel dizzyingly content and centered, a certain sense of nocturnal nourishment, where our failures are found to be just fine.

We don’t know what it is about the balance of the sounds that follow that has us driving our personal plays of “In the Light” toward triple digits. But we know we don’t know, and we know it doesn’t matter, because we know there’s nothing like not knowing. And we’re happy to have gotten to know Shana Falana.

“In the Light” is available as a pay-what-you-will download at Shana Falana’s Bandcamp page.

“A mantra like this points directly at the mind. Because it is neither moving nor still, you can’t use the mind to find the mind. Because the mind has no beginning or end, you can’t use the mind to put an end to the mind. Because there’s no inside, outside, or in between, if you look for the mind, there’s no place to find it. If there’s no place to find it, then you can’t find it. Therefore, you should realize there’s no mind at all. And because there’s no mind at all, demon realms can’t affect you. And because you can’t be affected, you subdue all demons.” – Master Hui-Chung, “Supplement to the Triptaka“