Botany – Deepak Verbera

Released in 2016 on Western Vinyl

Format: LP

Overview

According to the liner notes, Horris E. Campos, an Argentinian mystic and founder of the Institute for Higher Yearning, would meditate in light- and sound-proof rooms in order to make contact with the “light that goes unseen”. He claimed this light emitted droning musical tones, so during one of these meditations he brought a reel-to-reel recorder and a variety of instruments in an effort to try to imitate and record what he was hearing. Unfortunately these tapes were lost when the Institute of Higher Yearning went down in a fire. On Deepak Verbera, Texan beat-maker Botany attempts to recreate what we might have heard on these lost tapes. The results consist of organic washes of piano and zither, analog synthesizers, wood flutes, saxophone, and the occasional free jazz drums recorded, looped, and manipulated through cassette and reel tape recorders and then masterfully woven into a cosmic tapestry of blissful and meditative drones.