Vanaprasta Go For The Soul With “Nine Equals Nine”

Silverlake’s indie rockers Vanaprasta have rolled out a new track, “Nine Equals Nine”, from their forthcoming album, Healthy Geometry due out on 11/1/11.  The album is a keeper, and no you can’t have a copy yet, but in the meantime let’s talk about this new track.

The first time that I heard this thing called “Nine Equals Nine”, I was sitting on a stool at Bootleg Theater.

Just like consuming alcohol, sitting during a rock show is one of the last things that I’m prone to do; music moves, makes the mind and body do the same, and sitting down is just not conducive to connecting my mind and body to the music.  But this night was odd; I felt mellower than usual, intentionally hadn’t left home all day, and literally got in my car at 11:50pm in order to catch Vanaprasta’s midnight set at Bootleg. Their set began and it was good, so very good but when the first 60 seconds of “Nine Equals Nine” flowed out, perhaps it was best that I was sitting down.

As a sound “Nine Equals Nine” made me cock my head to the left (the thinking, rational side), then to the right (the intuitive, feeling side): I was so confused. Barely taking my eyes off of the five guys onstage Steven Wilkin- vox/keys, Collin Desha- guitar/vox/keys, Taylor Brown- bass/vox, Cameron Dmytryk- guitar, Ben Smiley- drums), I leaned over to my musicphile friend, Kevin, and asked him what the hell this song was. He didn’t know. He walked away and returned less than a minute later with the answer: “Nine Equals Nine”.

As is, Vanaprasta is a tad musically schizophrenic and my linear head knows this- accepts this-, as it’s just one of their assets, but my emotional heart was still surprised by the old soul presence in this song. Due to its overwhelmingly shitty nature, current day R&B has little place in my life anymore, but the warmth and echoey groove of “Nine Equals Nine” underneath Steven Wilkin’s truly reverent vocals had cut into the flesh of my psyche and made it bleed want. Simultaneously soothing and energizing, here was a rock song tapping into many fluid dynamics of my past (Teddy Pendergrass, Jeffrey Osborne) laced with an inward/outward mystical trip (“Make sure to thank the sky for being blue, yeah.”).  My heart and body were moving and, dammit, I was sitting down. 

Vanaprasta gives you “Nine Equals Nine”.