Aish Divine
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Aish Divine

New York, New York, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2016 | INDIE

New York, New York, United States | INDIE
Established on Jan, 2016
Solo Pop Electronic

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"[Premiere] A Family Crumbles in Aish's "Promise Me" Music Video"

A look of extreme personal suffering arrests a pregnant mother's face. Her fist shoots into her mouth. She bites down and—shatters, body and soul. Hope is restored when a baby emerges from the rubble. LA multimedia artist Philip Rugo visualizes this and more in the new video for "Promise Me," San Francisco art-pop up and comer Aish's account of coming out to his mother.

"I wrote 'Promise Me' to deal with my feelings of loss," Aish explains to The Creators Project. "The lyrics are what I imagined my mother saying to me before we separated. Through writing this song, I realized how my mother had the difficult job of carrying me in her womb, developing an attachment with me only to have to let go of the adult me. It made me realize our separation was hard on her too. That realization is now helping us rebuild our relationship." Rugo worked with Aish to develop this complex emotional cocktail into visuals. "The body fracturing is impactful and jagged in form yet steady and smooth in camera movement, matching the crescendos of voice and instrumentation," Rugo adds. "We attempted to tell this story with a consistently steady hand while highlighting the subtlety of the song’s voice."

Rugo's LA flavor is all over the video's metallic 3D avatars and neon pink color tone. We've featured his work on the site before in his collaboration with Kyttenjanae for D∆WN's "Calypso" music video, and it's exciting to see how he's taken the otherworld bacchanal aesthetic and fit it to an emotional journey of emotional violence and recovery. - Vice


"With expressive, fantastical beauty SF-based music-maker Aish explores the depths of one of today's most pressing topics"

With expressive, fantastical beauty SF-based music-maker Aish explores the depths of one of today's most pressing topics with his single "Migrant," premiering here. Partnering a diverse array of sounds—from electronic to historic instruments—with compelling lyrics, Aish builds a story of human migration. It's a universal message, beginning with, as the artist describes, a child's separation from their mother. Artist and director Rashaad Newsome, whose work was featured at the opening of Washington DC's National Museum of African History, built the visuals for "Migrant" and portrays Aish as a genderless mythical beast: a kind of human-unicorn-pegasus.

The video's characters spend substantial time migrating across stunning, often surreal, vistas and landscapes. The beauty of the art itself can be mesmerizing. When asked if this affected the song's deeper meaning, Aish explained to CH, "It's actually the opposite. We run the risk of telling an incomplete story without art. The more profound a message, the more provocative the art must be. Can you imagine an LGBT movement without Haring or Mapplethorpe? A civil rights movement without Nina Simone or Curtis Mayfield? Even Obama's political campaign without Shepard Fairey's art or the state of Russian human rights without Pussy Riot? Their work, even without a message, is so stunning that their art becomes the messenger to those who were previously unreachable by a more literal form like journalism."

This is Aish's second track release, and his second artistic collaboration. Its value is resounding. "I wrote 'Migrant' to share the story of the massive refugee crisis in Syria and my own personal story of migration, before any of the ugliness towards immigrants unfolded in the United States. Most of us in America have a migrant story, whether our present or our past," he says.

"Migrant" is a single from Aish's forthcoming album Mother. The artist will be playing shows in New York during March and April. - Cool Hunting (Conde Nast)


"The S.F. musician covers Joni Mitchell's classic 1971 folk ditty."

In Aish’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s “California,” the S.F. musician turns the classic 1971 folk ditty into a modern-day, instrumental jam. Filled with violin, viola, and cello from the members of Magik*Magik Orchestra, and overlaid with Aish’s whimsical falsetto, the track comes packaged in a trippy, sepia-toned music video replete with kaleidoscopic imagery of Aish’s various body parts.


Amusing though the video may be, it’s the song’s symbolism and biographical undertones that make Aish’s cover the most interesting. Like Mitchell, who was from Canada, Aish is an immigrant to California. But though he hails from India, California has long been a place he calls home.

“Joni Mitchell’s writing on this song rang true to my personal story,” Aish says. “The lyric of ‘going home to California’ is a truth that I am eternally grateful for. …[It] speaks to the hope we all seek when our personal freedoms, equality, and united identity are threatened by the political horror that’s unfolding in 2017.”

Aish also found something to laugh about in the song.

“Being brown, I found humor in [the lyric] ‘Till my skin turns brown, then I’m going home,’ “he says, “especially as the song ends with ‘will you take me as I am,’ just in the way California accepted me for exactly who I am.”

The track will be on Aish’s upcoming album Mother, which he says “deals with relationships to the mother figure, identity, and migration.” - SFWeekly


"Making his mark as a composer, producer, and mixer, Aish has finally drawn back the curtains and come to the forefront with his debut single, “Promise Me”."

Making his mark as a composer, producer, and mixer, Aish has finally drawn back the curtains and come to the forefront with his debut single, “Promise Me”. While many musicians would try to create a hit single, the San Francisco-based artist has opted to bare his soul musically and lyrically.

The song is absolutely stunning, and one that will elicit plenty of “oohs” and “on my gosh!” “Promise Me” blends the genius of two of indie music’s leading composers. It is mournfull beautiful, akin to Sujfan Stevens’ brilliance as heard on Carrie & Lowell and Illinoise. The track also has radiates of Kishi Bashi’s electronic-led, choral exploits, where moments of breathless intertwine with periods of introspection. The approach provides the perfect platform for Aish to reveal a part of himself and simultaneously heal. As he explains,

I wrote this song to heal through the separation between mother and I. I re-imagine the difficulty of our separation as a hope, a promise of a wonderful future ahead.

The release date for Mother has yet to be announced. When it does arrive, it promises to be one of the year’s emotional roller coasters. - The Revue (Hype Machine)


Discography

Still working on that hot first release.

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Bio

"An emotional journey" - VICE
"Succeeds at shutting down the haters who say art and pop can't be intertwined" - The Advocate
"Expressive, fantastical beauty" - Cool Hunting
"Absolutely stunning" - The Revue
“Modern-day, whimsical, trippy” - SFWeekly

Aish Divine is a writer, singer, composer and producer. He juxtaposes classical chamber and modern electronic compositions to create cinematic pop landscapes with layered vocals, strings, electronics and found soun
ds. Each performance is a unique orchestral, colourful and artful experience. Aish’s debut album “Mother,” which came out March 30, 2018, explores the intricate relationship between mother and child, who greatly shapes the frame of reference for our identities, and reflects on themes such as migration and finding one’s home.

Band Members