I really wanted to be able to make the music that acknowledged the metaphysical aspect of extreme sports because when I started watching GoPro videos, the thing that struck me the most was that the sound seemed completely detached from the imagery.
Taraka LarsonI feel like utopia is neither here nor there. It's in that sort of space where you feel the most present, and that can be on tour [or] at home. It's easier to get to that place on tour because your environment is constantly changing, and from a very primal, evolutionary perspective, you have heightened awareness when you're in an unfamiliar place, so it's easier to access that state.
Taraka LarsonI know people within the Hare Krishna community look at pop music as secular, different, and something separate from spiritual music but for me, there's no difference.
Taraka LarsonMy parents both renounced their material lives and were living as monks at an ashram in L.A. when they met each other. So we were always raised in this environment and when we moved to the ashram in Florida it was just like, "Oh, wow, now all of a sudden there's more people like us," because we were growing up in the middle of Texas with our parents, always being the weirdos.
Taraka LarsonWhen we moved to Florida we experienced it on a communal level, in a more structured religious setting, with temples and different worships. That sense of community is very much interconnected with music for us, and thinking of music as this living organism that offers a space of mystical participation with forces outside yourself.
Taraka LarsonI had writers block for months afterwards because I was just so taken aback by all of the sounds I was hearing. It's almost like hearing the most beautiful music you've ever heard, so you're like, "What's the point of me making anything?" It was this living sonic organism so the idea of recording something just seemed like taking this living thing and mummifying it.
Taraka Larson