ADITYA MANDAYAM, Zenzizenzizenzik, performance at MoMA in Warsaw, Poland on Sunday 7 oktober, 2018.
In his solo musical project UMMO combines West-Coast modular synthesis like "Arp, Buchla, Serge, Ciat-Lonbarde, and countless nameless inventions that used bananas" with Indian classical singing, creating layers of ambisonic feedback, resonance, xenharmonic noise, and Carnatic vocals that he calls "modular folk".
Aditya Mandayam and some friends run the label BUIO and the radio station JUJU which focus on experimental and underground music. In recent years Mandayam's practice has taken a turn towards the esoteric Hindu traditions of Tantra. By combining avante-garde performance aesthetics with his studies in classical voice, Mandayam's oeuvre has become an operatic Gesamtkunstwerk of sculpture, theater, cinema, music, light, text, sound, and image. Drenched in the Tantric trinity of black, white, and red, UMMO is the High Priest of the Temple of the White Cube. His concerts are Yantric Blackboxes for divining space and time, for the resonant Mantra that lies within.