Review- Rise Ashen and Boddhi Satva - Universality (Balanced Records)

Like many people, I haven’t always understood House music. However, I do understand spiritual things and soul things. Not “understand” in the sense of intellectual knowledge, but in the sense of having experienced them, knowing how it feels when they happen.

Some of my earliest memories are of music in a spiritual context—people coming together in celebration of the universal, transcendent unknown. We only have metaphors to help us grapple with its vast, incomprehensible greatness. The dancing, clapping of hands, closed eyes and electric joy shared among the gathered as the outward expression of music taking us to another plane beyond everyday existence.

Boddhi Satva and Rise Ashen invoke this same space beyond any divisions we normally allow to separate us in “Universality.” That is, House music as “church” or “ritual.” Boddhi vocally encourages us to step beyond boundaries we think of as our identities, while his music with collaborator Rise Ashen slips past our conscious mind with its hypnotic rhythms plus warm, enveloping bass and coaxes us to sway, possibly put our hands together to keep time and even shut our eyes to “tune in.”

This is Spiritual House in its truest sense, music that connects one’s spirit to a ritual reminding us of the universality of our being as a species. Hopefully it could also help you understand House music—if you don’t already.



Artist: Rise Ashen and Boddhi Satva
Title: Universality
Release date: March 3, 2023
Label: Balanced Records
Catalog Number: BAL-58