Masma Dream World
's first album, 2020's
Play at Night
, is a truly intoxicating and otherworldly effort.
Devi Mambouka
's haunting, often backwards R&B vocal harmonies drift among ultra-deep frequencies, scattered polyrhythmic drums, field recordings, and slow, almost chopped-and-screwed electronic beats. Everything about the album seems strange, confounding, and truly magical. The 2025 follow-up
PLEASE COME TO ME
is another singular, spellbinding experience, inspired by the Gabonese-Singaporean multi-instrumentalist and butoh dancer's training in sound therapy and studies of Hindu mysticism and Advaita Vedantic texts. The pieces are often dirge-like chants, sometimes with dubby pulsations, and other times with ritualistic percussion. The cathartic "Pordeno Me" begins with ominously tolling bells, then sounds like steps from a ceremonial dance, which seem to run away as reversed whispering gets louder. The horns and drumming of "Seeking Your Protection" seem distant yet direct and urgent. The title piece is one of a few in which
Mambouka
calls out for the mother of the universe, and it's the most intense, washing out in a current of noise before ending with slow, heavy breaths. "The Island Where the Goddess Lives" is ethereal to the point of existing beyond language and rhythm, and it's one of
's most captivating pieces. "What If It Was True" centers around a decayed reel-to-reel tape of voices discussing the Hindu goddess Kali. Final piece "Without a Body" backs rapidly clacking drums with a heavy bass rush and reversed calls and shrieks.
embraces darkness and magic, producing stunningly powerful and healing work. ~ Paul Simpson