A mushroom musician and social media sensation who generates soundscapes from plant material came to London to conduct a mushroom orchestra. Yes, you indeed read that right.
On May 19, Vancouver-based musician Tarun Nayar hosted two sold-out shows at Hampstead Heath. the music project, Modern biology involves harnessing bioelectrical changes in plant material through syntheses and converting them into audible frequencies.
These frequencies have been branded by social media as ‘mushroom music’ and go something like this: Tarun is a biologist by training and has been a musician all his life, so when he approached this idea he was happy to marry his two interests. When he had time to further commit to the project during the pandemic, the mushroom music exploded on TikTok and became Modern Biology, an international tour.
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He explained: “I don’t specifically work with mushrooms, I like to sonify nature. I love listening to anything that helps us become more aware of this bath, this soup, of vibrations we’re constantly sitting in.”
Tarun showed off his collection of multi-wired devices that allowed him to curate what he described as “an artistic expression of scientific facts.” I attended Modern Biology’s Field Trip, following exact coordinates Tarun revealed the day before.
I arrived to find 30 people gathered in a secluded area on the Heath with a row of mushrooms placed by Tarun’s equipment, as offerings in a ritual. Music from the synthesizer was transmitted to each participant’s headset and during the event we listened to sounds produced by a range of plants, including heather, console mushrooms and stinging nettles.
Among the audience were songwriters Jordan Gibson who referred to the mushroom sounds as a mix between organic and retro. He said: “It felt ethereal and disconnected from anything going on outside the moor. It felt like a little Neverland. I didn’t catch the name of the mushroom but the rotten one sounded really cool.”
The popularity of Modern Biology’s videos has garnered him 940,000 followers on TikTok and led to Tarun taking mushroom music worldwide. He’s currently touring across Europe, but if you’re gutted to have missed the plant-based symphony, Modern Biology plans to return to the UK for a Mushroom church event in November where you are encouraged to ‘try out’ mushroom consciousness.
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