jung mudra “mendocino” Single Release
Ramsess Art Garden
2511 Broadway Ave, Oakland
November 21, 2024
During a shockingly temperate break in the atmospheric river that is Northern California right now, a brave few weathered the potential downpours and ventured to Ramsess Art Garden in downtown Oakland Thursday for an intimate evening to tune into the sounds of indie artists, breathe the freshened air of a plant-enriched environment, and celebrate the release of local musician jung mudra’s latest single “mendocino.”
Mudra, or Mohit Dubey, was joined by friends and fellow musicians maya nell murungi (a shy Kentuckian with a mop of curls named Archer), and Perhapsy, aka Derek Barber, another (former) midwesterner, now turned Oaktown local.
I’d arrived uninitiated to any of the artists or their styles, tempted enough by the name of a coast I like and the prospect of a low-stakes, seated and warm show. I was greeted by friendly faces, ample seating for the small crowd, and gentle bluesy, indie folk twinkling away from some speakers. Small clusters of attendees—or are they the artists?—bowed their heads towards one another, deep in conversation. One was about CBD.
maya nell murungi on acoustic and Perhapsy on electric
"I think we’re gonna rock...whenever, " said a man in a cowboy hat.
Not without Barber, they wouldn’t.
"Do we have Derek?”
We had Derek. Dubey greeted the crowd, thanked us for showing up for this night of “intimate, plant-induced music”—a gesture at the shelves and walls surrounding us—and introduced his friends and supporting acts, welcoming murungi to set things off.
With a soft but strong and clear voice and very capable musicianship, murungi wove songs of tenderness and yearning, youth and the search for yourself. Some songs, like “Gravity” and “Roots to Take,” were penned years ago (early college and high school through last year, respectively), and wore their innocence and purity on their sleeves. I found the instrumental-driven parts to be strongest pieces. The opening song—no name given, its debut, and sans lyrics—was a rich, layered, curled and curling piece of reverberations and mild muddies wrought solely from an acoustic guitar, a la Benjamin Verdery, and Barber’s additions to “Roots to Take,” on electric guitar were transcendent: He slid and needled, haunted, providing a sound at once etheric, tender, and wonky. The sound of loneliness, perhaps(y).
Having initially chosen a seat at the back of the room, I moved to the front for Perhapsy and jung mudra’s sets, eager to drink in the soundwaves through less spatial distortion. As we readied for Perhapsy he too was preparing: “I’m gonna go chug this beer then I’ll be right back.” He carried that affable energy through to the end, his banter on vintage hats and Netflix’s “The Last Dance” more than charming and a fantastic pairing to his clear musical prowess. His warm-up-and-tuning-time was a symphony of sounds, dissonance so pleasurable and confusing you could not help but hope for more.
“Rosemary” by Perhapsy (left) with jung mudra (right)
“Blackbird” with more bass and some Jack Johnson thrown in emerged as the second song, “Omens,” saved from more boring territory by his quavering falsetto, birdlike, delicate, and a more aggressive, loud finish.
A 38-year-old music teacher, he was grateful for a Thursday show—when invited to play on a Monday, forget it! “Sorry, can’t do it.” He could, however, mix up more varied influences, with some Sufjan, a little Ani, and a whole lot mid-aughts indie folk – think Neutral Milk Hotel and the Decemberists – into genuinely nice combinations, like “I Spoke in Tongues.” He could also sing his ass off, despite whatever insecurities he might have there. (It is his greatest one, he said, but maybe that’s born of opera and musical theater performing siblings, but who’s to say.) That insecurity was channeled into “Rosemary,” performed with the help of Dubey and based on a dream about his voice, but the name comes from Bob Dylan, he thinks.
Finally—it was Thursday night and we all had couches, I mean parties, to be at soon—jung mudra plugged in and started strummin, a song he wrote during a panic attack at a nearby beach after ingesting something he shouldn’t have. His singing, reminiscent of the Tallest Man on Earth mixed with King Krule, pulled back just a hair, was raw, guttural one moment, sing-song the next. Next up was “Gold Bluffs,” usually played with his friend Charlie, so just imagine there was a trumpet too, followed by “Guadalupe.”
jung mudra, “Guadalupe”
This one, the first single from his upcoming album, required an imaginary cello.
Sam Stallings (left) and jung mudra (right)
Audio engineer, in life and for the night, Sam Stallings joined for the final few songs, working a complicated hodge-podge panel of tech to introduce layered floating background vocals, enriching and elevating the atmosphere, bringing a ghostly warmth to the music. I sat and considered the vast difference in experience between watching the live creation of sound, the building of the environment, the physicality of it, compared to immersing yourself in the cleaner, more complex and fleshed out sounds of a recorded version of the same music.
"We might do one more song if you're really crazy," Dubey offered.
"You just have to clap really loud," chirped Stallings.
Their encore, “Shadow(land)” finished with more thanks and a request to fold at least one chair, and one which we, the grateful recipients of their sounds, happily obliged.
