The Poetry Project

Neti-Neti

© Acudus Aranyian

Neti-Neti is the psycho-acoustic ritual music duo of Matt Evans (drums/ electronics) and Amirtha Kidambi (vocals/electronics) that formed amidst their mutual experiences surrounding grief after the death of loved ones, and ever-present mourning amidst global human and environmental catastrophe. The duo creates a devotional vessel for processing loss using embodied rhythmic interplay, dredging piles of noise, droning feedback, and serene moments of ethereal melodic counterpoint. Neti-Neti, translated as “It is not this, it is not that” from Sanskrit, is a contemplation on the nature of reality, life, death, birth and rebirth extracted from the Hindu text of rituals The Upanishads. Their latest album, Grace In Rot / Echo Of Being is informed by grief as it grows to an unprecedented, incomprehensible scale and speeds to a rapid-fire pace, filtered through the glass of our phones. The record becomes a vehicle rather than a means to an end, one that allows the listener to process personal loss and global atrocity and cultivate a collective sonic space to reflect, not as passive observers but as active participants. It is a bold and boundless music that encourages its audience to sit with the unbearable, reclaim the humanity lost in the digital ether of grief, and in that shared space, find a way to heal.