Bomba Estéreo has made an affect since catapulting onto the worldwide music scene in 2015 with their album “Amanecer” and the hit single “Fiesta,” that includes Will Smith. Whereas they have been nominated a number of occasions through the years for Grammys, Latin Grammys, and Billboard Music Awards, they’ve but to take dwelling a trophy. This yr could possibly be their yr: Bomba Estéreo is up for 4 Latin Grammy nominations, together with album of the yr for “Deja” and document of the yr for “Ojitos Lindos,” a collaboration with the most important Latinx star right this moment, Unhealthy Bunny. They’re additionally nominated for a Latin Grammy within the class of finest Latin rock, city, or various album for “Deja.” Much more, they’ve solidified themselves as a drive behind the scenes, garnering lead singer Liliana Saumet and multi-instrumentalist Simón Mejía with album of the yr nominations for a second time: Saumet as a songwriter on Unhealthy Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti,” and Mejía as a producer on Fonseca’s “Viajante.”

It is fairly apparent that the band hailing from Colombia are onto one thing with their soul-rocking music and spirit-moving rhythms. For this reason Bomba Estéreo is one in all my favourite bands, and never simply because I like their music. I can really feel their music. That is very true throughout their dwell performances. I’ve attended two Bomba Estéreo concert events, and at each exhibits, my soul journeyed. It went far past something I might really feel bodily; this was deep. My spirit felt free, shining brightly in numerous colours and lights. And the good factor was, I knew that others round me had been feeling it, too.

So, how can music, particularly at dwell performances, contact us so deeply on an emotional degree the place we will have profound non secular experiences, each personally and collectively? “On the most simple degree it pertains to our understanding in [the] cognitive science of embodied notion,” says Dr. Alexander Khalil, an ethnomusicologist on the Faculty of Movie, Music, and Theatre on the College School Cork in Eire. He explains that for a very long time it was believed that alerts got here by our senses and went into our mind, which then processes the sign. For instance, we see individuals dancing, the sign is distributed by our eyes to our brains, and we acknowledge that it is taking place.

“Now, cognitive science has moved away from that and moved towards an understanding that our cognition is embodied, which means we expect with our complete our bodies and we really feel feelings with our complete our bodies,” Dr. Khalil provides. “So, you sort of hear together with your physique, too.”

This made me take into consideration a magical time once I was on a seaside in Puerto Rico with my buddy, Cindy. I shared the profound affect Bomba’s music has had in my life as we listened to “Somos Dos” from the”Amanecer” album. Seconds later, my buddy appears up, and standing a number of toes in entrance of us on that seaside in Puerto Rico was none apart from Liliana, Bomba’s lead singer! We each sat shocked for a second earlier than approaching her and explaining the connection. Her husband merely smiled and mentioned, “The Universe is talking.”

It most definitely was. Similar to Bomba’s music speaks to my soul and I, pondering with my complete physique, really believed I manifested her presence on that seaside on that magical day. “All the things is vitality. All the things is vibration,” says Rose Peña, a sound healer based mostly in Jersey Metropolis, NJ. “Sound in essence is the purest type of intelligence.” Pair that with the ambiance of a Bomba present, which completely attributed to the non secular moments I skilled throughout their dwell performances. In October, at New York Metropolis’s Palladium Instances Sq., Bomba Estereo had an altar centerstage with prayer candles, crystals, and choices. All of the devices had been lined with flowers, and you might scent the faint scent of palo santo smoke within the air all through the venue. These features set the temper, however it was the music that sparked the soul journey. At one level throughout the present, a buddy turned to me and mentioned, “I do know what you imply now as a result of I really feel it, too.”

“If somebody makes a really intense sound, it instantly maps onto your physique, and you already know precisely how it will really feel to make that sound,” Dr. Khalil explains in regards to the collective expertise. “So, you perceive one thing about that individual’s inner state with out consciously pondering, ‘That individual feels tense.’ You simply really feel it.” The identical exists when somebody is experiencing a non secular second as I did at Bomba’s dwell performances. “When individuals produce sounds that come from a unique kind of state, like perhaps a really meditative state, which frequently could possibly be an extended vocalization or one thing like that, you additionally really feel how that feels and also you perceive it in an embodied approach relatively than understanding it together with your thoughts like, ‘Oh, that individual is having a non secular expertise,'” Dr. Khalil explains. “You truly really feel it, and it is mirrored in you as a result of our emotional states on this approach are sort of contagious.”

The elements to Bomba’s secret sauce embrace the gaita flute, a tambor alegre, an electrical guitar, a keyboard, and the magic combination of Mejía instrumental expertise with the hypnotic vocals of Saumet. It is tough to pigeonhole the eclectic band into one style; they bring about a symphony of sounds, together with cumbia, reggaeton, electronica, hip-hop, dubstep, and extra. The musical sancocho Bomba Estereo serves up is tasty for the soul, and the mix of sounds solely provides to its sabor.

“Sound has a really highly effective affect to vary your state of being with out you having to do something however hear,” Peña says. “By your pores, your cells begin to soak up that vitality and due to this fact match the frequency of no matter you are listening to.”

Like Bomba Estéreo’s music and dwell performances, Peña goals to boost the vibration within the individuals who attend her sound baths. “Sound works by your mind waves and might change the frequency you are on,” she says. “Because the facilitator of the sound, it is all by intention. The place can we wish to take you? Like whenever you went to the live performance, there was intention behind it when she was carrying her outfit and she or he’s bringing within the non secular facet to it. There’s intention behind it, and that is actually the place all of it begins so as to convey the group to that deeper state.”

Peña says we’re largely working from the beta brainwaves, which is a state of go, go, go. However by bringing your state of being to theta waves, then the thoughts, which has a strong impact on the physique, it modifications your vibration to a extra open, receptive, calm state of being. “When that occurs, your physique relaxes, your cells loosen up, your nervous system relaxes and as soon as that occurs, you unify with that a part of you that’s nonphysical,” she says. “As individuals start stress-free, they’re releasing resistance, releasing blockages, and opening up.”

So, the following time you are at a dwell efficiency of your favourite band or just having a celebration in your kitchen, let go, let the rhythms and sounds take you to new heights, and dance like nobody is watching! It is therapeutic for the soul.

“You heal at a mobile, non secular, and emotional degree,” Peña says. “While you unify with that a part of you that is infinite, that is the place the magic occurs.”