Poranguí: The Healing Power of Music

Jesse Brede (00:02.778)
Alright, welcome back to another episode of A Path Unfolding. I’m your host, Jesse Breda, and I have an amazing guest for us today, Mr. Parangi. He is a teacher, healer, musician, activist, composer, and man, I am so glad to have you here. Welcome to the podcast.

Poranguí (00:24.76)
Thank you so much. Really good to be here with you, Jess.

Jesse Brede (00:27.48)
Yeah, man. And our paths have crossed in so many different ways over the last few years. And I have just been so inspired and watching you grow this community and your and your life experience is just from another world. And I really see how many people are starting to really gravitate to what you’re doing. I was watching your performance from Envision.

And it’s just powerful. just wanted, I just want to say like how proud of you, proud of you, R.A.M. and like what an inspiration you are for taking this, you know, what I would say, obviously, to some extent, electronic music and really taking it to this next level and bringing this whole experience to, people in a way that I’m not seeing a lot of other people do. So yeah, I just want to dig in and let people get to know you a little bit more and, and get to know you as well on my end.

Poranguí (01:18.636)
Hmm.

Hmm

Jesse Brede (01:24.846)
And yeah, man, so I wanted to start at the beginning and kind of drop in and see, you know, learn about your early days as a child, where you grew up and how all these different cultures have kind of led you to be the person you are today.

Poranguí (01:41.998)
Yeah, thank you. mean, yeah, growing up, so I was born in Brazil and my father is from Mexico, my mother from Brazil. My folks split pretty early on and when I was about three years old, my dad had moved up to the States actually and started working up here. And so he brought us up here and then they got married and they thought they were gonna, you know, be together. And of course, when they split, my mom went back to Brazil.

And so I spent my whole childhood bouncing literally between the Southwest of the U.S., Mexico and Brazil. And so it’s super challenging as a kid. I don’t want to wish that to any kid to go through that because obviously split houses, a lot of us come from that these days. But then on top of that being split culturally, which is a key, it was really challenging because, I never fit in anywhere.

I’d be in Brazil with all my relatives there and I was always like the one that was like a little too light skinned, a little too like, you know, kind of stuck out and was in the States, you know, with a name like Poranguí, you know, everyone’s like, who the heck is this guy? You know what I mean? So it’s like, I could never quite belong. And now as an adult, you know, the magic of that, and I didn’t see this as a child, it was just really rough. But is that really, it really is giving me the ability, the capacity to really be a bridger of worlds.

You know, to really be able to like appreciate and to see how actually the worldview, how different peoples and based on our language, because language, is the set, the lexicon of symbols, right, and sounds that we use to describe our reality. It’s the way we dream, it’s the way that we think, right? And so, so much of our, we don’t realize it, so much of our bias, you might say, or the filter that we look at the world through is through our linguistic language that we come from.

Right? The food, the culture, the music, we could say, right? Music is beautiful because, and this is kind of the medicine of it, why I call music is medicine, is that music is able to really transcend that and is able to really bridge that because we feel it. Don’t have to necessarily know the lyrics of what’s being sung, but you feel it in your body. You feel the resonance or you don’t feel it. And that is so telling of the power of music. And I think is why music ended up being my medicine and literally saved me as a kid.

Poranguí (03:58.752)
My dad put a guitar in my hands when I was about 11 years old. Both my parents were musical and they were getting on stages and performing. My mother was an activist, worked in like street theater. That’s how she met my dad. She was on tour and was in Palenque, Mexico. My father was there teaching art and they connected in these amazing ruins in Palenque, the Mayan ruins there and invoked me, which they both say they knew they meant, they were meant to kind of, you know, align and meet in this amazing place called.

Jesse Brede (04:22.038)
Wow.

Poranguí (04:26.986)
Las Baños de la Reina, are like the Queen’s baths, these waterfalls there in the jungle. And my dad was just dropping in on some mushrooms and he still tells me this crazy story of how he was with a buddy of his who was visiting him from Europe and this guy starts pointing at the water. He’s at the base of this waterfall, a cascading waterfall. And my dad says, you he never forgets this moment, right? He’s told me this since I was little. He was like looking at the water, his buddy started pointing at the water and he saw that there was like this snake.

It’s like a venomous serpent that lives there in the water. It’s a water snake. And it was coming right to where he was standing on the edge of this waterfall. And he’s like, and the mushrooms, he says, you know, we’re just kicking in. So he’s just starting to feel like, so he’s going through all these ways of feeling, right? And seeing and vision. And he’s seeing this, like now it looks like a technicolor, I don’t know, rainbow serpent, right? Coming right at him. And he’s like, so do I kill it? Do I confront it? Do I get out of here? Like, what do I do, you know?

And he actually ended up climbing up the waterfall. He’s like, I’m in his home, right? I have no right to harm this being. So he climbs up this waterfall and there’s cascades. So he goes up to the next pool and he’s looking down again and his heart’s racing and he’s coming into the medicine. And then he says, he literally, watches the snake go into the stump that he was standing by. He goes right into it. I guess it was his home. And my dad turns around and in the pool, who’s bathing is my mother. And that’s actually how

Jesse Brede (05:53.85)
Wow.

Poranguí (05:54.367)
they met and pretty wild story. I just share that because it’s kind of part of the magic that I recognize, you know, that’s been part of my path, you know, and my mother gave me this name Porangui, which is a very challenging name. It’s a Tupi Guarani name that comes from Brazil. It’s an indigenous name. And it’s been part of my calling, if you will, you know, it’s been kind of the magic that they both say, you they split, they came together to make me.

Jesse Brede (05:58.874)
.

Jesse Brede (06:21.358)
Yes.

Poranguí (06:22.377)
And they’ve each been teachers and mentors for me, both my parents, I’m very close with still, and they’re both artists in their own right. And they’re both healers and they’re both medicine people. And so both of them have always kind of invited me to really lead and live from a place of leaving everything that I touch more beautiful than I find it. And this notion of beauty way, this notion of this medicine of, yeah, when we do that, what we leave, what our legacy then becomes.

how we lead this earth and it’s that much more beautiful for the generations to come. And I think of that with the way that he could have harmed that snake, he could have done something else, you in that same way, right? That almost that initial impulse of inspiration of led to me being here has been kind of that guiding principle throughout my life. so, yeah, so to your question, you know, that’s been kind of the tone, if you will, the soundtrack of my life has been about, so how do I…

Jesse Brede (07:08.782)
Wow.

Poranguí (07:18.261)
come into any place with music, right? With my offerings, with my gifts and able to touch people and leave them more beautiful than when they came in, right? Whether that be at a festival, whether that be, you know, in a ceremony, whether that be, yeah, in a show, an interview. It’s like, how do we bring that resonance and that, you know, that positivity and beauty, illumination? So yeah, that’s at the core of it. And I guess that, you know, having Portuguese, Spanish and English having become fluent in those three languages, not by choice.

but out of necessity to live with my families. It’s afforded me a lot of beautiful gifts now, as I was saying, as an adult, so that in my music and in the way that I create music and most of my music, I think you know this, I improvise, all my sets are improvised. I don’t have a set list. I never play any of my hits or any tracks that people know. Like by design, so people come to a show, it’s part of fans who know my work.

Jesse Brede (08:03.47)
Yeah.

Poranguí (08:15.118)
they come in and they’re gonna get something that’s literally created for them and for that moment. And that’s part of the magic, you So in a way, I kind of cross into this area that’s almost like a jam band. I mean, I’ve been trying to define the genre, because there isn’t really a genre that captures what I’m doing, which is a challenge and a blessing. Of course, every artist wants to be unique, so I think that’s great. But then…

Jesse Brede (08:25.69)
Mm-mm.

Poranguí (08:37.214)
when I’m trying to upload my music into Spotify or trying to like, you know, work with DSPs, you know this, having worked with Tivital and you know, being a manager and all that, it’s so challenging because they want you to fit nice and neat into the nice check this box, you know? I’m like, down tempo, medicine, tribal house. I mean, like, you know, what is it gonna be? So anyways.

Jesse Brede (08:47.194)
Yeah.

Yeah. man. Wow. There’s so much there. wanted to share. My mother was a musician and my dad played bass in her band and there’s some similarities there. And I also felt like not quite to the extent that you had, but I would travel between Amarillo and Santa Fe, New Mexico. And that is, it’s a tough thing for a kid to take that on.

but there’s this strength and courage and confidence, I think that we probably gained from that.

And you know, Hey, I can take care of myself. I’m going to be okay. And then the part that stood out to me is the multiple languages and the cultural, you know, influence and understanding and, seeing that. I mean, obviously you, you already saw so much of the world in so many different ways of having the Western influence and having the Latin culture influence. And I think how, how that even, how you bridge that into your music. And you’re like, look, I’m just going to blaze my own trail.

When you talk about where do you categorize your music? would just say for anybody listening, if they haven’t seen you play, know, some people, some artists that I might relate you to, but not musically, but just like technically is like dub effects or beardy man. And you are like this one man band on stage and you know, this is a video podcast. So we’ll definitely put up some videos of you actually playing in real time. I think that’s phenomenal because right.

Poranguí (10:07.305)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse Brede (10:19.786)
you’re essentially bringing the audience and letting them be part of the

of that music like it’s and when I watch the videos of your shows everybody is so engaged because they know this is not a pre-recorded set there’s no plan and I can see how much you’re responding to people’s energy out in the crowd and you’re seeing where it’s that’s working let’s go let’s go in this direction let’s feel it and then more than anything I just see how heart-open you are and and able to receive and be be guided by your spirit and spirit and in a whole like letting

that take you where where it wants to go and not not cutting yourself off. I don’t think that’ll work. Right. I know that may not be. Let’s just go for the ride. Let’s go for the adventure. So, wow. Thank you for sharing all that.

Poranguí (11:07.017)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s like there’s a risk, right? I’ve really gotten in touch with this. There’s this risk that you’re in. It keeps us all on the edge of our seat because at any moment, you know, anything could happen. Like the whole the whole rig could fail like it’s and that’s happened to me. And then a matter of fact, that Envision set that you’re mentioning, you know, I fortunately it happened like I think it was like 10, 15 minutes to the end of the set. So it was like it was kind of divinely orchestrated.

Jesse Brede (11:18.094)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (11:22.2)
Yeah.

Yep.

Poranguí (11:35.313)
So like all of a sudden I’m in the midst like kind of peak of the set and all of a sudden the whole thing just goes and like the whole sound goes off. The rig freezes, nothing’s responding. And so I’m just like, okay, what do we do? So like I’ve learned this through hard lessons. It’s like, how do you meet the moment? How do you bring that prayer forward? And so in that moment, you know, I asked the stage crew for a wireless mic. So they hand me this wireless mic that’s going direct bypassing all the electronics that I had. And then I just, led.

the audience and we created this improvised song circle essentially, right? So I gave them parts and then I beatbox with that and was playing with that to close out the set. And it ended up being one of the most powerful moments of this whole festival. I’ve had a lot of reflection with people and it was so beautiful. know, we’re 10,000 deep and under this full moon and like are all creating that final sound together. And that was closing out the stage, soul stage on Sunday. So like the end of the festival. And it was such a deep.

Jesse Brede (12:30.586)
Yeah.

Poranguí (12:34.907)
reminder of like when the technology fails when all things like you know stop working especially in because we’re working also electronic music it’s like how do we still show up how do we still allow that music to come through and to land that prayer you know and I felt like that was such a beautiful example you know it’s like of improvisations like you’re right how do we meet the uncertainty of life and bring that creativity so yeah

Jesse Brede (12:50.809)
Yes.

Jesse Brede (12:57.078)
Yeah, and I think almost the lesson or one of the lessons there is like, right, you could look at it, you could have lost the thread and been like, it all failed and like, been shut down. But instead, you were like, no, it’s about the people in the moment. And this, this opportunity is being presented to me. And you really saw that like, that’s, that’s so beautiful, man. Wow. Wow.

Poranguí (13:18.577)
Yeah, and that’s the magic. It’s the magic of doing this kind of work. It’s super scary for folks. I have a lot of dear friends, other producers, DJs, musicians who will say, there’s no way. They’re like, I have to have my set list. I have my DJ set already mapped out. I have everything. And it’s terrifying. And it is. And I gotta say, think growing up in such a challenging childhood that I had coming up,

They taught me to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. you know, in a certain way, it’s like, yeah, that’s become what was, I think, a lot of suffering that I had as a kid actually has become now the medicine. you know what I mean? It’s like a superpower now that I can draw upon. And I mean, especially for the moment that we’re in right now with humanity, with what’s happening in our leadership in the United States and in the world. I mean, it’s, I think more than ever, it’s like…

Cultivating our resiliency, our ability to face the uncertainty and the fear that arises, the anxiety that comes with that, especially with creativity, because with music and creativity, it’s like anxiety is like the killer of creativity, right? It’s like when we feel pressurized, when we feel stressed, that’s gonna bring on the sympathetic nervous system and shut down that parasympathetic, intuitive, psychic kind of space that we need to access when we’re creating to really make something that’s coming.

not from us, not from the mind, but from spirit, right? Something that’s greater than us. And that’s what I, I’m really, that’s the music I’m most excited about. It’s like, how do we bring in, become channels or hollow bone for the sound of the divine, of what’s coming from beyond just this, you know, form and be able to really transmit that and have it really touch. Cause I feel like that’s the kind of music that is transformational, that is leaving a resonance, right? In a signature, in a space.

Whether we know it or not, we’re all doing this as artists when we’re on stages, right? We’re ceremonialists. know, lot of guys won’t think that way, maybe have no concept of that, but ultimately we are. We’re literally offering our nervous system is offering itself to regulate or not regulate a whole audience. Like we’re basically creating a field, right, of coherency or incoherency, depending on our music, depending on what we’re about. But for me, I believe those are opportunities, precious opportunities to bring coherency, to bring beauty.

Poranguí (15:41.894)
to like uplift people, Rather than to bring them down, rather than to create more divisiveness, more hate. Music has the power to do both. But I think where music really, really comes into its own and what is, think its ultimate purpose is its unification of people. It’s unification and it’s a communication, right? It’s a medium for communicating with the unseen. This is why I think if you look ancestrally across all cultures, all peoples around the whole planet, historically, right?

you always see music present and you always see dance. And when I talk about music, I’m always, I’m talking about dance too, cause there are two sides of the same coin, right? They’re both temporal art forms. They happen in the now and they’re connected to this magic of the now. They’re not something, they’re not like a sculpture that’s something that exists. It’s like fixed now in this medium or painting that it happened. It was live at one moment when it was made, but then it’s kind of like its life and trajectory really is this kind of frozen kind of artifact, if you will, right? That you interact with, it has a life of its own.

But music, and the advent of recording No2 has changed our relationship to music. Because just 100 years ago, if you wanted to enjoy music, you couldn’t just put in your AirPods, right? And just like tune into like this huge library of sound from Spotify. If you wanted music, you either had to make it or you had to know somebody who could make it and that liked you, that they would invite you to their fire so that you could enjoy it. So you also had to be cool. You had to be like a good relative. You couldn’t be an asshole.

Jesse Brede (16:43.492)
Yeah.

Poranguí (17:06.648)
Otherwise, they’re not gonna invite you to their music, right? you feel me? like the fact the way we have music now Spotify is honestly I believe is undermining on some level our our our How do I say this are like our social coherency and cohesion like our ability to be a good relative I think has been undermined and degraded eroded by the fact that now we just have all these things on demand And so we don’t have to work for it. There’s no

Jesse Brede (17:09.087)
Yeah.

Poranguí (17:34.895)
There’s no impetus on us to actually show up and be helpful and carry the drum or show up and you know what I’m saying? Or participate in that creation. Which makes me, I don’t know if you’ve seen my other work with the educational part of what I do, but the whole Music is Medicine platform that I’ve created is, like I’ll always teach a workshop. If I play a festival set, I’ll also do a workshop. And in those workshops, for me, this is my most exciting part of I think what I do is being able to

Jesse Brede (17:46.266)
Yeah.

Poranguí (18:05.761)
facilitate a collective singing, collective sound making, music making, and helping to teach people how to improvise. Like that, activating a human being in their instrument of their body is like some of the most exciting stuff I think that I get to do because they leave their feeling like empowered to be expressed in their authenticity. And that’s something that you don’t need any electronics for. It’s like that’s built in. And then that makes them a better human, right? Ultimately. So yeah. Yeah, I didn’t want to say that much.

Jesse Brede (18:28.89)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (18:33.846)
Love that. Yeah, man. Yeah. I I mentioned at the top of the introduction that you’re a teacher, a healer, an activist, you hit on a number of, of different things right there. just ultimately, I think you’ve landed as, as music being sort of the, the point of the spear, but you’re, you’re bringing all of that in to your work. And I’ve seen that as well in those, workshops. I haven’t been to one of your workshops, but I think that’s

That’s so cool to drop in with people and show them, know, teach them, engage with them in music. And then later that night when they see you perform, it’s a whole nother level of experience for them because they’re seeing like, wow, we did that together. And now he’s up on stage bringing this all out. And it’s, it’s just.

allows people to deeper, a deeper connection with the music. So I think that’s amazing. You know, I’ve worked with people like Il Gates and he’s done, he does workshops as well. And we did some workshops early on with Gravitas. And that was a really powerful moment to see people showing up and able to also just dialogue with the artists for a little bit and be like, wow, and get their hands dirty. Right. It’s just like, I think that’s incredibly empowering, especially with today’s technology. I mean, we were kind of just kind of bagging on Spotify.

Poranguí (19:52.92)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (19:54.11)
But Ableton and the MacBook have made it so stable that someone can very quickly get some music going and kind of feel a rhythm. And they may not be trained to like, you know, because learning an instrument is really hard. It can take, you know,

Poranguí (19:55.332)
yeah.

Jesse Brede (20:09.036)
it can be really challenging if you’re not, if you’re not good at learning, if you don’t have that discipline to really stick with something, you can be pretty quickly get with music on a laptop on Ableton and get something going and being like, wow, I made that pretty quickly. But, know, I don’t think anything will replace the importance of live instruments. And that was something I wanted to say. was like.

Ultimately, for you, you’re playing so much on stage. I wanted to dive into the rig a little bit about what are the what all are the instruments that you have on stage is for for anybody that can look at the videos we’re playing and see like what all you have.

Poranguí (20:50.584)
Yeah, well, I’ll say this, and I think this is kind of to your point. The first instrument, the most important instrument is the instrument, I like to refer to it, which is the body, right? So like the human body is the most complex instrument that we know of. It’s bar none. I mean, it has the ability to be a drum, right? It has all these sounds that we can create just in our body with body percussion. I mean, you’ve got all the…

all the things that you can just build, all the types of claps, you name it. We have so much right here that we can create and riff off of just with what’s built in. So part of the work that I love to do is like, and I know it seems overwhelming learning the silver flute or jumping into a cello or jumping into even the guitar. But I feel like at the core, and this is why I teach music as well in these kind of interactive workshops and retreats that we offer, is taking anybody.

If they feel, you know, there’s this ancient African proverb that says, you know, if I can walk, I can dance. And if I can talk, I can sing. And it’s such a beautiful, you know, encapsulation of like human being. What does it mean to be human? On some fundamental level, even though maybe because of our culture or our context that we were raised in, we didn’t get access to that. But at the core of it, if we look ancestrally, like our birthright is to be musical.

is to be expressive, be creative. Like that’s like our birthright. It’s just as much as like tending fire, which is another thing that we’ve lost touch with, right? And in a funny way, if you really think about it, technology, our laptop, that MacBook, it puts off heat, doesn’t it? That phone in our pocket, it puts off heat. All of those devices, technology itself, I would say is a descendant of fire. Those are all different formations of our ancestor, of our grandfather, fire. And so part of the relationship

Jesse Brede (22:39.258)
Mmm.

Poranguí (22:45.046)
building that is really essential to the process, I think of becoming more whole human being is reconnecting, rekindling that connection to our grandfather fire and doing that through music. And so that’s why, so I think it’s kind of a trip. So that’s for me where technology and the ancient ancestral sound making, if you will, right, music making, dance making are intertwined intimately. And that’s where like, that’s kind of really at the core, I think of what I’m doing kind of in my, you know, my solo project.

To your question, so with folks, right? So I always go back to this instrument. So in the retreats, the workshops, I want to give anybody at any level, if they can just show up and they’re not like, you know, struggling. I’ve even had folks in wheelchair do this work. So I mean, it’s like all levels, right? And the idea is to get them to get back into their inner child, to let go of like the inner critic, which we all struggle with, right? Most of us are our own greatest critic.

Jesse Brede (23:40.302)
Hmm.

Poranguí (23:42.602)
and that inner judge being able to put them on a pause, let them step out of the room and then get back into our play. And just having that, you know, that ability to laugh at ourselves, to be playful, to be a child again, and then to discover the wonder of sound making and music making as a game. And so there’s a series of games that I’ve worked with. been studying. also have done a lot recently. I’ve been working with this group down in Brazil called Musica do Círculo, Music of the Circle.

And I met the founders when I was studying with Bobby McFerrin up in upstate New York at Omega Institute, I don’t know, like eight years ago. And I connected with this group just recently, I just went down there in March and I did a course with them. And they’re really cool. They’ve been developing this whole program around these games. They have eight games that they use. There are music games, kind of like anything from like, for instance, like Echo, like a call response. There’s a game called Arrow where you you clap your hand, you send a sound to each person.

in the circle. And then you can layer that. You can do it in time, you can do it out of time. You know, just as an example, right? There’s like phrase games, like we do refrain. And all of these games kind of get you warmed up at any level to then understand the principles of music. And then you then apply that then to whatever it is, either just vocal work, working with your voice, singing, but also just playing percussion using the body as a percussive instrument. And then that all translates then onto all the other instruments because

everything else, including the laptop, in working with Ableton is an extension of the instrument. So kind of coming back to where we started. So for me on stage, I’ve got the instrument number one. And that’s the one that I would say I’ve spent the most time cultivating. And I’m still cultivating, right? I went down to do this training, like it never ends, right? It’s like, this is, a, you’re always a student. And so, you know what saying? So with that, I then on stage, I’m using about,

Jesse Brede (25:29.614)
Yeah.

Poranguí (25:35.925)
I haven’t counted it, but there’s probably somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 other instruments that I’m playing. Everything from cajon that I sit on gives me my bass, my kind of kick drum and my snare. know, rebolo, which is a Brazilian like surdo drum I use for like my 808 kind of sound, like a rounder kind of fat bass drum. And then I’ve got charango, which largely honestly is a practical, because I play guitar, I play other strings, but the charango is small.

So when you’re flying with a lot of equipment, it’s like, I gotta get instruments that are small and can fit in the overhead. You know what I’m Already, I mean, know, just a note on that, because it’s kind of funny, know, Amani friend from Desert Dwellers, dear brother, Liquid Bloom, longtime collaborator. And I know you’ve worked with Amani for many years. You know, he always laughs, you know, we always joke about this because we’ve done shows together and like he shows up sound check, you know, he’s already like, you know, he plugs in his like controller.

Jesse Brede (26:05.274)
I

Jesse Brede (26:14.426)
Yeah.

Poranguí (26:30.59)
He puts in his thumb drive, you know what mean? He’s got his laptop. And then he’s like, he’s done in five minutes sound check. And I’m like, I’m just plugging in like the third microphone and he’s like, I’ll see you at the hotel. I’m like, fuck, you know. So it’s always like the running joke is like, bro, you know, you could just DJ, it’d be so much easier. You’d probably get paid more. And I’m like, I can’t, you know, my commitment to creating it all live to the improvisation element. Like it’s just for me, I feel like.

Jesse Brede (26:30.874)
you

Jesse Brede (26:35.002)
So.

Jesse Brede (26:41.687)
You

Jesse Brede (26:47.481)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Poranguí (26:57.203)
No one else is really doing it at that level. Like you mentioned Beardy Man or DubFX, like amazing artists that I truly admire and respect. And both of them, I mean, have very simple setups. And Beardy Man’s just really just using beatboxing and then all his crazy invention of his tech. So for me, it’s like I’m a multi-instrumentalist. And so by nature, know, it’s like this instrument is doing the most. I could probably pull it off doing kind of what Beardy Man does. I also beatbox, but it’s like, just wouldn’t, it wouldn’t, you know,

Jesse Brede (27:07.396)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (27:22.66)
Yeah.

Poranguí (27:26.872)
serve, I think, the full gamut of colors and timbres that I want to express with. So for me, it’s like, kind of think it’s like I’m live painting, right? I have all these sounds, right, that I’m basically, instead of using samples, I don’t want to just have a handsonic and record all my sounds and then like, you know, strike it with a drumstick or my hand. like, it seems so anticlimactic. And part of it for me is like, there’s an energy, Jesse, when you’re on stage, in the room and like the bodies are sweating.

Everyone’s breathing together and like the drum the way the skin of the instrument responds is Unique and distinct and connected to that moment literally It’s like the breath of everyone who’s in that room in that moment seen and unseen even the ancestors who are with us You know when I play that instrument what’s coming through is so relevant to that moment and there’s something for me Connectively that like that is that the essence of music and live music performance, right that I think it’s so important

And that’s what I feel like even because I used to DJ to like I mad respect for you know Artists who are just pure DJs. I think the power of the DJ is the it’s like a post-modern musician You’re taking a recording which is an echo of a past moment. That’s dead. It’s gone. It’s never gonna happen again You’re taking a recording and you’re recontextualizing it into the now by mixing it with other moments that are also dead and you’re making them alive So essentially you’re resurrecting the dead

and making it relevant again to now, which is really beautiful, right? In this way, in a sense, but in music, like a band is basically playing a song, maybe they’ve rehearsed it a lot of times, but you know, when a jazz trio is playing and improvising, we’re tapping into something that is, it’s like hard to even put into words, especially in English. It’s like we’re tapping into a field, a collective field, you know, the morphic field.

Jesse Brede (29:11.3)
Yeah.

Poranguí (29:16.688)
And is something that I would say, know, in the somatic field, like all of our bodies and the way we feel, like when the bass hits you in the room versus on headphones, right? When you’re in that space with that artist, with the audience, with, you know, yeah, the weather, with the elemental beings, with everything that’s happening, something that is irreplaceable unfolds, which thank God, because that’s why we’re still performing live and we’re still able to make, you know, kind of a living. You know how hard it is.

as a live artist, right? Because we can’t sell records anymore. So I just, should kind of bring all that into the, I’ll get back to promise to your question. to just, so just to like, to like inform. like what then happens for me is then I’m world bridging. So now I’ve got all these sounds, the instruments live being created. And then the other part of what I do, which kind of you mentioned Beardy, Beardy Man and DoubleFX is the technology.

Jesse Brede (29:44.567)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (29:52.79)
No worries. I love it. I’m here for this journey, brother.

Poranguí (30:13.481)
Technology side right the fire side so I’ve spent a lot of time and I think you know this like Countless hours hunched over my rig in the cold garage, know in the winter in Sedona trying to like program and figure out and a lot of it I’m self-taught in all this stuff. I had to learn programming. I’ve had to learn like Ableton I didn’t know the Ableton at all when I first got into this I was looping with hardware pedals then I eventually start switched over to Ableton because of the sonics that were superior

And gave me more flexibility, right? But basically Ableton works as a host. It’s not really I’m not really I don’t even still produce in Ableton I all my music I make it Mostly I’ve produced when I produce this in logic But I’ve had to learn Ableton because it’s more the most stable platform for live performing and it basically acts as a wraparound or a host for all the other Instruments and pieces that I’m bringing together in the loopers. It’s hosting my loopers. But at the end of the day like

It’s a lot of components that go into actually making the sound, if you will. And so just to share a little bit more about that, so in the tech, so I’m using Ableton in my pedal and I built a custom made pedal board. I machined it aluminum. It’s gone through like, I don’t know, 10 iterations, started out with wood. Like I had to learn carpentry, built this crazy like pedal board, know, then it evolved. And now my current rig is a redundant rig, which actually happened after the InVision set.

Jesse Brede (31:38.35)
There you go.

Poranguí (31:38.428)
That was like the last, straight up, like each time these things happen, it’s like, okay, how do I now evolve so that that doesn’t happen again, or at least less likely to happen? And so, yeah, so right now the current rig is a redundant rig. So what does that mean? Essentially, I have a machine pedal board that I’ve created. It’s all custom. It has various MIDI controllers and OSC controllers. So I’m using both MIDI and OSC. I run that. I have an interface, a device called a data looper.

Jesse Brede (31:48.995)
Wow.

Poranguí (32:07.964)
which is basically a controller that is wired into the API, the backend of Ableton. It was developed by a good friend of mine, Vince Simo over in California, who’s a brother, and I basically was his beta tester for this thing. I worked with him to program and create a more customized version that I use in my rig. But essentially what it does is it was the key piece that allowed Ableton to actually function as reliably as a hardware pedal.

because anyone who’s ever tried to loop with the looper in Ableton, no, it’s wonky. Sometimes it bugs out. It’s like not reliable, 100%. And when you’re at this level, like it’s gotta be 100%, like, or at least like 99%. So that this device I use, I also use BOM network and like BOM is like the backbone of all the MIDI routing and controlling. I use another program called Lemur, which is what that operates on my iPad and that’s controlling everything with OSC and a little bit of MIDI, but mostly OSC.

Jesse Brede (32:59.741)
yeah.

Poranguí (33:06.833)
That’s essentially acts like my, it’s like my heads up display. It’s like so that I don’t have to look at the computer, because the last thing I want to do is be that DJ or that artist who’s like, looks like they’re checking email on stage. And so by design, I put together the whole, I engineered the whole device so that as much as possible, I don’t look at the tech, I look at the audience and I’m like connected to spirit so that I’m really in the channel and I’m not like having to go and press like 20 different buttons.

Jesse Brede (33:20.089)
Yeah.

Poranguí (33:36.113)
to do a thing, I use a lot of macros and a lot of scripting language so that when I press one button, like I’m activating my charango, it already recalls all the things. It selects the right looper, it activates the right effects, it turns on the right channel, know, and mutes everything else. All that happens with one button press so that I can like stay in the flow. And so the whole thing, it’s like a flow machine, right? I think who is it I’m thinking of? He also calls his device the flow machine.

Jesse Brede (33:54.488)
Wow.

Poranguí (34:04.901)
gosh, I’m spacing his name right now. He’s another kind of beardy man, one of our peers. I just space his name. Anyways, it’ll come to me. yeah, so basically that tech part of it is acting like this looping device and the mixing device, effects device, arrangement device. It basically, it allows me to basically wear all the hats so that I’m literally producing a track in real time that

Jesse Brede (34:09.882)
Yeah.

Poranguí (34:33.048)
So I can play between two DJs who are playing master tracks that were recorded and know, refined in a studio. But my sound quality can compete with that, can still like represent. I don’t like the word compete, but you know, compliment with that. Yeah, so.

Jesse Brede (34:46.872)
I mean, it’s true. It makes sense. Yeah. And I just wanted to say like to the way that you’ve engineered it, what you said, I think is so key so that you can really connect with the audience. There’s nothing in front of you. You’re sitting, everything’s arranged for you to grab it and get to it and play it, introduce that next piece, keep the flow building. It’s very, you know, I came from like the progressive house world of that progressive house music where things change slowly and you’re like, how did we get here?

And I’ve noticed that with your music is like, it’s it’s morphing and slowly and changing over time. And you’re, you know, you’re modulating the riffs. And, and I mean, I’ll say all of this, that is extremely impressive for all of that to be pulled together and for it to not be so that you’re not having to sit there and interface with it all the time as all of that’s happening. That is, that is a miracle. That is a modern, modern day miracle that you’ve put all of that together and it works so consistently.

Poranguí (35:40.035)
You

You

Jesse Brede (35:46.33)
And, and your partner Ashley will perform with you.

Poranguí (35:51.087)
Yeah, right.

Jesse Brede (35:52.47)
And she brings a whole nother level of energy of dance and spoken word and like sort of the almost the conductor of sorts, like the the MC. Like that was that’s been amazing to watch her, her sort of how she complements your energy and there’s feminine energy on the stage as well, which I think is so important. How did that come about? How did you guys kind of introduce that? Or would love to hear some of that story. I’m sure it’s long.

Poranguí (36:18.875)
Yeah, yeah, no, I’d love to share that. Yeah, so that’s been a journey. I mean, this whole process. So Ashley and I got together right when I started my solo project before that. I had several bands. One was like a 10 piece Brazilian band that I directed for many years. So it kind of got to this point where it’s like, can’t tour these projects. They’re just too big and they’re not practical. It’s like, when you’re dealing with 10 cats to herd, it’s hard enough dealing with one. It’s like, yeah, exactly.

And so like, you know, everyone’s got other gigs or kids or other, you know, just was impossible life, right? So it was just like, okay. And obviously the price, right? To be able to make it like, you know, be sustainable, I have to charge so much to be able to feed everybody, to take care of the whole band. that was, there was a lot of reasons. And then the other piece, honestly, is I remember those rehearsals. Like we’d have to rehearse for hours and hours and hours to get everyone really tight, you know, cause I’m, I’m

Jesse Brede (36:50.168)
life.

Jesse Brede (37:01.37)
Yeah, it’s tough.

Poranguí (37:15.29)
Yeah, I’m a self-proclaimed perfectionist for sure. I will own that. I’m pretty like, I’m OCD in some ways. And I mean, that’s only way you can do this, I think, is you have to be really systematic. And yet, and the reason why I do this is so that I can be really creative, so that I can then let go. So I once got this fortune cookie that I found, and I kept it, this little fortune. And it says, over-prepare and then go with the flow.

Jesse Brede (37:23.951)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (37:40.346)
Ugh.

Poranguí (37:41.912)
And I mean, it like nails it, right? It’s like, so for me, that’s like truly what it’s about. So like the sound checks, all the work, all the preparation, it’s like all to get everything super dialed, everything has its place. And then once we get there in the performance, it’s like, whatever happens, happens. I don’t know what’s, yeah, it’s like surrender all of that. And that’s when the magic happens. So it’s like, you gotta really make sure that the container is like, has integrity. And so when Ashley, in the beginning of our relationship, when I the solo project, we’ve been together 14 years now, which is like,

I don’t know about y’all, but that’s a long time for me. And not only is that a long time, but it’s actually more than that because we’ve been 13 years of the 14 years we’ve worked together on tour on the road. So you know what I’m talking about, Jesse. It’s like, so really we’ve been together like double that because most couples, right, you each got your gig, they go do their thing, you go do your thing, and then you come together and you have love. For us, it’s been like, okay, how do you stay in love when you’re in the grind, when you’re in stress, high stress, high transition?

Jesse Brede (38:23.31)
Wow. Wow.

Jesse Brede (38:32.324)
Yeah.

Poranguí (38:42.34)
experiences on tour, every day is a new set of problems. And so then it’s like, how do you keep your polarity? How do you stay in your heart? How do you continue to forgive and get off your soapbox, not be too attached to how things look? So that’s been such a journey, bro. Honestly, mean, that’s my real school. Part of it’s been the tech and building my career as an artist. But then right there with that has been actually how to be in good relationship with a partner.

who’s like a badass and she comes from a background in psychology. She was a school psychologist. She left that whole career and had a massive healing and awakening when the raw food movement was going on. She kind of found that it got her off of her meds and got her to heal her body and her health. And then that has opened her up and her ability, she’s very psychic. And that’s kind of what you’re talking about. So as a guide, people ask like, what does Ashley do? And I’m like,

It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s like she’s not exactly doing spoken word. She’s not really like she’s not like an MC She’s she’s more like she’s really like the like the energy the archetype of the feminine bringing like this this psychic Tuned-in empathic I should say is actually the word she’s like an empath. So meaning she’s feeling through her body She’s so sensitive that she’s feeling the whole audience and she’s feeling the music and feeling like what is arising in the moment and so just like me she’s improvising and like

Jesse Brede (39:47.215)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (39:52.633)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (40:02.222)
Yeah.

Poranguí (40:09.825)
If something arises that she’s like, I’m gonna say this prompt or invite the audience to do something or like, you know what I mean? Share like the right word at the right moment that just like takes us to yet another level, another level deeper.

Jesse Brede (40:14.778)
Hmm.

Jesse Brede (40:22.146)
Yeah, just allowing you someone to like, it’s right on the tip of their heart. They want to have that and then she invites them to, to feel that a little bit deeper and all of a sudden it comes. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well said. Yeah.

Poranguí (40:32.663)
Yeah. And then, know, and then she, course, because she started working with me, helped me out, like it started in the beginning. She was kind of like helping me sell merch at the show. And then that slowly like kept evolving. Then she started to do other offerings with my Brazilian band. She does a lot of Afro-Brazilian dance. So she would dance also. And she was, we had a whole dance troupe at that time. But then when my solo project like…

we got really clear that like having dancers on stage and all these like, you know, fire dancers, all these different things, it’s beautiful. That art is amazing. deep respect for it. And it becomes performative in a way that can actually be distracting from the prayer that we’re trying to do, which really my music in kind of the essence of what I’m trying to do for an audience is to help them go deeper within themselves. Like, you know, it’s like, we’re out here, we’re there’s a, yes, it’s a performance, but like,

It’s really, it borderlines into this realm of like a ceremony. And so it’s like inviting us into like this deeper connection and communion with spirit, with themselves, with the earth, with, and with each other. And so it’s like, I’m not doing this to be like, Hey, here’s this great artist on stage. It’s, it’s like really for me, like the power is when I’m just there, like helping set, set the invitation to like invite everyone to go on this magic journey with me, right? That I don’t know where it’s going to go. We’re creating it together.

So really the audience is in the band with me, because I’m literally responding to them, like depending on where they wanna go, the set could go up, down, it could go meditative, it could go fucking, you know, straight up psytrance if it needed to, like wherever it needs to go. It’s like, there’s no limitation to that. And that’s the magic, like audiences that I love are the ones that are like ready. They’re just, throw themselves in. And then it’s like, there’s so much fuel in the tank that we can go anywhere. And it’s really remarkable. So.

Jesse Brede (42:18.426)
Mm.

Poranguí (42:22.068)
Ashley, just to complete that, answer your question. So she would then tour with me. And then we were doing these sets when I was still DJing, where I would DJ for her and she would do this. She was trained in a modality called Dancing Freedom that was founded by a woman, really incredible healer and visionary named Samantha Sweetwater. She’s based in the Bay Area. And Samantha had created Dancing Freedom. It’s like a form of, people know ecstatic dance. I think that’s become pretty wide known now.

But ecstatic dance is kind of, it has a certain container of intentional dancing, no speaking on the dance floor, there’s an opening, there’s a closing of it, and there’s kind of like a way that it’s held, although there’s lots of variations within that. Dancing freedom was a modality, kind of all of these forms, by the way, I should acknowledge, go back to Five Rhythms from Gabriela Roth, who started this whole movement, I think back in the 70s, 60s. Hologropic breath work from Groff was also

Jesse Brede (42:53.081)
Mm-hmm.

Poranguí (43:19.224)
kind of getting it started. So these were like the initial impulses, which I think weren’t even theirs, right? These are of course ancestral. They’re just, they were the ones who kind of were the emissaries who brought it more into a modern context. And then you have like the ecstatic dance movement that came out of the Bay Area, you know, kind of with ED, ecstatic dance, St. Fran, that kind of like started a pulse in Kalani and Hawaii, Big Island. That was another one of the pulses that kind of like started to really, you know, get this movement started.

Jesse Brede (43:25.818)
Sure.

Poranguí (43:45.356)
Dancing Freedom that Samantha started brought her expertise in psychology and somatic arts and then wove that with this elemental container, a whole bunch of tools to really go even deeper into that facilitation. So Ashley was trained in that. Just to give you an example, when they do a Dancing Freedom container, they might dance through all the elements like earth, fire, water, air, ether, but then they will also have partner sharing where someone will dance and have another person just witness them.

and then have a reflection and then do the same and flip. And so there’s this powerful other components to it. It’s not just that one container. So Ashley was trained in this. I would DJ for her Dancing Freedom sets that she would do here in Sedona. And then we were on tour. I was just playing one of my sets and one of her old mentors was there. This was up in Ashland at the Hot Springs up there. And so we were there and she goes like, so Ashley’s gonna facilitate, right? While you play.

And we’re like, oh no, no, that’s not what we do, no. And she’s like, oh no, no, she’s gonna do that, right? And so we were like, okay, let’s try it out. And so we did it. That was like, I don’t know, that was probably 2015, 16. And it was beautiful. Like it was really, we were like, oh, this is amazing. Like we really should do this more. And so Ashley started, we started to make it like a special offering. We do like this hybrid set with Ashley. And then I would still do just my set. And then eventually now, fast forward to now,

It’s basically cut to the point where actually there’s always a mic on stage and she’s just, there’s just an open invite. If she feels inspired, she gets up and she says something or she makes an offering. But like, like, it’s just kind of like always having that ability for the feminine, the voice of the feminine to be expressed, which like feels really potent and almost necessary, especially right now in the context, culturally and societally, you know, where the feminine has been so suppressed and there’s this big pushback.

Jesse Brede (45:35.513)
Yes.

Poranguí (45:41.675)
you know, in that kind of masculine energy wanting to like take control and take power. So it’s something that I think really also is a unique offering, aspect of the offering of what we’re doing, you know, it’s like, how do we bring that balanced voice? So the complementarity of masculine and feminine, and also of course, twin spirited beings as well being honored, you know, in this too, but just that’s our dynamic, you know, in our relationship, we’re heterosexual. But I think

Jesse Brede (46:10.489)
Yeah.

Poranguí (46:11.157)
the voice of the masculine and feminine being represented because there’s a medicine in that. There’s a balm, a healing balm in that, especially for those of us who come from the split child, know, upbringings where it’s like split parents, I mean, where you didn’t have a mom and a dad to reference, right, for your reality check. And so there’s something that really creates a safety too, because obviously there’s a lot of men out there on stages that also use that power and that privilege being on a stage to

Jesse Brede (46:27.866)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (46:36.973)
Mm-hmm.

Poranguí (46:39.292)
manipulate sexual energy, you know, to have a power over other people, especially women in that case, or, you know, depending on their orientation. But that’s a dynamic. And so part of it for me, I’ve found is that it like helps balance that. So when I feel sexual energy being projected onto me from my audience, you know, and that happens all the time, it’s like, for me, it’s like really powerful when I can really just take that energy and just let it feed the creativity and send it back and it’s like safe, it’s clean.

And then what happens is like, and the women feel even safer, know, those who identify as women, you know, feminine, feel safer in the space because they’re held and like, they can even let loose even more and go wild. And it’s not going to be this thing where there’s like this vampiric energy preying on that really beautiful, sacred sexual energy, you know? So that, I don’t know, just to name that, that’s part of like creating that, you know, a really sacred container for going deep into performative context.

Jesse Brede (47:12.858)
Mm.

Jesse Brede (47:37.914)
Thank you. I had an inkling that was where we might go with that. I’m really glad I asked it. I think it’s so important. I think we are seeing to some extent a balancing of more women on stage and electronic music in that world, kind of the world that I’m in with Gravitas and Pivotal. I think you guys are, know, said simply, like you guys are setting an example, right? And you’re both in your power.

Poranguí (48:04.052)
Mm. Mm.

Jesse Brede (48:06.322)
And the thing that I got when I saw you perform at Aubrey’s Arcadia Festival was just how much energy she’s able to her dance. I also think she just leads the dance. like, if you’re like, maybe you’re getting tired and you’re like, okay, I might. And then you see Ashley just, whoa. And you’re like, all right, I gotta go too. let’s, you know, and it just keeps, it just keeps things going. So I think it’s beautiful. It’s, it’s very, it’s, it’s an excellent offering.

And you mentioned ceremony and I wanted to ask you about, obviously you’ve hit on a couple times where you mentioned plant medicine and those ceremonies.

I think I first discovered your music through your Ayahuasca album. And then I understood that that was, you know, partly a soundtrack that came from working with Aubrey Marcus and that movie. And that was kind of my introduction to that plant medicine. And, know, I’ve explored that world further. I would love to hear how that came together and then just rip from there. Obviously there’s so much to talk about.

Poranguí (49:11.989)
Yeah, that’s a whole universe. So yeah, so where to begin? So I’ve been working with plant medicines pretty early on in my life, culturally. And my parents, as I said, my dad obviously was already working with Onguitos from before I was even a sparkle in his eye.

Jesse Brede (49:15.93)
the

Poranguí (49:39.111)
And he would work obviously in sacred places, in sacred sites like I was sharing in Palenque, which is one of the most incredible power points on the planet. So yeah, think it’s been part of my upbringing, working with plant medicines and working just with medicine, like ceremony. That’s been there all along my childhood. My mother was adopted into a Navajo family when she came to the States.

taken to the Sundance ceremony. She was a Sundance for eight years from when I was age eight through 16. So I would spend time with her up on the rez, Navajo Nation on the Hopi rez in Arizona. And then also in Brazil and different, you so I’ve been kind of through various initiations throughout my childhood, which I think has made me obviously the man that I am today. And with the capacity that I have today to bring that background.

into these contexts that obviously you and I are familiar with of like, you know, the festival scene, you know, the kind of the party culture, electronic music culture, you know, like when I came to the States back, was first, I kind of went to, I bounced back and forth my whole life. It was really in high school that I established myself. I went to a school in Phoenix, Arizona that, and so I really struggled there because it was a Jesuit school.

It was called Brophy College Preparatory. And I was there on a scholarship. My grandparents, my father’s folks helped me pay for this. And I was also working doing like, I was working in sports medicine. So I would like work on the sports teams doing like, know, doctoring up guys before they go out on the field. And so this is like my other background. I thought I was going to be a doctor. I kind of was on this whole path of being a medical doctor. And so instead I’ve evolved into doctoring people through music is kind of been how that shifted. You know what I mean? But I share that because, you know, I came here and I used to go out dancing.

Jesse Brede (51:25.944)
Yes.

Poranguí (51:32.403)
since I was a little kid in Brazil, like there was no 21 and over limit like we see in the States. as you’re a little kid, soon as you can look over a bar, you can pretty much order a drink. It’s not like no one cares, right? And so like this lack of prohibition actually makes it, I would argue culturally that like music and dance are just part of you from the time you’re little. You’re not shamed about it. It’s just what you do. And so I really struggled when I got here, cause I was like, I wanted to go out dancing, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t 21 years old.

Jesse Brede (51:42.756)
Yeah.

Poranguí (52:00.947)
and I didn’t have a fake ID. And the only other chance I could get would be to go to a gay bar. But then that was always a trippy experience, because then I’d have all these guys hitting on me. like, you know, I felt just honest, you know? So like, I ended up having this friend that I befriended in high school who introduced me to the rave scene. He took me to my first underground party. This is in early 90s. That is what actually then opened up this whole door, because I was like, this is amazing. Like, you we had, you you remember, I think you might recall this, like the text.

Jesse Brede (52:12.59)
Yeah.

Poranguí (52:29.853)
you know, to get a text message on like your pager of like then where you get the directions to then get a map to then get, you know what I mean? was, I fucking love that treasure hunt, right? There was something so magical about that era and electronic music was on no one’s radar, right? It was not in mainstream music. It wasn’t a genre. It wasn’t cool. It was amazing, you know, and it like, and it was so, such a golden era, I believe for, for, you know, this, what has now become an industry.

Jesse Brede (52:35.3)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Jesse Brede (52:43.394)
Yeah, it was not cool. Yeah, nobody was trying to sell it. Yeah.

Jesse Brede (52:56.174)
Yep.

Poranguí (52:56.596)
And I just want to frame that because for me, that’s how I got introduced. That’s what I got inspired then to DJ was because I went to a desert party. wasn’t Moon Tribe, although I also really appreciate Moon Tribe and their events. Big shout out to Trevor and Imani and that whole crew. But it was actually, it was out here, it was called Basics. And it was this party happening on this shredder sound system. like 57 double 15 cabinets.

Jesse Brede (53:25.034)
wow.

Poranguí (53:25.083)
giant subsystem out in the forest outside of Strawberry, Arizona. And I’ll never forget it because it was the first time that I ever dropped into a quote unquote psychedelic or synthetic, which was MDMA. And I remember I finally agreed my buddy who was always wanting me to take it. I never did. I just danced all night just drinking water and I was fine. And people always thought I was on something because they’re like, this dude dances like crazy. So I went to this party, we’re outdoor in nature. And finally I was like, okay.

And I agreed and we split like this, it was liquid E. And I’d never forget because it opened up this whole portal in me, this channel. And I remember sitting, I danced all night into sunrise and I was sitting in this giant cedar tree, leaning up on it. And I was just sitting and watching the sunrise. And I’ll never forget the feeling of my body melting and merging into one with the roots of that tree. And I became the tree and I became the sun.

And it’s like my ego dissolved. And in that moment of unity consciousness, I really had suddenly all made sense to me what the Jesuit priests were talking about with Christ and what my Diné Navajo elders were telling us on the red road in the ceremonies. And I realized suddenly, great mystery, creator, Christ, Allah, all of these are the same being. They’re just different maps, if you will, different lexicons describing the same truth, which is this deeper truth of that we are one.

consciousness. We are one being. connected and we’re all related to each other. And that really opened up the door. And when I drove back to Phoenix after that party, I remember playing this Keoki. I think it was a Keoki DJ mix back then, right? I had an on tape. So I’m listening to this tape and I’m just like, I want to, I got to do this. Like I want to offer this to other people. Like I want others to feel what I’m connecting to. And that’s what I was like 15, 14 years old. And that got me into basically DJing. I saved up money.

got my first turntable, took one from my grandfather, this old like shitty turntable, like a, you know what I mean? I bought a Radio Shack mixer and I started making mix tapes. You know, and it was like, that was the start. Eventually got me to buy my 1200s, my Techniques, and then I started DJing, paid my way through college. So like all of that kind of got me in that road. And note, I didn’t use Ecstasy again for a long time because I just had that truth. I didn’t need it. It wasn’t like, I wasn’t looking for that. I didn’t need that to have a good time.

Jesse Brede (55:37.081)
Wow.

Poranguí (55:48.27)
And I share all this because that was then an echo of what would be my first ayahuasca ceremony, which happened at age 20 after college. So I went to Duke University on a full scholarship, which was a big deal in my family, because no one had ever gone to an Ivy league, let alone, you know, full riot. And I was going to do medicine. I got into the program there and I started to do pre-med and I started to shadow these doctors at the Duke Medical Center in the pediatrics. And I was working with the third degree burn

Jesse Brede (56:03.258)
Sure.

Poranguí (56:17.658)
a unit. So these kids would be flown in from the south, you know, covered in burns, little children. And the doctor would walk in with me, I was shadowing them, and they just look at the chart, they wouldn’t even look at the kid. And they would just be like, okay, do this, this and this. And they’d hand me the chart, and then leave, like 10 minutes, you know. And I was just like so disheartened. Because I suddenly realized, I was like, how can I dedicate my life to this when this isn’t about healing, it isn’t about medicine, it’s about it’s a business. It’s like an HMO telling you, you know, you can only spend this much time.

And it’s just like how many people can we get through the door? It’s an assembly line. And that like really got me off of that path. And that’s when I really discovered there’s this thing at Duke that was called program two. Basically program one was your typical major minor thing. And program two was basically if you could defend to a board of doctors why you deserve to design your own major because you didn’t fit into the programs, you could design your own course of study and do an honors thesis. And if they approved it, basically you could study what you want.

Jesse Brede (56:49.22)
Mm.

Poranguí (57:15.055)
And so there was only 20 of us out of the whole student body. know, most people was program one and then I was one of 20 that was in program two and got approved. And the title of my major, my area study was Healing Through Music and Dance Psychological and Cultural Perspectives. And that was basically my thesis and has been my life’s work. I have never stopped basically working on this research, which is I’m still doing it today. You know, it’s like, how do we heal? How do we look at music and sound as these like two mediums?

that all humans share in common, that always connect to some form of healing, no matter where we look in society, right? All around the planet until like basically Western American society, if you will, or Western society. You know, we’ve lost this. And that’s why I think the rave scene made sense. Because in a way the rave scene, or the underground electronic music scene, was actually bringing about a form of like community, music, dance, not about extractive…

energy, not about like selling alcohol, like your typical bars and clubs, right? But actually being about the music and about, you know, plural peace, love, unity, respect, which is one of the core principles that we used to really talk about back in those days. And so I really still believe that’s at the core of why that scene grew and blossomed. And then, of course, as it became mainstream, as you and I know now, it got industrialized, it got shackled, it got co-opted, just like

Just like the rock revolution, just like the hippie revolution, just like all the revolutions. And now we’re basically, I think, at the end of that era where it’s like now EDM has become this like generic kind of thing. With all due respect to all the EDM people out there, I don’t mean this to like, you know. But just to say like, it’s gone the way that it goes. It’s gotten commodified and sold back to us when it was a thing that was really underground and beautiful and raw. And so I share all this because…

Jesse Brede (58:57.978)
Yeah.

Poranguí (59:04.712)
I think there’s a deeper message here, which in an invitation, it’s like, I get curious, what comes next? What’s emerging in this void now? What’s the next underground? And I think in a large way, the medicine music is very much checking that box. Now, I, of course, just like when I was in the electronic underground scene, it’s like, I’m scared of it getting commodified. I’m already seeing it start to happen, right? It’s already starting to break. Once Aubrey talks about it, like when I agreed to do the documentary,

Once it reaches Joe Rogan and once it’s on, Aaron Rodgers, who’s a homie, is talking about his experiences, we’ve now reached that tipping point. And so I see that, of course. And now on one side, yeah, it means I’m getting more bookings. Yes, but it’s also like, is this good for the plants? Is this good for the people? Is this good for the ceremony of it when it gets commodified? So again, capitalism, it’s the air that we’re all breathing. It’s like the water we’re all swimming in, right, is the fish.

And I don’t think that justifies. think this is where I’m sharing all this because I think there’s a deeper part of the prayer in ayahuasca has shown me this in the ceremony and in the vision state is that we’re at a point now where I think we really, really have to switch the program. And so I get really curious about what happens, what comes after the festival? What’s the evolution of the festival? What’s the evolution of the ceremony? What’s the evolution of the performance? Where do we go from here? You know, what is, how do we not let

this get co-opted and get basically shackled and colonized is a term that I think is fair to use here, and kind of like commodified and scaled, these economies of scale and actually allow these traditional ways of healing and sound and movement to still reach more people, but do it in a way that’s actually like rooted in the earth and that honors these traditions and is able to do it in a good way that isn’t just stealing and like sampling and co-opting, without.

honoring anything, you know what I mean? Just because it’s exotic and making a lot of money off of it until the next shiny thing comes along. And that’s kind of where I’m at, like that questioning. And so a long way to come back to your question about Ayahuasca, when Ab asked me about this documentary, we were down in the jungle in Peru. I was there participating and he was filming it, the ceremonies that we did. We did a series of ceremonies. And I didn’t know I was going to do the soundtrack yet.

Jesse Brede (01:01:01.784)
Mm-hmm.

Poranguí (01:01:23.681)
And I just brought my field recorder and I was taking field recordings of the jungle and like, you know, in between ceremonies. And I thought he just wanted me there mostly for moral support, to be honest, and like to be like an extra in the film. But at the end, when we got back to the States, he asked me, he’s like, I talked with the team, Mitch Schultz, who did DMT, the spirit molecule, you know, was the director of the film. And he said, we talked and we just all feel like you’d be the perfect person to do the soundtrack. And so I was like,

Wow, I’d be super honored. At that point, I’d done some soundtracks, but for like indie films and like documentaries, like smaller docs. And so I was like, you know, it’s a big ass, but I’m like, fuck yeah, I’m onto it. Let’s do it. you know, grandmother is a big ally to me. And I felt like I would be really honored to help tell that story through sound. So that’s kind of how that then multiplied into that project, which then became this album that little did I know would really kind of introduce me to a lot of the world through that lens.

Although it’s not the only lens. So this kind of the Catch-22 of this is right. Then people think you just do medicine music and you’re just an ayahuasca artist or you know, which isn’t the case. Obviously, I think the music I hold is like much, much more diverse and wide. So that’s been a blessing and a curse. know, it’s still Illuminate is still like my number one track on Spotify, which was like the simplest track I recorded on that album. Ironically, right? It was like a one take and yet that’s the one that has over 17 million listens, right? It’s just classic.

Jesse Brede (01:02:24.442)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (01:02:30.606)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse Brede (01:02:41.996)
You

Jesse Brede (01:02:50.136)
Wow.

Poranguí (01:02:52.235)
But all I to say, I guess to close this, is that I had my first testimony at 20 in Brazil. I continued to work with this sacrament in the Brazilian lineages and also the Peruvian lineages. They’re a bit different. In Brazil, they work more with the lights on. It’s more interactive, more social, you could say. It’s more in the context of like a church setting. More church in the sense, not in like a Judeo-Christian church, but it has that kind of structure, if you will.

Jesse Brede (01:03:08.494)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:03:19.5)
Like, you know, it’s like every Sunday, instead of taking the Eucharist, you know, in a Catholic church, you know, and you’re drinking Ayahuasca every Sunday. And you’re working with children, with elders, it’s multi-generational. It’s not just like, just a shaman. Whereas like in Peru, you’re working with lights out, you’re doing more shadow work, it’s more internal. And I’m just, I want to this context for those, you know, maybe other listeners who are tuning in, who don’t know about this stuff. And they both have their merit, and they’re both very complimentary and powerful.

Jesse Brede (01:03:39.918)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:03:46.926)
And some people just resonate with one over the other, some kind of ride the line in between both. And so that’s kind of been my journey with it and continues. I’m very much in Brazil, I still work with different elders, also in Peru. And for me, I’ve very much pulled back from that, largely because a lot of people were asking me all the time, it shows like, hey, where do I sit? Like, do you have a place you recommend? And that’s why actually was the impetus, Jesse, of why I created Music is Medicine platform.

Jesse Brede (01:04:15.77)
Mmm.

Poranguí (01:04:16.193)
So music is medicine, the educational kind of side of what I do in the retreats really was birthed out of so many people asking me about like, where can I sit with the sacrament? And I came to this epiphany because as I started to do more research and started to talk more with elders and different community members and stakeholders in the quote unquote underground scene of working with ayahuasca and other plant medicines, it became very apparent that there’s not enough ayahuasca on the planet to wake everybody up. There just isn’t.

Jesse Brede (01:04:43.512)
Mmm.

Poranguí (01:04:44.437)
Like if we were to all drink ayahuasca tomorrow, it would destroy the Amazon and many forests thousands of times over, right? And so that started getting me thinking and tuning in and praying about what can I do? And it dawned on me, it’s like music. Music, if I can help people connect to those states of consciousness through sound, which you can, because the music is already there, it’s already doing a lot of this work. This is why we use music all the time, right? As a mood changer, as a switchle, right? To get us into a different state of mind.

for performance, for exercise, for study, you name it, right? Music is like the soundtrack of our lives. And so in recordings, of course, have amplified the Spotify and other platforms like this have amplified that reality, this music on demand. But what I realized is that, as I spoke to earlier on our call here, is that people, we’ve lost our connection with music creation. And there’s a big important piece in this is that when we create the music, when we’re personally,

a stakeholder and have skin in the game, literally. Something else happens. There’s more connectivity. There’s more neural connection plasticities. It comes online. And just like the psychedelic medicines, which also open us into flow states and take us into these high plasticity moments where new wiring is happening in our nervous system, in our body, in our brain, music also has the ability to do this. And again, I’m talking only music, but movement, music and dance. And so this leads me kind of full spiral back to the beginning of our call.

Jesse Brede (01:05:51.556)
Mm-hmm.

Poranguí (01:06:12.393)
is that I started doing these retreats where people, we don’t do any plant medicine. We only work with music. We work with breath work. We work with movement, with dance. And we do that dancing freedom container work as well that I mentioned. And this circle music work that I learned partially from my own work over the many years training in capoeira in Brazil, also going and studying with Bobby McFerrin, who I mentioned earlier, up at Omega Institute with Circle Songs.

And then now, Musica do Círculo with this group in Brazil, and then just many, many years of developing my own kind of modality with this. I’ve basically come together and I’ve brought together like all of this into a format that takes a person who has maybe minimal experience in music making and takes them through six, seven day experience of ceremony of dropping deep into the container of this, of music as medicine. And they leave empowered to be able to facilitate

to be able to create, to be able to improvise and literally feeling like totally transformed. And I can’t tell you how many people tell me they’re like, like, bro, did you slip like some medicine into our like, did you put something in our water? Like, you know, they’re like, I was having visions, I was seeing fucking colors, you know, it felt like I was, I was in an ayahuasca ceremony. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to get at is that it’s, this is free, music is sustainable, it’s an infinite resource, it’s totally renewable energy source.

Jesse Brede (01:07:20.696)
Ha ha ha ha.

Jesse Brede (01:07:25.591)
Yes.

Poranguí (01:07:37.676)
So if I can get people turned on through music as the medicine, we’ve basically answered, think what is the real problem right now and that we need. We’re all searching for meaning. We’re all searching for a deeper purpose and connection because right now our technology, it’s facilitates so much and it’s so great. AI and the rise of AI, what we’re seeing happening here with the tech, has its positive, but the dark side is that I see we’re slipping into more disconnect.

Jesse Brede (01:07:42.49)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (01:07:50.98)
Mm-hmm.

Poranguí (01:08:06.079)
We’re slipping more into a loss of empathy where we can drop bombs on other human beings remotely like a video game and have no empathy or connection or sorrow for what has just taken place. this work with music, music I believe is the antidote. It has the power to bring us back into our empathy to make us more human. And at the end of the day, that’s really the legacy of leaving this world more beautiful that I’m committed to.

Jesse Brede (01:08:33.22)
Wow. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the takeaways for me, and I’ve seen this in my own plant medicines is like.

wanting to like your frequency, right? How often are you sitting? And I’ve even asked that question, like, how often do you think someone should sit? You know, to some of the maestros I’ve sat with and, you know, some people are sitting quite often and I am just like maybe once or twice a year at the most and even right now probably taking a much longer break. And I think you bring up a really good point is I my dad told me this when I was a kid about psychedelics and he was like,

They’ll show you the mountain, but they won’t take you there. And you’re talking about doing the hard work, the daily work, the practice, the really, you know, playing, letting go, stripping away those boundaries and just being free with the music.

that’s that same state of mind, like you said, that neuroplasticity, learning to play something, learning to paint, learning to draw, those are all activating the brain and getting us wired up to let go and be part of our higher selves. So awesome, brother. I mean, that that’s an amazing mission. I think you are are

Poranguí (01:09:44.651)
hahaha

Jesse Brede (01:09:48.012)
Man, it’s just been such so great to drop in with you. I have one more question and then I’ll probably wrap it up. I did reach out to Amani and I say, what what do think we should talk about? And he brought up and I saw this on your Instagram was the Brazil land project. And I think it ties in nicely with everything that you’ve been talking about and how you know, I’ll let you explain what it is. But I think one of the other things I’m hearing is just

Poranguí (01:09:53.215)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (01:10:18.296)
I guess the question is when you’re coming off tour, it seems like you’re getting going back and getting your hands dirty and working and disconnecting from the devices and just getting, know, getting back to, being one with the, with the earth. So I wanted to ask you what that is and sort of where, what that relationship is and how that project came about.

Poranguí (01:10:40.488)
Yeah, beautiful. I mean, that’s funny that Manny said that. Yeah, this project, so in the midst of the pandemic, I’ve always had the dream of one day being able to have a place in Brazil that I could call home, eventually basing more out of my native country, Brazil, than the States. Although I didn’t know when and how that was gonna form. And in the midst of the pandemic, my mother,

who had been, she’d been years in a monastery. She’s been a monk. It’s kind of another trippy aside of my mom. She had to leave in the midst of the pandemic. Several things happened in the situation there with the monastery. And so she had nowhere to go because being a monk she had renounced. So she didn’t have anything, not even like clothes. And so when she had to suddenly leave, it was super tricky because they had shut down all the flights to Brazil. I couldn’t even get there for months and months. And a really dear friend,

Jesse Brede (01:11:28.09)
Mm.

Poranguí (01:11:38.067)
who has a retreat center in a place called Alto Paraíso, a high paradise. It’s right in the heart of Brazil, about three hours away from Brasília, the capital, in a place known as, in a biome known as the Cerrado. The Cerrado is an incredible biome. It only exists in Brazil, in central Brazil. It’s just south of the Amazon and it’s a totally, it’s basically a tropical savanna is what it would be translated to in English. There’s, it has more biodiversity in most places on the planet.

It’s incredible. it’s like, yeah, it is also the headwaters of a lot of water that then feeds into the Amazon basin. And it’s magical. I mean, just to give you an example, like there’s fruitarian wolves that are endemic to this place. Like literally they’re wolves. They look like a fox, a cross between a fox and like a giraffe had a kid. Like, cause they have long legs so that they can eat the fruit off of the trees. Like it’s, it’s, kid you not, this is a real animal. Look it up, a Lobo Guara.

Jesse Brede (01:12:23.567)
wow.

Jesse Brede (01:12:37.178)
That’s amazing.

Poranguí (01:12:37.18)
GUARA. Yeah, check it out afterwards. It’s mind-boggling. Like this place is full of, it’s like Dr. Seuss land. It’s like totally like plants and trees that you’ve never seen before and they’re beautiful. So I suddenly, know, so my friend had this retreat center and my mom went there. And then we, when I finally got my first, flight, I think it was like end of 2020, December, I was able to get down there and we started looking at places because we’re really feeling called by that land. And it, long story short,

Jesse Brede (01:12:43.61)
you

Poranguí (01:13:04.914)
we were able to finance this property. about 30 acres and it’s right up against the national park. There’s a national park there called Chapada dos Viaderos. Beautiful park, full of waterfalls. That whole region has like, I don’t know, hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls. It’s like mesas, kind of like the Southwest. So it reminds me a lot of my desert home, but it has water. And so like water falling off these, you know, it’s just really special place. Very sacred land.

Jesse Brede (01:13:25.85)
you

Poranguí (01:13:30.801)
And so we got into this project and I’ve been basically developing it little by little. And right now the goal I think there is to be able to create a space where we could host retreats, to be able to receive people both to create and to create like these kind of like what I would, yeah, I’m still playing with this concept, but essentially create a place where people can come to both record music, learn music, develop their own instrument. Like I’ve been talking about the music is medicine kind of curriculum.

But then the beauty about Brazil is that all these sacraments, the plant medicines, most of them are legal in Brazil. It’s not an illegal thing. There’s so many established churches and groups there that they’re not, as matter of fact, ganja is illegal in Brazil, very illegal, ironically. But if you wanted to work with ayahuasca, no one’s gonna bat an eye. So it’s a safe place to be able to work with the sacraments in a good way and not have the government breathing down your neck.

Jesse Brede (01:14:14.072)
Wow. Hmm.

Poranguí (01:14:27.664)
It’s also very ancestral, the land is very ancestral. So it’s a way that we can help protect that biome, because it’s under threat right now of big farm monocrop like soybean farm and cattle ranchers that are basically inviting the area. And a lot of times the Cejado, because it’s more of like savanna and it’s like considered by many as like brush land and not valuable like the Amazon, it’s often used as a bargaining chip politically when political leaders are saying like, we’re gonna protect the jungle, then go ahead and why don’t you put your farm here in the Cejado.

And so they’ll sacrifice it, which is really, it’s unfortunate. And so it’s led to a lot of ancestral lands there that have been protected or being invaded. So part of our project is creating also a sanctuary, like an animal corridor that then goes to the park. So we have all kinds of animals that pass through our property. I’ve already, yeah, and I’ve turned it into a sanctuary. So 70 % of it is already protected, will never be developed. And then I think about 25, 20 % is all we’re actually developing.

Jesse Brede (01:15:14.457)
Wow.

Jesse Brede (01:15:24.419)
Okay.

Poranguí (01:15:25.371)
Yeah, so just to kind of give you some context around that, yeah, it ties into like the music. We didn’t talk about this, but the Kuya sessions that we were asked to do, and this was something I collaborated, I brought Amani in on in the midst of the pandemic was one of the projects that also birthed in that crazy pause time that we were all asked to do. I was asked by Dr. Dan Engel, who’s a dear friend and he was one of the founders of Kuya, which is a clinic there in Austin where you are, Jesse.

Jesse Brede (01:15:44.089)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:15:54.075)
Yeah, at the time, know, a state-of-the-art clinic. They really wanted to create a whole suite of basically working with psychedelics for therapy, you know, guided by clinical science. And Dr. Dan is an amazing doctor who’s well-steeped both in psychiatry and kind of like Western medicine, but then he’s also done many dietas down in the jungle. He’s worked with many cuaranderos and medicine people for many, many decades. So he has, he kind of knows both worlds. He’s one of those unique human beings, truly blessed to call him, you know, one of my

best friends and he hits me up in the middle of Penempa and he goes like, we’re going to open this clinic. We’re basically going to start, we’re going to develop a whole suite of entheogens to his therapy. But we’re going to start with ketamine because it’s legal now. We can already start working with it. And he says, and no one’s ever made music for ketamine. And personally, I’m thinking to myself, I’m like, ketamine?

It’s a dissociative, it’s a synthetic, like I’m good. I don’t want to go near this stuff. You know, like I’ve never been interested in it historically. And I’m very much more of a, of organic plant-based medicine person. So if I’m going to work with anything, mean, MDMA was already the biggest stretch, you know, when I was young, they kind of opened the door for me. So I respect it, but it’s not like the thing that I want to be promoting or be, you know, behind. And so I was like, I don’t know, Dan, but because it’s Dan and I trust him so much, you know, I said, okay,

Jesse Brede (01:17:05.806)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:17:19.693)
He basically proposed that let me take you under and put you through the clinical trial. So actually do like a clinical treatment, which would be like four sessions over a couple of weeks, slowly ramping up the dosage with intramuscular injection. So that’s how you would take it. And this is like, you know, so all above, above the table, so to speak, not like street ketamine or something. So, so he did, you know, and it was in midst of the pandemic and he dropped both Ashley and I in and it was so healing.

Jesse Brede (01:17:40.153)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:17:47.95)
It was like, saw the potential. you know, he put the music that he put on Notu was like this, this album that he found from like, I don’t know, like from the eighties, like this kind of like rare, like, I don’t know. was kind of like this weird sound healing album that he just happened to stumble upon and he found really good results with it. But I don’t mean like, you know, it was just like kind of this random music. So I, as I’m in the, in the session and I’m like, it’s really remarkable. The Ketamine Space, you know,

It’s totally different from any other psychedelic I’d ever worked with or plant medicine or synthetic for that matter because at least as I’ve experienced it takes you in your still your body doesn’t want to move you’re very much like you’re very much like in a deep meditative state and It slows you down what I would describe it is what the way I understand is like it half times your nervous system So that your body right is like if like our normal default mode network, right as it’s described in neuroscience Like our kind of normal, you know

Jesse Brede (01:18:36.698)
Mmm.

Poranguí (01:18:45.079)
sympathetic nervous system like right now we’re talking with when we’re in that state, there’s a certain level of Activity happening in our in our nervous system in our brain and our whole nervous system in our body What ketamine does is basically like drops that down so that you go into this very deep parasympathetic sympathetic state where your body is is essentially like operating much slower and what I think the benefit of it therapeutically and especially with those who working with trauma

is it allows you to be able to connect to the trauma without getting re-triggered and getting dysregulated. Because you’re slowed down. Now when you look at that traumatic experience and you try to think about it, you try to process it, everything’s been slowed down to a point where you can have time to breathe and to stay calm and to not get spun out, not to go to fight or flight, freeze or fawn, which are the classic trauma response states. And so it’s really powerful. And I saw that potential in that first session.

Jesse Brede (01:19:38.17)
Yep.

Poranguí (01:19:42.822)
And I was like, okay, Dan, like, I think there’s something here. So he dropped me in, you the other ones, he played some other music, like some electronic, like synth music on the second one that his business partner really liked. I couldn’t stand it. It was horrible. It was like, I wanted it to end like right away. And so then it dawned on me how important, cut. And the thing that sucks about Ketamine is that when you’re in it, you’re basically a captured audience. You can’t do anything. You can’t move. You’re like, oh fuck, I’m like stuck here. And like, it’s like kind of like hell.

Jesse Brede (01:19:58.724)
You

Jesse Brede (01:20:10.298)
Yeah

Poranguí (01:20:12.739)
So, Don, mean, how important the music and sound is to that, probably more than any other psychedelic, it’s like music is essential and it has to be programmed. Well, the music really, because it’s a molecule that’s synthesized in a lab, the way I understand it, it’s like it doesn’t have an over soul or like a spirit, like the way Ayahuasca you could say does, or like even mushrooms, know, onguitos, they have their own spirit, I would say. And not to say it’s devoid of spirit.

Jesse Brede (01:20:18.084)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:20:39.439)
but like it’s kind of more like neutral. It’s almost like a blank canvas. And so the music more than any other medicine out there, I believe it’s really essential that it’s programmed and done very thoughtfully and intentionally because the music is gonna program the space of your experience. And so that music has to really be made, I think very intentionally. And I think there’s music that works that’s just off the shelf, you know, a playlist that you designed for it. I think that’s okay. But basically what Dan asked me to do and what we delivered on.

is four different one-hour journey mixes that were designed for this space to do therapeutic work. And it’s designed in a way that’s called the Kuya Sessions, which I think you know about. I did it in collaboration. I called in Amani to help me with it. yeah, it’s a whole other story I’ll say for another day. But I was basically told in the medicine space, Amani needed to do it with me. And fortunately, because we were all in the pandemic, no one was touring. Everyone was like, I’m not doing anything. Yeah, let’s do it.

Jesse Brede (01:21:30.83)
Look,

Poranguí (01:21:38.636)
And so that gave us the spaciousness to actually birth these four hours. So each one is an hour. And the journey with the IEM intramuscular is about an hour. It’s a typical kind of dose response curve. you’ll go in. So the music is by design made with the time signature of like when this, happens in there that matches like the on-tick, the uptick of the medicine when you’re like deepest in and then on the outro. And so it follows a very carefully implemented arc.

the music, all four of the journeys. The first one’s Kura, Akasha, Samadhi and Sol are the four different albums. They’re broken up into three movements. So anyone can listen to them on Spotify. So it’s out there if anyone wants to check it out. I highly recommend the Journey Mix. It’s the fourth track and it’s one hour. So it’s already mixed together or they can mix and match from all four of those and you can create like a meta experience. And that’s by design because it was as a clinical tool.

Jesse Brede (01:22:29.095)
wow.

Poranguí (01:22:33.668)
for practitioners taking people through. And originally, who you wanted to hold it as IP. They didn’t want us to be able to release it to the world. I had to fight tooth and nail. I can’t even tell you what I went through to be able to like say like, no, no, this needs to be available to all humanity, like as a tool. And as you know, I don’t get paid any more for that. Spotify still gives me like a fraction, a fraction of a penny, even if you play the one hour track of music. But that’s one of those things, know, Jesse, where it’s like, this is my, this is my Dharma, you know.

Jesse Brede (01:22:41.102)
Hmm.

Jesse Brede (01:22:44.771)
Wow.

Jesse Brede (01:22:49.433)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (01:22:58.136)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:23:03.088)
and Amani too, know, both of us, like we were both agreed wholeheartedly. It’s like, can’t, this music needs to be out, these tools, they’re really tools, they’re like next generation tools for healing that need to be accessible by everyone. And I think largely the Kuya Sessions story hasn’t been told. So thanks for letting me like share with you right now about it. Cause I have, cause it’s very much kind of underground and secret. People who know, know, and everyone else is kind of like, you know, might miss it. So.

Jesse Brede (01:23:21.138)
yeah.

Jesse Brede (01:23:29.126)
Yeah, I mean, Imani shared those, the early cuts with me and told me what was going on. And I was like, this, this could be the beginning of what I think could be the future of psychological therapy. And, you know, what you explain with the traumatic recall, being in the safe space, not triggering your fight or flight, so that you can recontextualize that memory and come back and go.

Okay, that was the past and we can move on from that. That’s really powerful and it is such a, it’s such a tool. And I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface. And honestly, I think what I’d say from everything is like, you are a pioneer. You are blazing a trail. Like, thank you for all that you’re bringing to the table and all the work that you’ve done. Cause it’s a lot. And, man, I, I, I want to have a second podcast with you. Cause you just have so much to say and so much to offer.

Poranguí (01:24:25.827)
Absolutely.

Jesse Brede (01:24:26.808)
But yeah, man, I want to thank you for your time and all your shares. You’re absolutely man. And man, if is there anything else you want to share any projects? I know you just had, you know, your album, sorry, I’m just blanking beauty, beauty way and the beauty way remixes, including remixes from Marilla, Akriza, Temple Step, Liquid Bloom and Yamano and a bunch of others. Everybody.

Poranguí (01:24:32.31)
Yeah, Jesse.

Poranguí (01:24:40.289)
Yeah, beauty way remixes.

Poranguí (01:24:50.59)
Yeah, yeah, Rodrigo Gallardo is on there. Yeah, Uji. It’s got a beautiful lineup of artists from across the Americas and Australia, know, with Temple Step. Yeah, yeah, that’s probably, we just dropped that like last Friday. So it’s only been out a week. So I don’t know when this will air, but if anyone’s out there, please make sure you give the music a listen. One thing I’ll share is the quiz sessions. When you’re listening to that, anybody who’s gonna go search for that afterwards,

Jesse Brede (01:25:00.132)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:25:18.708)
make sure that you listen to the original Kuya Sessions, because there’s also each one of those four albums has also been turned into a remix album. So you see Kuya Sessions, Samadhi remixes, just know that’ll be the dance track versions. That’s not meant to be, you can of course use it if you want to try it in the ceremonial space with medicine, but it’s definitely, it’s more for the dance floor than it is for necessarily dropping into, but it does carry the frequency. mean, so not to say it can’t be used that way.

Jesse Brede (01:25:33.028)
you

Jesse Brede (01:25:40.409)
Yeah.

Poranguí (01:25:46.922)
I probably wouldn’t recommend it with ketamine. So just naming. Also, I just want to say this because I think it’s important, Jess, is that there’s a lot of abuse with ketamine happening right now in the scene. I’ve been since I did all that work and just watching what’s happening in the collective because it was kind of the first one that there’s all these clinics opened up overnight. A lot of people was legal. So there was like a way that, you know, with medical supervision, although that I’ll admit, I think I’ve seen that’s been very loose.

It’s given it a bad name and I think there’s been a lot of many, you know, just not good work in the space, a lot of dangerous work that’s been harmful. So I just want to name that because I don’t condone it. I’m not trying to encourage people to necessarily even work with it. I just want to name that. Like for me, I only used, I worked with it when we were making the music and I honestly haven’t dropped back in since. For me, the music already takes me to those states. So I will use it, like I’ll put it on when I get a bodywork session.

I’ll ask them to put that on, you for instance, you know, like for me, the work that I did when I was in the space with that music now is like, is that allows me to go back to that work, you know, and like, much like when you hear maybe an Ikaro in an Ayahuasca ceremony, when you hear that outside of the ceremony, you can re-access, you know, the energy and the positivity and yeah, the healing that came from that. So I just want to offer that out there and just really encourage those who maybe are having, finding themselves in abusive relationship with any of these medicines.

Just know the only difference between medicine and poison is dosage, right? That’s one of the things that’s important to remember. And I just encourage you to get help and get support so that you’re not out there working with any of these things without a lineage. Because one of the things I think is important with all these psychedelics is that historically, and ketamine is obviously an exception because it’s really used in medicine, right? As a painkiller and as an anesthetic. Historically.

And yet it has this other use. Much like nitrous oxide, right, is used by dentists, is like, you know, to help when you’re getting your teeth taken out. But it’s also when used in a higher dosage, you reach that threshold dose, it can be very psychedelic and healing, or it could be hippie crack, right? It has both, both potentials. So with all of this, right, it’s like, it’s like really be mindful about how you use these things. And I just really, I just want to encourage that because, and you hit on this earlier, Jess, is that, you know,

Poranguí (01:28:05.94)
These experiences, can become what’s called a peak experience, where it’s like, you you’re kind of, you had this moment where you see the door, you see the mountain, you see what’s possible of this unity consciousness, which is the truth of reality, that our normal state of being, this ego, which helps us move through the world, you know, it has its purpose, but it’s essentially disconnecting us, right? And when it gets strengthened, it disconnects us to the point where we’re no longer listening to the heart. But the place that I believe we all want to live from is,

The mind or the ego, you know, is another way to say it, right, is in service to the heart. But the heart, our heart is who’s actually in charge, is actually who is leading us. Because the heart wants to be in relationship to all things. The heart doesn’t think about tomorrow or yesterday. The heart’s always living in the now. Be by be by be. And so the prayer that I want to leave with our listeners here and with you is just that invitation to listen, to continue to tune into your heart first.

and invite your mind and that ego that’s so beautiful and so strong to be the humble servant of the heart. And may these sacraments, if you come into contact with them, including the sacrament of music and dance, may they serve as way showers and as vehicles that help to get you to the precipice. And then by listening to your heart, may your heart give you the courage to then step through that door, step through that portal so that you can really live from that place of your highest self.

rather than the little self, you know, in that place of scarcity, that place of limitation, but the place of infinite possibility. And with that, you know, I hope I get to see some of you out there. Jesse, I hope I get to have you at a show soon. And it’s just been really a privilege, brother. And, you know, I look up to you so much and I’ve been so grateful to have a friendship with you since back in the day when we first met and we were talking about me joining Pivotal. So I just, yeah, it’s crazy how the universe works its magic.

Jesse Brede (01:29:46.539)
man.

Jesse Brede (01:29:58.361)
Yeah.

Jesse Brede (01:30:02.238)
Man, that is a beautiful invitation and prayer. And I’m like I said, it’s an honor to know you and see your journey and thank you for all that you bring. And yeah, I hope to see you soon brother. So, right, bye.

Poranguí (01:30:14.9)
Yeah, bro. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, bless you. you all. Yeah, take good care. Aho. Ciao.