Krishna-Trevor (East Forest)
Host, The Walk Home: East Forest at Reunion | A Psilocybin Live-Music Ceremony Immersion

Since his 2008 debut, East Forest has used the power of music to guide listeners through contemporary journeys of deep introspection. The electro-acoustic project has remained primarily a solo effort (of Krishna-Trevor), straddling the worlds of ambient, neoclassical, electronic and indie-pop to help fans explore the vast reaches of inner space.

Whether via his Music For Mushrooms: A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner album series, his collaborative spoken word album with Ram Dass, or one of his live communal “Ceremony Concerts,” East Forest’s goal has always been “building bridges and creating an approach that’s grounded, embodied, inclusive, and unarguable.”

His music uses art as a means for a message, but with his latest album Music For The Deck of The Titanic, the art itself becomes the message.

The album name is an homage to the infamous ship’s musicians who spent their last few hours playing songs for passengers facing the tragedy before them. Beautiful, poignant and extremely human, Music For The Deck of The Titanic is East Forest’s offering to the chaotic moment we’re all in.

“We just went through something where we thought as a people, ‘Is this the end? Will I die?’ I think that sometimes we gloss over that a bit, but it was traumatic and intense for all of us. In what ways can we midwife this process with beauty and honor, as opposed to just protecting ourselves? What can you do that meaningfully serves other people and is beautiful?”

It’s a reprieve in a fast-moving world; a musical mantra made between friends that invites contemplation and release, whether you’re soaking up every layer of sound or simply letting the music soundtrack your life.

“It's a way of coping, frankly,” Krishna says. “I often try to work out my concerns through music, and that lends a musical tension. Amidst the grooves, there’s also an anxiety or a rumbling in the background that's harmonic yet discordant. That feels like our time zone right now … There's so much destabilizing change. We're very much still in the reverberation of something transforming.”

Stripped back, most of the LP is made with the acoustic backbone of live drums, stand-up bass, earnest vocals and soft piano. The traditional nature of the songwriting may seem a departure from his greater catalog, but it’s actually a full circle moment that connects East Forest’s musical ethos with Krishna’s roots as a young musician hustling in a variety of bands in New York City.

“My old bands were psychedelic rock, synth-pop or indie pop, so I actually spent many years writing and studying songs and structure,” he says. “I did that for so long in bands that when I left New York I was primarily interested in writing instrumental music as a solo project.’”

But after the institutionalized isolation of the pandemic lockdowns, Krishna found himself yearning to create alongside other humans. Just as Music For The Deck of The Titanic explores our need for connection and communal assurance in times of catastrophe, the making of it saw him tap back into the musical ensemble mentality.

The project’s spirit broke through with a series of songs written alongside the singer Marieme. As a Senegalese refugee, the powerful vocalist knows a thing or two about making the most of a moment, and when Krishna invited her to his studio, she wasted no time in booking a flight and showing up. They recorded three songs that appear on the LP, including the album's openers and closers, "Cosmic Dance" and "Ends\Begins.”

“I don't think I would have written something like this for myself, and something about her presence inspired me to go to different places musically,” Krishna says. “I didn’t yet know how it all fit together initially, but once I started working with Jens Kuross (RY X, The Acid), the drummer, everything started to glue.”

Following in the footsteps of the heartfelt tunes he recorded with Marieme, Krishna honed in on melodic hooks and rolling rhythms.

“It actually felt comforting, returning to the basic structure of classic songwriting, while bringing everything I've gone through over the last 15 to 20 years of music. I thought, ‘I can trust in this now and it’s starting to provide a vision for the record.’”

Part of that confidence came from further recording sessions with drummer Jens Kuross and cellist/bassist Owen Hofmann-Smith. Krishna was invigorated by their raw talents and live acoustic sounds, and recording their performances allowed him to push his creativity as an engineer, producer and writer.

Atop all this, Krishna added his work on the piano, a bit of Wurlitzer, further percussion, some vibraphone here and there and, most strikingly, his own voice.

“‘Patience’ is one of the most vulnerable and stripped-back songs I've done in ages,” he says. “I'm singing with just piano and a distant double bass — it's very intimate for me.”

From the thoughtful and rhythmic repose of “Clay Steps” and the emotional atmospheres of “Tangled”—both instrumentals that sweep through the peaks and valleys of Hoffman-Smith’s incredible cello work—to the house-driven collaboration “Currents” with Brazilian techno producer ANNA, Music For The Deck of The Titanic continues East Forest’s work by crafting a journey of mood via song and sound.

The big takeaway comes through in the lyrics of “Birds Eye,” a contemplative ballad that sees Krishna sing a call to regain perspective in the chaotic mess of modernity; and “So What?,” which features the swirling live trio centered around nine minutes of half-joking bits of genius culled from East Forest’s podcast recorded with his friend, Duncan Trussell. The comedian rants surreal about sex and gods fornicating with black holes, and just when you think he’s gone off the deep end, all the absurd punchlines come together to create a picture of understanding and finding one’s answers in the things closest to us.

“I wasn't planning to have any spoken word on the record,” Krishna says, “but this one track really turns the whole concept on its head for me. The album title [Music For The Deck of The Titanic] might get people thinking, ‘Oh, this is clearly about something heavy,’ yet you can bring listeners in with hooks, grooves, and even a moment of humor — ‘That's an interesting lyric,’ or ‘what Duncan is saying is funny,’ and then in the end, it's inviting them to feel more layers.”

A culmination of a life spent exploring and meditating on music as a connective narrative, Music For The Deck of The Titanic pushes the East Forest sound to new territories while bringing the project back to its roots. Its 11 tracks are a gift of warmth and beauty as well as a strong statement on the swirling chaos of the modern day before us; a contemporary musical reminder that we can at any moment return to our humanity without falling behind.