“Aish has a sense of how large a performance, song, and world can be” - Earmilk
AISH
(pronounced "Ash" /æʃ/)
San Francisco based singer, writer and composer, Aish, transforms his tumultuous childhood, estrangement from family, struggles with sexuality and his migration across continents, into grand landscapes of cinematic pop music constructed with layered vocals, strings, harp, metallophones and electronics. With the release of singles Promise Me and Migrant in 2017, Aish emerged with a distinctive compositional aesthetic combining classical chamber with contemporary electronic music, layered with intricate vocal arrangements. Aish's debut full length album, Mother, came out March 30th, 2018. Aish has collaborated with multidisciplinary artists including Beau Sorenson (Tune-Yards, DCFC, Superchunk, Thao), Rashaad Newsome
(Solange, The Smithsonian), Suzi Analogue,
Mess Kid, Boody and Qween Beat.
If you like: Björk, ANOHNI
Music Releases
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Mother
My album "Mother" is about mother. It’s about my attachment to her, how she shaped perception of my feelings as elemental as joy and sorrow, my relationship to femininity, our separation, and finding answers to questions she left. It’s about understanding motherhood through birthing my own music. “Chaos” is an empathic dialogue between the unborn child and mother. “Blackbird” is a conversation between mother and I, on how we dealt with our sadness. “Engagement” is not the Oedipus song. “Migrant” is why one separates, “Orcas” is what one does in solitude of separation. “Promise Me” is the sorted me, rewriting how mother would handle separation. “Oceanman” is an impressionist narrative by mother, of a blurry father. “Joy and Sorrow” is what mother meant to me.
Mothers are fundamental to shaping who we are. They introduce us to the very idea of attachment. They show up in big and little ways in attachments we form throughout our lives. The expanse and complexity of motherhood cannot simply be confined to reductive ideas like Mother’s Day.
I write and compose all my work. The juxtaposition of chamber and electronic composition is informed by the music of my childhood and my present, and a purpose to create music distinct from the current deluge of popular electronic music.
“An emotional journey of violence and recovery” - Vice
“Succeeds at shutting down the haters who say art and pop can’t be intertwined” - The Advocate
“Aish has a sense of how large a performance, song, and world can be” - Earmilk
“One of the more experimental and engaging pop artists around” - Tidal
“Expressive, fantastical beauty...its value is resounding” - Cool Hunting
“Modern-day, whimsical, trippy” - SFWeekly
“I am a musician [first]...I’m also a person of colour, gay, immigrant, who’s grown up on three continents. Those parts of my identity have gifted me a unique set of experiences that show up in my compositions and writing about the beauty in love and loss, identity, migration and belonging”
- Interview with HighClouds
“The place I came from, art was considered a luxury. We knew art was out there, we consumed it, but we didn't know how to reach it”
- Interview with The Bay Bridged
“Absolutely stunning" - The Revue
A very personal interview with the Bay Area Reporter
"Haunted is the wrong word," he said. "Ghosts haunt. Memories, experiences, and the love my mother and I shared don't haunt me, they are very much alive. They remind me of beauty, the shape of love and loss, and that's really the larger idea behind Mother and the work that I do."
Chaos
All this chaos inside
If it all comes loose, your careful construction
Is that what you’re afraid of? Is that what you’re afraid of?
Orphan parts of you, they face you like strangers
Is that what you’re afraid of? Is that what you’re afraid of?
If you try to find the answers, your fear is safe with me
Don’t take me for a mirror, when I hold you close to me
'Cuz we are holding a chaos inside, a chaos inside
A chaos inside, a chaos inside
For me to see your truth, why still a danger?
Is that what you’re afraid of? Is that what you’re afraid of?
Unbridled sexuality, just thirst and hunger
Is that what you’re afraid of? Is that what you’re afraid of?
If you try to find the answers, your fear is safe with me
Don’t take me for a mirror, when I hold you close to me
'Cuz we are holding a chaos inside, a chaos inside
A chaos inside, a chaos inside
Oceanman
There’s a man, his heart’s so blue, it fills the ocean through and through
When he reaches out to me, a little light flashes on his head
What you don’t see, is a giant glow that burns beneath, deep, deep inside
This man, his beard’s so long that you wonder for how long
Mama told me, this ocean’s made of, his silvery tears that he cried
If you don’t believe me, you should spread your arms and dive, dive tonight
What you’ll find, are familiar people
They walk in water, like they were in space
You want to talk to them but you’ve lost your voice
You cannot touch them because you’re paralysed
And all you can do is feel
There’s a man, his heart’s so blue, he’s such a gentle man
When he reaches out to me, I hear a distant foghorn
What you don’t see is a giant mouth that makes the tides as he gargles
This man was a real looker, in his day
Now he longs, for the land above him, to just come back to him
If you don’t, believe me, you should spread your arms and dive, dive tonight
This man, his heart's so blue, that it filled the ocean
If you don’t, believe me, you should spread your arms and dive, dive tonight
Joy and Sorrow by Khalil Gibran
Your joy is your sorrow, laughter rises filled with tears
How else can, it be? Deeper sorrow carves into being
More joy you can contain, closer irony you will see
Is not the cup that holds your wine, the very cup, burned in the potter's oven
Is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood, hollowed with knives
When you're joyous just look deep, in your heart and you will find
Truth was that the same joy, was weeping, turning in delight
Holding hands with sorrow, in your bed, next to you, was sleeping joy
Is not the cup that holds your wine, the very cup, burned in the potter's oven
Is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood, hollowed with knives
Engagement
Our engagement
There’s no turning back, there’s no turning back
All I saw a sky a shade of blue
The colour of my childhood bedroom
Our engagement
There’s no turning back, there’s no turning back
All I heard was the quiet murmur, of the Bollin under the tunnel
And then you said, maybe we shouldn’t do this after all
And I said, if things go wrong, at least we’ll have a good song
See, wherever we go, there we will be
Captured in joy, maybe we’re free?
And all you saw was an A330, from Manchester to New York City
Our engagement
There was no turning back, there was no turning back
All I heard was the distant ring
When you called home to say we’re engaged
Our engagement
Blackbird
Mama, there’s a blackbird over my head
Some days he flaps and flutters in the hollows of my chest
Mama, blackbird eats me from within
You can’t see it because the parasol you gave hides it well
Mama, was it you who said we'll all disappear someday?
Will this pain too? You know it well too
Mama, blackbird, leaves me less alone
I might close my eyes and fly with him for a while
Mama, was it you who said we'll all disappear someday?
Will this pain too? You know it well too
Don’t question my pain
Hard, hard to feel as it is
Just hold me in your arms
'Cuz I, I’m not afraid I'll give up
Mama, was it you who said we would all disappear someday?
Will this pain too? You know it well too
Mango Trees
I was half as tall when we flew the nest, yeah, we made a good team
Just the two of us, we felt the pinch, but we ruled the town in our dreams
But you didn’t say goodbye, I wonder why, to this day
Why you couldn’t stay, why we couldn’t talk about it, anyway
Reflections curled up under summer skies am I still in the dream?
Besides our fears, were our hopes, why can’t you see?
And year after year, we drift apart, oh this, ocean’s so deep
And all alone, I couldn’t keep it alive
Love of my sister, now all he’ll ask is how I feel
Do you remember, we used to talk under mango trees
But you made your choices, it’s all the past, anyway
But where do I bury all of my questions everyday?
You see twenty years surrounded by our memories
I’m going over and over again and I still cannot see
The sense in how it turned out and all our possibilities
And all alone, I couldn’t keep it alive
Oh, hope you know, why I just let it die
Promise Me
I know, you’ve got a wonderful future ahead of you
There are many, many wonderful people you’re yet to meet
And I know, I’ll eventually have to let you go
But you should, follow your heart in everything that you do
And I’m sorry, if I made mistakes
But baby, I loved you more than life
And maybe, you still won’t forgive me
But I hope you’ll find find relentless joy
I know, you’ve got a wonderful future ahead of you
Sometimes, I didn’t know the best approach
And I may not have been able to see what I should've seen
And I could not reach your heart 'cause it was so broken
And I wish I could have heard what I didn’t hear
But I'm lucky that you've grown so well
And maybe you still won't forgive me
But I hope you'll find relentless joy
But just promise me, you'll always take care of yourself
And just promise me, you'll always follow your happiness
And just promise me, you will never lose faith in true love
Migrant
Even marmosets arrived in Rio when forest had fallen
When the uncertain is safer, there's hope is a dinghy of rubber
Like roses wilted over seams of boats, they’re just like us
From places often lost in maps, they’re just like us
You see their homes were burnt
In light of dawn they look like us
Hope in long gone brothers, hope in depths of this ocean
On the shore of nightmare and dream, baby drowned, father tripped, but not forgotten
With a phone, a family photo to their name, they’re just like us
Hoping someday they’ll come back home, they’re just like us
You see their homes were burnt
In light of dawn they look like us
Orcas
All alone, you wait for me, watching orcas in the sea
I arrive with pop philosophies, the weather, oh, how you’ve been?
You reach for my hand, all I do is draw circles in the sand
You wish we were orcas in the sea
Wish I could erase all of our memories
Then maybe you will, maybe you will
Set yourself free
Sun behind the cypress trees, drawing maps of our worlds to be
You live like no tomorrow, but I live like no yesterday, oh, how California of me
I’m still searching for the someone, you seem to find in me
You wish we were orcas in the sea
Wish I could erase all of our memories
Then maybe you will, maybe you will
Set yourself free
Reprieve
When will we come out of this water?
When will we come to make peace with our shadows?
Did we forget we came from our mothers?
Did we forget we’ll turn into the same dust?
In this reprieve washed ashore
Can we see our hearts beat the same blood?
In this reprieve,
We’ll climb this mountain
That’s where we will find joy
If I ever stumble in the rain
Will you tickle me till I cry?
How will we find our way through the forest?
If you have the chalk, will you mark the trees?
When we fill our hearts with boundless joy,
Can we feel the sorrow that he feels?
In this reprieve,
We’ll climb this mountain
That’s where we will find joy
If I ever stumble in the rain
Will you tickle me till I cry?
You Know
If I knew I’d tell you what would make me happy
Sometimes these reasons are larger than me
When you can’t tell what is going on, ‘cuz I can’t seem to let you in
And you know that I will take my time to come back out of this
And you know that I will take my time to bring the best out in me
And I want to thank you for waiting patiently by my side
30 Rock marathons, I still feel empty
Triple shot, a sunny walk, won’t set me free
But you’re around, you can make it stop, get me in the car, out of this town
And you know that I will take my time to come back out of this
And you know that I will take my time to bring the best out in me
And I want to thank you for waiting patiently by my side