ShiShi’s Indigo is a transformative rock album rooted in multicultural influences

ShiShi, the New York-based musician, producer, and meditation practitioner, will release his new album Indigo on September 5, this year. Marking a departure from his electronica roots, Indigo embraces rock while weaving together sound healing, Vedic philosophy, and his multicultural upbringing. Preceded by a weekly August rollout of singles, three of which, Dopamine Machine, Loser, and The Light That Wakes Me, are already out, the album presents not just a collection of songs, but a spiritual and emotional journey.

New York-based musician ShiShi on his album, Indigo

ShiShi says, “I don’t think my musical changes ever feel risky. They just feel necessary, like I don’t have a choice,” of his shift into rock. “As soon as I stop feeling a want to make a certain type of music or feel uninspired by it, I will drag myself kicking and screaming into the studio to keep making that kind of music. What sparked the change was mostly a desire to use my voice, and be much more authentic and vulnerable through my songwriting,” says ShiShi.

He adds, “I wanted to be able to make a body of work that I could showcase and present with a full live band, to really make room for that collaborative energy that’s hard to feel when you’re DJing.”

The album’s singles, ShiShi notes, reflect both his emotional range and the overarching story. “They are definitely different sides of me. And I could never just make music in one style. But they also reflect pieces of a bigger story about a hero’s journey—about a human being going from feeling really alone and unfulfilled in this world, to then finding a spiritual path and the yearning, longing and devotion that comes with wanting that sort of spiritual union with the Divine. Every emotion is a doorway into a truth about ourselves. So all of these songs represent different emotions and doorways.”

Meditation is central to ShiShi’s creative process, and deeply informs Indigo. “There’s no one specific practice that necessarily influenced the album, although many of the lyrics and songs are influenced by a general Vedic philosophy,” he shares. “It’s this line: we are all one thing. Which is also written as Aham Brahmasmi and that’s the title of the first track on my album. It is this idea that when you really internalise that truth, that we are all just one thing, you can never fully be alone again. The whole album is about starting from that place of forgetting what you are and then re-remembering.”

Born to Indian parents and raised across China, Switzerland, and the US, ShiShi’s global upbringing naturally informs his sound. “It definitely happens more subconsciously,” he says of channeling cultural influences. “When it comes to the melodies and sound choices, it’s very much a transcendental process of pulling them out of the air to figure out what is required to accomplish the sharing of this message.” Grounded in a twice-daily meditation practice, ShiShi continues to bridge music, mindfulness, and culture, with Indigo marking his most vulnerable and expansive project yet.

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