Falsa

Sufi Music | Invoking Meditation, Conversation & Transcendence | As Featured on NPR and Acclaimed Performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and More.

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Based in New York City, Falsa is rooted in 14th century Sufi music (Indian classical mysticism similar to Rumi's elevating poetry) with contemporary arrangements transcending genre-specificity and cultural preconceptions, in collaboration with a diverse array of improvisational world musicians.

A Falsa experience can range from Minimalist Meditative to Raga Jazz Fusion to high energy World Improvisation that gets you moving, to a more explosive Ritual-Communitas oriented one featuring dancers and immersive visuals. But ultimately, Falsa is about normalizing the transcendent experience.

It originally emerged as a collaboration between long-term friends and has since evolved into an exploration of what's possible when people are moved collectively by the pursuit of the intangible aspects of a communal gathering. There's a mystical culinary connection here: Falsa gets its name from a tropical berry native to India and Pakistan. And Sufi music is about a state of separation that longs for union. There was a decade in Umer's (vocalist, Falsa) life that he couldn’t return home to Pakistan from the US due to Kafkaesque immigration bureaucracies. When he finally returned and had the fruit again, it "broke through all the intellectualization and numbness I realized I had cultivated to cope, and in the process of giving myself over to the majesty of feeling I realized that home is something you cannot take with you, you have to return to it"

In our music, we want to revere and dignify the most magical aspects of experience that are gifts and not acquisitions, like reclaiming a half-remembered dream. Our music is not about means to ends, but about meaning and transcendence, about healing a wounded alienation we feel in our very highly mechanized, and in the ways that matter, poorly connected society, one performance at a time.

BOOKINGS/CONTACT: FALSA@FALSAMUSIC.COM

Falsa at Joe’s Pub- Public Theater New York City. Photo by Yekaterina Gyadu

// Origin: Multan, Pakistan. Based In: New York City

// Genre: Sufi Music, World Fusion, Transcultural Jazz

// Website: www.falsamusic.com

Bio

Transcendent | Sufi | Dynamic.

The Meaning Behind “Falsa”

Due to immigration challenges, Falsa’s lead singer Umer Piracha couldn’t visit his hometown of Multan Pakistan for nearly a decade. He didn’t fully realize how painful that separation was while it was happening. But, when he finally returned to Pakistan, he happened to eat falsa, a tropical berry native to the region. The simple act of tasting its tart, sweet flesh rekindled a profound connection to his roots and made him realize the sadness he had been suppressing. “When I had the falsa fruit, the taste came back to me from the almost decade it had been since I’d had it,” he says. “It was a moment of return to health from being numb, of being able to actually experience the pain I had been in and hadn’t wanted to feel.”

The Music
He decided at that moment to name his band Falsa as a way to honor the sense of profound longing for home that the berry evoked. The New York City-based group, which has performed at esteemed venues like Joe’s Pub and Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and which participated in a 2023 summer residency at Little Island in Manhattan, merges myriad musical traditions: Piracha’s Qawwali vocals, Siddharth Ashokkumar’s Carnatic violin, Roshni Samlal’s Hindustani tabla, Tom Deis’ Bass VI and harmonium, and Greg Foran’s drumming. But one of their unifying philosophies is an interest in Sufi spirituality. Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam originating in the 14th century that emphasizes a personal connection to the Divine, prolific and ornate artistic output, and a sense of humility that comes from recognizing your human limitations. A feeling of longing - resulting from a state of spiritual separation and the constant quest for reunification - is a key tenant of this philosophy, too. The emotion is an apt one for anyone who has lived in a diaspora, caught between who they are and who they remember themselves as.

Another tenant of Sufism is a celebration of spiritual surrender. The experience with the falsa berry was illuminating for Piracha because it relayed a loss of control, a realization that, “you can’t take home with you, it’s something bigger, something you come back to,” Piracha says. That realization was a welcome one for him. “The experience of surrender can be a gift,” he adds. “It brings you closer to what reality really is, which is that you're not in control. This experience is an invitation to stay with feelings as they actually are, rather than try to fix them or change them.” 

It’s these profound ruminations, resonant in Sufi poetry, that Falsa revel in sharing with their listeners. They see a Sufi spiritual practice as a means of recognizing and accepting a full range of emotions and experiences: the heaviness of loss, the confusing pull of unreciprocated love, the messiness of life in general. But their work is never so cerebral as to become inaccessible. The vibrant ensemble makes music that is felt as much as understood. They pull as much from minimalist reflection as they do from high-energy improvisation and transcultural jazz, offering listeners an immersion into sweeping violin melodies, brilliant sprinkles of horn notes, vocals that expertly build in intensity, and drums that keep time like a heartbeat. The music is so deeply felt because a feeling of deep devotion drives them: “We revere each other,” Piracha says. “We revere the people that we perform for. We revere the greats who wrote this poetry. It really does transcend just the material foundations of our lives.”

At its core, Falsa is dedicated to normalizing the transcendent spiritual experience through music. By weaving personal narratives and mystical traditions into contemporary arrangements, they challenge genre norms and cultural stereotypes, inviting audiences into a space of reflection, conversation, and spiritual upliftment.

Performances at Prestigious Venues

Falsa has graced stages at renowned venues such as:

  • Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, NYC

  • Little Island, NYC (Summer Residency ‘23)

  • Brooklyn Conservatory of Music

  • Summer on the Hudson (Riverside Park, NYC)

  • Barbès, Brooklyn

  • Sufi Lodge, NYC (upcoming)

  • Manhattan School of Music (upcoming)

  • Symphony Space, NYC (upcoming)


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Album:

American Sufi Experience Falsa's debut album, "American Sufi," a contemporary exploration of ancient music that transcends genre boundaries and cultural preconceptions. Collaborating with a diverse array of improvisational world musicians, the album captures the essence of Falsa's mission to create music that is both timeless and innovative.

Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

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