While studying abroad in Ghana nearly six years ago, UCLA alumnus Aki Ehara noticed that he and one other person ““ fellow musician Lalin St. Juste ““ were the only ones carrying instruments on the trip.
After discovering their mutual interest in music, Ehara and St. Juste eventually became a couple and relocated to the Bay Area, where they started a band in early 2010.
That was just the beginning, and the two are still making beat-driven music together today as members of a seven-piece band called The Seshen. The group consists of bassist and producer Ehara, drummer Chris Thalmann, keyboardist Mahesh Rao, percussionist Mirza Kopelman, synchronizer and sampler Kumar Butler and lead vocalists St. Juste and Akasha Orr.
It was St. Juste who came across the word “seshen” and thought that its meaning suited the group.
“Seshen means lotus flower or blue lotus, specifically. It’s an Egyptian word that signifies rebirth and re-creation because the lotus flower goes in the water and then comes back up,” St. Juste said. “Since it sounds like “˜session,’ it can take on another meaning, like people having a session musically or just getting together.”
When searching for bandmates, Ehara said he specifically reached out to Butler and Rao and explained that the three have been connected since attending elementary and high school together. He said he and St. Juste met the rest of the members of The Seshen by hosting events for local musicians.
“In the beginning we would throw house parties, and we met a lot of musicians by playing together at jam sessions,” Ehara said.
St. Juste also said that some of the members of the group met each other when they came out to support a fundraiser for Haiti, which started the initial evolution of The Seshen.
The group’s sound now combines elements of live and electronic music and is also influenced by hip-hop, pop, R&B and indie rock as well as artists such as Stevie Wonder, Radiohead and Erykah Badu.
“We started out doing covers, but we were interested in doing something that was a little different and would stand out more and represent our influences,” Ehara said. “I liked the idea of having an R&B band, but there was also part of me that wanted to branch out and take on more contemporary influences like electronic music and indie rock.”
Ehara, who studied ethnomusicology at UCLA, said being exposed to different types of music from around the world as an undergraduate expanded his horizons and helped him develop his love for new and alternative genres of music as he prepared to start his own band.
After going through stages of rebirth and musical evolution, The Seshen released their debut self-titled album in February and also filmed its first music video for the song “Oblivion.”
Ehara and St. Juste said each song on The Seshen’s debut album, which took a year and a half to produce in Ehara’s home studio, began with a beat and was later paired with lyrics, vocals, percussion and keyboard.
“Aki (Ehara) would lay the foundation and start with a drumbeat or put some chords together. We would meet twice a week, and it was a really collaborative process,” St. Juste said. “We were discovering our sound throughout the process.”
Vocalist Orr described The Seshen’s sound as a marriage between electronic music and a pop sensibility. When working on the lyrics for the album, Orr said she and St. Juste would write separately and draw upon their own lives for inspiration.
“The song “˜Broken Lines’ came from a very emotive place within me and has a strong place in my heart,” Orr said. “Sometimes Lalin (St. Juste) and I would be in the same room listening to a track, and it was interesting to see how our ideas always meshed.”
With one album under their belts, the members of The Seshen are now looking forward to performing their music in the Los Angeles area. Ehara said they use electronic tools when playing live to ensure that the vocals synchronized beats of each instrument heard on their album are preserved.
As she looks ahead to the future for The Seshen, Orr said she and her fellow bandmates are working on a new song for an EP and also want to make another music video.
Ehara said their new material is more upbeat and more danceable and the group wants to build a following as they continue to explore new sounds.
“All of us are pretty open to wherever the music takes us,” Ehara said. “We’d like to go as far as we can with it ““ whether that means touring or some kind of label support. It’s encouraging to have people respond and tell us that they like the music.”