Helea of Seirén joins Manchester Scene Stories to talk about performing music at healing ceremonies in Mexico, the psychedelic mushroom experience that inspired one of the band’s most striking videos, and her journey between Manchester and Mexico City.
Helea has been making music for more than 20 years. While studying music at the University of Salford, she began putting together the project that would become Seirén, moving from performing songs alone towards the sound of a full band.
Now mainly based in Mexico City, Helea discusses her experiences of ancestral medicine ceremonies and performing “música medicina” at ceremonies around Mexico, where music, nature and psychedelic experiences can become closely connected.
One particularly intense experience with psychedelic mushrooms became the inspiration for an instrumental Seirén track and its accompanying video. Helea talks about ancestry, inherited pain and the subconscious, and the challenge of translating an experience that was almost impossible to describe into music and film.
We also discuss Seirén’s psychedelic influences, music as a language beyond words, her years in Manchester, the effect of the pandemic on the band and their recent return to the city during a UK and European tour.
The conversation ends with the realities facing independent musicians today and the importance of independent media in helping new music find an audience.
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