"Thoughtful Engagement with Electronic Music as Support for the Nervous System: Insights from Mastery Studio, Djrum, and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on Sound Healing and Its Benefits for Mental Well-being"] - Guitar | Technique

“I found myself talking about sound healing a lot in the smoking area of rowdy raves like Berghain,” says Mastery co-founder and music curator Bianca Mayhew on the roots of their Quantum Sound album.

“I realised that artists were intrigued by this form of therapy, so the intention with Quantum Sound was to take the amazing practice of sound healing that I was in love with and marry it with the electronic music community.”

These conversations, alongside Bianca’s love for meditation, spirituality and club sonics are the fuel for London sound studio Mastery’s new project. In collaboration with Fabric’s Houndstooth label, the record features artists Cherub Sanson, Tim Wheater, Jon Hopkins and Daniel Avery and toys with the boundaries of sound in meditation and live electronic music. Interlacing breathwork, neuroscience, and ambient electronic composition, the record aims to “position sound as a psychedelic catalyst, designed for eyes-closed listening”.

“We asked Daniel Avery if he’d be interested in collaborating as part of a sound bath on a beach at sunset at the Ion festival and it worked so well,” Bianca explains. “We then had conversations about how interesting it would be to bring this concept into rave spaces. We wanted to present it in a way that ravers would be into and for anyone who may find the aesthetic of the wellness community a little bit specific.”

Ambient music has long been a flip side to the hedonism of a night out in a club – from Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports to Nightmares on Wax and post-club comedown of Smoker’s Delight and Carboot Soul via the music of The Orb and Tim Hecker.

There’s also plenty of research out there to show how music can act as a positive force when it comes to wellbeing and tackling therapy. The work of Mastery brings these elements together to explore the intersection of music, altered states and scientific research. With Mastery initially starting life in 2023 (with LWE’s Will Harold and Paul Jack at the helm alongside Bianca), the Quantum Sound album was born out of a residency at Fabric which was secured by an Arts Council grant.

(Image credit: Mastery)

“We did the first event in Fabric’s room one where we lay everyone down, then Cherub and Tim used bowls and gongs, blending into Daniel’s live ambient set,” Bianca says. “Luke Laws at Fabric loved it, and included details of it as part of a funding application he put together for their upgraded BodyKinetic dancefloor in Room 1.”

The application was successful. and a residency was subsequently launched with Cherub and Tim developing their live instrumental sound journeys alongside sets from Hannah Holland, Wata Igarashi, Flora Yin Wong and Jennifer Loveless. Audiences were invited to fully immerse themselves in this mix of ancient and electronic sounds.

“We rapidly pulled together the artists for the club residency,” Bianca says. “I knew from a human experience perspective that the sound baths impacted my state of consciousness. Then what I understood from this was that certain electronic music sounds also did the same.”

Alongside the album, Mastery is launching a long-term research partnership with neuroscientist Oliver Durcan, Creative Empirical Founder, whose doctoral work examines flow states in musicians.

“In academic research, we try to understand these states in a lab – but I thought it would be really exciting to undertake our research in club spaces”

“My PhD aims to find a neural signature of flow states so we can diagnose when it’s happening and when it’s not,” says Oliver. “I’m obsessed with electronic music, and the work Bianca has been doing really sparked my interest. In academic research, we try to understand these states in a lab – but I thought it would be really exciting to undertake our research in club spaces, where it is already happening.”

The collaboration grew from conversations between Oliver and Professor Tristan Bekinschtein, Director of the Cambridge Consciousness and Cognition Lab, known for pioneering research on consciousness in unresponsive patients and for studies on meditation, psychedelics, anesthesia and exercise. Researchers from Goldsmiths University and Johns Hopkins University will also collaborate with Mastery to study the neural mechanisms of sound-induced altered states.

At different events including Fabric and Funkhaus in Berlin, Oliver and his team will record the brain activity of audience members using portable EEG. By comparing communal and solo listening, the team will investigate how sound systems, vibration and collective immersion shape conscious states, an area of neuroscience never studied at this scale inside venues.

“There are different states of consciousness and what’s been found is that when people have certain types of altered states, in therapeutic contexts, they find that their experiences can lead to long-lasting therapeutic changes,” says Oliver. “We want to use these events to see what audience members experience and where sounds and neurological behaviours connect together.”

quantum sound

Djrum (Image credit: Press/Djrum)

A variety of electronic artists have contributed to the Quantum Sound album either via Houndstooth or through Bianca’s friendships and industry connections. Djrum, artist Felix Manuel, released his Under Tangled Silence album via the label in 2025 and contributed Come Find Me to the record.

“This track was based around two improvisations, the first with a synth, creating organ-like sounds that layer polyrhythms tied to frequency; the second using a homemade instrument involving bowed metal,” Felix explains. “For me, music and meditation are intrinsically linked. The music-making process, particularly improvisation, is a form of meditation with deep listening at its core.”

Hannah Holland is a DJ and producer who has been a fixture within UK nightlife as a DJ and producer for the last twenty years. After Bianca witnessed her DJ previously, Hannah had the opportunity to focus on more downtempo music that works beyond club-focused settings. She contributed Ambient Chronolight 1 and A Door to Who Knows to the record.

“Both tracks were very much about channeling a mood,” Hannah says. ”When I’m making music that’s intended more for listening than for the dancefloor, I focus on how it affects me personally.”

“I think about the music I listen to when I’m travelling or in motion, and I try to create a kind of ‘movie for the mind’. It’s a similar approach to how I work with film score projects, where atmosphere and emotional flow are key. Music has always been a source of healing and joy for me, a way to escape but also a way to feel present.”

quantum sound

Hannah Holland (Image credit: Press/Hannah Holland)

Outside of the Quantum Sound project, there are myriad producers and artists creating electronic music that can be used as soothing balm. Richard Norris is one half of The Grid (alongside the sadly departed Dave Ball), Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve and countless other production projects. When the Covid pandemic landed, he began his Music For Healing series on Bandcamp.

“I was facing chaos outside my front door when I started it and wanted to create a calm sonic space in my studio as a respite,” Richard explains. “I started improvising quite calm, warm and tranquil electronic sounds, which was probably the first time I’d thought of making music in this way. It worked for me, so I began to release the pieces. There was immediate feedback, messages, emails, so it seems to work for other people too.”

The series has evolved with Richard releasing twenty minute pieces every month for the past few years. Likening it to a “sound diary”, different themes are followed (it’s ‘patterns’ in 2026) to create an “analogue bubblebath” for listeners to get lost in.

“It’s different to approaching a remix or a dance track, as the pieces seem to make themselves,” Richards says of his creative approach. “Not in an AI sense – they are very much still played by a human, with human decisions and intention – but there seems to be a kind of ritual that’s developed where I start a piece with one sound and it naturally grows from there without me appearing to have much say in it. I may be playing it, but this music has developed a mind of its own.”

quantum sound

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith (Image credit: Tim Saccenti)

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is a US-based producer who released her brilliant album Gush in 2025. It was her first time hearing Music for 18 Musicians, a work of minimalist music composed by Steve Reich, that turned her onto the power of music to enhance wellbeing.

“It brought this sense of electricity to the forefront of my mind, even though it isn’t electronic music at all,” Kaitlyn says. “But it sparked a desire in me to create electronic music that could evoke a similar experience.”

Her latest record Gush is centred around sensuality and meditates on the senses. A previous release in the form of 2012’s Tides was commissioned by her mother, a yoga teacher, and focuses on organic-sounding electronic instrumentals.

“Electronic and ambient music can be so powerful, because our nervous system responds deeply to electricity and is highly sensitive to qualities like consistency and inconsistency, vulnerability and stability,” Kaitlyn states. “When approached thoughtfully, electronic and ambient music can act as a kind of scaffolding for the nervous system, offering support, regulation, and space.”

With the Quantum Sound album release imminent, the ultimate ambition for the project is for listeners to use this music as part of a daily meditative practice.

“The idea that someone puts it on shuffle and starts cooking gives me nerves”

“The idea that someone puts it on shuffle and starts cooking gives me nerves,” laughs Bianca. “Ideally, we want people to lie down and experience it in this immersive mental state. I think audiences will hopefully adapt to this over time, but we are determined to continue making transcendental ambient music.”

“We’re starting to map out the psychological landscape of these musical experiences and how they create changes in the dynamics of brain activity,” continues Oliver. “We believe there’s so much potential for this project and the research opportunities it creates.”

The future involves more events and more experiments alongside sourcing funding to support their explorative work too. “We’ve been pulling all these ideas together without financial support so far,” says Bianca. “But we’re excited to continue the work, take our next steps in terms of exploring new sound tech like spatial audio and 4D sound too.”