Asvara

Asvara is Mike Vitali's solo vessel, and it has two lives — the meditative and the massive. It began in 2013 as a minimalist ambient practice: after years fronting and driving Ajna Chakra, Great Day For Up, and Ironweed, Vitali turned to electronics and the avant-garde. The debut 'All' (Nanobox Records NB006, released digitally April 9, 2013) was written and recorded during the first nine days of April 2013 — a daily morning meditation based on Enkyo Roshi's Heart Sutra Talks, followed by direct composition and performance on a Monome 64. Gathering the mind, receiving the mind: nine tracks for listeners raised on Brian Eno, Nine Inch Nails' 'Ghosts,' and Steve Reich, released under Creative Commons because the practice mattered more than the paywall.

The second life is loud. Asvara returned in December 2020 with the self-titled record cut at IO666 — Vitali on guitars and keys, three tracks culminating in a seventeen-minute closer, the Marshall full stack in the warehouse doing the talking the Monome once did. 'Arrows & Oaths' (ARC MEDIA 0026, April 2026) is the newest entry in the entire label catalog: five tracks from the bow-cut opener 'Where We Cut the Bows' through 'Praesidium' and 'Divine' to 'Camouflage,' forged at IO666 with the full modern toolchain and labeled hybrid accordingly.

One name, thirteen years, both edges of the Vitali catalog. Asvara is where the label's oldest discipline — sit down, record what is true that morning — meets its newest machinery.