The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.
Vocalist and front person Lalin St. Juste from The Seshen describes the music as “energetic, electronic dance music that makes you want to expand your consciousness.” The Bay Area collective hails from Oakland and Richmond and have been influenced by several different music genres, including dancehall and folk.
The Seshen’s song “Hold Me” from their latest album Nowhere, which came out on Oct. 6, deals with the moment before loss and “connection even in the face of change.” St. Juste said the song is very upbeat and is inspired by “a certain darkness and inspired by the belief that you can get through it and it drives you through it.”
“The feeling of it came to be because here we were in this process of unraveling, essentially, and there was this house track that [Akiyoshi Ehara] was playing with, you know, with this four-on-the-floor [rhythm],” said St. Juste. “[It was] this driving sensation that had inspired me to go in this direction, talking about how we wanted to hold on to each other, but we were spiraling in this unexpected reality.”
The collective started when bassist Akiyoshi Ehara and St. Juste were married and they started throwing jam sessions at their house. St. Juste said they are no longer married and live separately while still writing music. When asked about getting through difficult times, she advised to sit in the discomfort of vulnerability and lean into the human experience.