Welcome to the intense, inspiring and heavily layered multiverse of Vedanta.
A Polish producer now based in Spain, you may have already come across his work on labels such as Close 2 Death, Warfare, Paperfunk and Future Sickness. Now comes his most ambitious body of work so far; his debut album Ponzi Math. Presented on his own brand new imprint Bindu Recordings, it galvanises his signature sound to a whole new level.
A beguiling drum & bass brew with heavy twangs of psy trance, techno, neuro and crossbreed, Ponzi Math is a hectic headbutt of sonic dynamics and social commentary. Each track characterised by a spoken word narrative, there are strong themes of honesty, global politics, economics, self improvement, self discipline and creative integrity.
That’s how I’ve personally decoded it, anyway. You may have your own theories and that’s exactly how Vedanta – also known as Adam – wants it. Keeping his own code veiled in mystery, Vedanta wants us to develop our own solutions. One thing is abundantly clear; he’s an artist who refuses to jump on bandwagons or current trends to make a noise and instead is making a unique formula of his own.
Ponzi Math is out now on Bandcamp and comes complete with remixes from Tech Itch, DJ Hidden, Crawler, BSA and Offish. We copped two premieres… Pattern Recognition and Pattern Recognition (Tech Itch remix). Both hit hard. Check them out as you get to grips with Vedanta, his roots, his vision and a few of his equations.
Congratulations on releasing your debut album and launching your own label – you must have been on quite an epic creative frenzy during the process of creation / launching!
Thanks! I’ve been thinking about how I would approach it for some years now and after writing the initial sketches for the album, I decided to give it a go. Definitely an intensive time. The audio was done around end of 2025 and since then I’ve been putting together visuals / videos etc to expand the ideas a little further. So far so good, no major hiccups in the process so that’s most important for me, things go according to plan so I’m very happy about it.
Before we get our teeth into your album let’s get some origin story… What inspired you to explore production? How did you arrive at your sound?
In the area I grew up in (near Lódź, Poland), there was either white-glove generic disco or DNB nights, I went with the latter when presented the choice. I started collecting vinyl around 2003 and played at home for the first few years. When I moved to a different town to study I started getting more into production around 2009.
I have to give a special mention to Telemetrik and the track Exit Civilisation. I come back to this clip often. It inspired me to pursue my own video syncing experiments. It’s one of my favourite tracks from that era.
One of my first teachers was Yabol, who is one of the classic Polish techno / drum & bass producers. Around 2015 I heard one of his forthcoming tracks, which inspired me enough to answer two rebuttal pieces to it, which I sent over to him. Thats how Vedanta was born.
He showed me early experimentations of mixing psychedelic trance elements into techno influenced drum and bass by such producers as Anode, Cybernetika, Quellsy and few others.
For the past 10 years I’ve been pursuing that type of genre amalgamation, for the most part fast and highly synthetic. Over the past couple years in between releases I’ve been doing a bit of “Amen Workouts” as I call them, Galactus being the first one presented as a result of those. Ponzi Math being further deployment of techniques gathered throughout the years. These days I simply call it Progressive Freeform.
It’s safe to say you’re drawn to the darker side of this music, why is this? What is it about these particular elements – and the harder side of breaks – for you?
I started out collecting various types of dnb as kid, whatever I could put my hands on really. Even had a clownstep phase early on, there were so many new different types of tracks. Many years ago people looked at me funny when I mixed DJ Zinc – Ska with industrial sounding technoid tracks, but that’s just my way of trying things out.
Around 2007 onwards I started to get more into the techy, aggressive and punchy side of dnb, when I first heard Offkey stuff I was hooked (Bigups Raiden). Later on for few years I organised various heavy branded events around Poland. For some reason, I always like the really energetic stuff calms me down, I can find peace in very busy, but well organised arrangements. There’s something to technically inclined sound that pulls me in, back when I was collecting vinyl as a kid, tracks had lot of weight and at times seriousness to them.
I’m wondering if there’s quite an intentional social commentary running through your work. Going right back to Fracking on Close 2 Death, Cognitive Dissonance last year, Corruption too. Obviously we’re building up to the context of Ponzi Math but have you always been intentional in naming tracks about the toxicity of the human experience?
Some of the themes are connected throughout the releases, with each presenting different angles and concepts I worked on. Over the years I realised it’s easier for me to write about something specific to express the idea or send a message. I remember buying vinyl based on their unique bits in tracks, noticing new stuff in the bin due to different names and titles I could relate to.
Everybody has good and bad experiences in life, I found a way to turn them into music rather than overly explain what I encounter. While working on sketches I sometimes wonder “what does this sound remind me of” and that lets me explore and try out ideas more easily. In other cases, something happens in life and I know I’ll turn that into a song right away, its mostly an organic process rather that strictly pre-planned.
I’ve written tracks as an “answer” to other tracks I heard; also wrote other about certain situations in life, deciding moments, dilemmas encountered, or as simply as a topical challenge. Sometimes the theme might come in later while some parts of the track are already laid out, but that injects a whole another layer of meaning for me and gives more options to explore the ideas while decorating the piece with new sounds. This is an example of Progressive Freeform – one thing leads you to another as a result of curiosity.
What are your thoughts on the human experience and the current state of the world anyway? Please provide your answer in a mathematical equation. Give us something to work out and chew on…
“You would never suspect him of fraud, unless you knew the math…”
I have to admit, I was sidetracked by the Ponzi title and felt this was a much more pointed statement on how capitalism / billionaireism is a cancer but with every listen I hear new messages and themes. I think about all though, it’s about maintaining a standard. Tracks like Risk, Suffering, Failure. I stopped listening to it from an anti capitalist point of view and much more from a creative one and now see a lot of themes about not compromising, being true to yourself, not being lazy and flinging out off-the-shelf mainstream shit. What do you think of these observations?
There’s few layers of meaning weaving throughout the album, it definitely touches on people at power and those maiming others for their own gain. At the same time, each of the tracks serves as its own premise listeners can contemplate upon. The way they are laid out on the album, shows the whole process I went through in order to create it. Like you mentioned, each of the premises serves as a contemplation point permitting an improvement of ones circumstances. Some talk about external world, some about more personal experience which we all gather along our journeys.
Essence Of Bullshit is such a great way of starting the album and the spoken word is spot on. How important is honesty to you and your art? How you do you display or practice that behaviour in your output?
I wanted the listener to receive a strong message from the beginning. I’ve dealt with loads of BS and Big Dogs over the years both in my musical journey and private life. I found this premise important to start with as I’m at the stage in life where I really care about exploring new ideas and letting myself go creatively, rather than trying to constantly adhere to “standards”. I got nothing to prove this way and it gives me more freedom. In the last years I tried to adapt my sound for certain purposes, but it doesn’t really work out in the long run if you deeply crave something else inside. Someday, someone might appreciate it, that’s my approach.
Bindu is meant to be a place for experimentation where I want other artists to be able to stay true to themselves and their ideas, pushing the envelope of the genre whenever possible. There are too many situations where great ideas do not get explored for various, often BS reasons. I like to ask myself “what if” quite often and act upon that. I don’t mind a solid decline – “No” ; it brings more clarity than bullshit for sure.
What’s the biggest bullshit you’ve been told in this game? Once again, tell us in an equation….
Just make the tracks how you like, fuk’em!
We’re running Pattern Recognition and the Tech Itch remix on our channel. Tell us about these tracks in particular. The spoken word is very much financial but there’s a parallel with how everyone copies each other on social media. Discuss!
This one is pretty important for me, the track uses example of the financial market where everybody has only one task in mind – predict the pattern; which as we know is not possible, because “The more you try to take advantage of it, the more quickly pattern changes…”. We simply don’t know what’s the next thing coming, that’s how reality works.
I like to consider it as an analogy of music business, where often times A&R’s and bookers claim they know what is needed, but at the end of the day, nobody really knows 100% due to unpredictable nature of the market and its whimsy. I had various occasions where my ideas were considered too much and people advised me to make it simpler and adapt to current market patterns. That never sat well with me, often times I went straight back to the studio and made the tracks even more complex. Reducing the scale of my ideas to “fit in” does not sound appealing to me, while the concept of being told to edit track 3 minutes shorter is plain funny to me at this point.
Starting Bindu is my way of breaking out of the pattern that presented itself in front of me.
And of course please take the time to big up Tech Itch. How do you two know each other?
I first met him in 2011 at a party we both played in Birmingham. More recently I bumped into him in Barcelona couple years back, got in touch after realising we both live in similar area. I’m really honoured he agreed to rework this track and took care of Mastering of the whole album, still feels surreal when I look back at finding his vinyl on sale many years back as a kid. You can’t predict where life takes you, you cannot predict the pattern. Tech Itch delivered a behemoth remix of serious weight, were really happy to share the video with you.
Having solid Quality Control is important for me. He encouraged me to pursue my experimental ideas and gave me some solid tips which I’m really thankful for.
Are you a mathematical man in general? There’s a fine line between music and maths – where do you sit on on that line?
I like a good riddle, I have a quite intensive and analytical perception process to say the least. So there’s definitely lot of numbers going on in my head for various reasons. Things like predicting outcomes, risk assessment, statistic probablity accompany us whether we notice or not. Sometime I overly analyse things in details on both fronts, but that’s just the how my mind works. That’s why Critical Thinking and discernment are important.
1% Difference is a great finale / conclusion. Again – such a valid point to end on. Like a little inspiring gift to the listener. For me that translates to ‘Get off your arse’!
Proper sequencing the whole album was important for me in order to send the right message. You reap what you sow as they say, that’s how I see it. This one reflects on all the work put into the album and how it developed into something more than I expected while starting work with selected premises. Don’t forget to check out the remix by DJ Hidden full video clip premiere coming in few weeks.
View this post on Instagram
You mention in the album description that the album’s tales are in tune with Bindu. With all this in mind, I suspect you’ve got some exciting plans and that we can expect some exciting risk-taking music that doesn’t copy existing patterns or rip people off. Am I close to where you’re at? And what do you have planned?
Only time will tell, that’s the best part about it. There’s no strict format I have to adhere at the moment, its very liberating and I’m free to experiment with both audio and visual aspects. For some years I approach certain areas of life as if wearing horse blinkers, which sets me free of expectations and not worried about what others are up to.
First releases will establish certain sonic framework around which I would like to experiment upon further. I have some concepts I’ve been gathering and brainstorming around, but each requires effort and right time in order to come to fruition.
I’m hoping to explore them gradually one by one. There’s definitely plans to showcase music from other artists and experiment in general. Special thanks to everyone supporting so far and every artists involved. It means a lot to me to be able to explore those ideas along other people.
For now we have five video clips prepared for each of the remixes from Ponzi Math LP, each one prepared with analog process using inks/liquids which present the visual aspect of the album in a wider spectrum. All of them will be premiering until march, around that time we should have everything lined up to talk about further plans…
What else does the world need to know about Vedanta right now? Equation optional.
2 More Things!
BND001 ≠ const.
Bindu = Progressive Freeform
Thanks for having me!
Vedanta
