Brooklyn-based duo Free Whenever says that their music sits somewhere in between form (saguna) and formlessness (nirguna).

In a chance meeting thanks to a mutual friend that helped put together cover bands, Neil Guleria and Trevor LaVecchia played together at a wedding in Vermont in the summer of 2018. The four-hour gig didn’t exactly give any of the band members a chance to do anything other than a quick practice beforehand, so it wasn’t until two years later that the two truly connected.

That same mutual friend sent LaVecchia a track they had made with Guleria and it was the first time that LaVecchia had heard anyone in his circle create a professional-quality song. It wasn’t long after that they met up and quickly found out they were on the same page musically.

“I always felt very lonely making beats in my own world,” Guleria said. “I’m definitely the type of musician that I feel like I need other people to vibe off of.”

Their jam sessions turned into producing full tracks, from electronic-style beats to what they call their “space desert rock foundation”. Their first gig, which they refer to in quotation marks, was technically a birthday party on the rooftop of Guleria’s apartment. Their performance was inspired by French multi-instrumentalist FKJ, who uses live loopings during performances. It turned out that the style wasn’t for them, as they had more of an interest in live instrumentation and original songs.

“Neil and I just go straight to original music, always, which is something that I think speaks to our relationship and how it was meant to be,” LaVecchia said.

“The second we started playing together it was always a mindset of combining our individual musical interests,” Guleria added. “I feel like what allowed the thing to take root was the fact that it was just always the goal since our first jam…Trevor and I have always come out of the tradition of music that is just driven by feeling and emotion and trying to get closer and closer to that. That’s why it became a perfect fit for the psychedelic genre because that is all about feeling.”

They took that feeling and dove into the Brooklyn DIY music scene. Since they began during a time where live shows were not an option, they immersed themselves in rooftop shows and drum circles anywhere they could find one. They had ideas of riffs and chord progressions but didn’t work too hard on structure. The beginning was all about the feeling.

It came to a point where those feelings deserved to have a beginning, middle and end. They started with a very broad sense of their different influences before delving into the recording process. This time around, they ended up with four tracks for their EP, The Movement.

The inspiration originated from a trip LaVecchia took to Camino de Santiago. As the songs came together, it felt like a new era for Free Whenever.

“We had written these songs in such a way that we wanted them to feel complete on their own and not necessarily feel like an instrumental to something,” Guleria said. We wanted something that’s holistic and complete in itself.”

The creation process of The Movement taught them so much that they already have their next project lined up, saying that it feels like a culmination of everything they learned from this EP and everything they want Free Whenever to be.

“We’re a very grassroots-type band,” Guleria said. “We love playing for the people, love playing in the streets, and that’s all we really care about.”

In a Black is the New AP Style exclusive, get the first look at their live performance of “Desert Wanderer”: