Amani Friend
Across the beat of the decades, few artists have been so close to the pulse of global music as North American producer Amani Friend. A career musician whose work includes electro-world duo Desert Dwellers, psychedelia label Desert Trax, downtempo project Liquid Bloom, and electronica duo Variant Field, Amani has over 500 original productions and remixes in his catalogue and has performed in over twenty countries since first entering the studio over thirty years ago.
Amani’s life as an artist began in his childhood journeys to Central and South America, where he was exposed to a vibrant culture that used music as a tool for celebration, healing, and connection with the environment and the transcendent. Adopting a similar philosophy as a young adult, he went on to study world music in college while fostering a budding interest in underground rave culture, electronic music, and computer-based music production.
In 1998, he met Los Angeles DJ Treavor Moontribe, setting in motion a whirlwind of events that lead to the establishment of Desert Dwellers and the duo’s consequent expansion into the electronic music landscape. Merging world flavors with contemporary electronic beats, the project alchemized Amani’s background in world music and ambient sound design with Treavor’s electronic roots, and quickly became a hit in the blossoming yoga and music festival scenes.
As Desert Dwellers’ popularity and consequent travel around the world grew, so did Amani’s access to the colorful world of sounds it contained, allowing him to build an expansive library of field recordings and audio samples to fuel his production work in Desert Dwellers and provide raw material for his solo production,Liquid Bloom — an ambient project he established in 2001 as a soundtrack for healing and the exploration of inner meditative states. Inspired by musical concepts rooted in shamanism and meditation, the project would take on elements of virtually every electronic style through Amani’s collaborations and remixes in the decades that followed.
Born of adventure and fueled by devotion to the power of music as a tool for healing, connection, and growth, Amani Friend stands as a stabilizing and visionary force in the global electronica scene. Wielding the tools of modern production and inspired by humanity’s oldest cultures, he has spent his life exploring the depths of what it means to be an intentional creator while honoring the musical mystics who precede him. With his portfolio of work expanding each year, his identity transcends any individual production and is ultimately revealed in his flourishing collaborations, heartfelt experience, and boundless expression of the creative spirit.