#180
Saturday · 17 min
TL
Tapasya Loading
T.L. Mazumdar
Podcast for the holistic musician.
From Grammy-Award winners, NY Times best-selling authors, and lesser-known heroes, Indian-German Musician/Educator T.L. Mazumdar engages in conversations with path-breakers meant to open minds for artists and audiences alike.
DISCLAIMER : The views of guests are not necessarily reflective of T.L. Mazumdar’s. T.L. Mazumdar is not affiliated to any religious institutions or organizations.
- 20 episodes
- weekly
- Avg 34 min
- English
- TL#179October 2 · 19 min
Seen, Heard, Held (and the Burden of Explanation)
Official announcement of my upcoming 8th album 'Seen Heard Held' with thoughts on the why, how and what of it all. Seen Heard Held releases 16th Oct 2026 on Warner Chappel Music. Pre-save the album Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#178September 25 · 58 min
Voices Returned: Sheila Chandra on Echo
Sheila Chandra returns to Tapasya Loading for her third appearance to discuss Echo, a collection of live recordings she describes as possibly her final album. Her first album as producer reunites her with Stuart Bruce, a collaboration dating back to Sheila’s Monsoon sessions in 1982 and continued through her Real World trilogy. For Echo, they worked as a team of two, communicating entirely via email. In this episode: Producing Echo and the dynamics of a two-person collaboration. Production techniques and the often overlooked art of vocal production. Revisiting past performances and choosing feeling over technical perfection. Accessibility for artists, being mentored and becoming a mentor. Sheila’s artistic journey and her perspective on what may be her last release. Echo is released on 25 September 2026 through Real World Records on LP and digital, with six additional tracks on the digital edition. Explore Echo and find listening and purchase options. Previous conversations with Sheila: Voices Lost and Found Revisiting the Birth of ‘World Music’ and Unpacking its Relevance in 2023 Listen to the second half of the episode. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com Connect with Sheila: Website: https://www.sheilachandra.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sheila_chandra Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesheilachandra Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheila.chandra.1 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sheilachandra0000 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilachandraartistcoach/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sheila-Chandra/e/B0034Q533Q Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Chandra IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1291550/bio/ Connect with T.L. www.tlmazumdar.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everynowheremusic/
- TL#177September 18 · 15 min
Coming out wrong. A 10-year reflection.
With roughly a month to go before my eighth album comes out, I’m revisiting the work I’ve dedicated the past decade to, and what I was searching for through it. This is a look back at that search, and how my upcoming album, Seen Heard Held, aims to be the counterbalance to what Re_movement was. The IG Carousel with photos. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#176September 10 · 15 min
‘Fighting’ Clean: Three Weeks After a Racial Attack
Three weeks after a racial attack in Berlin, I move from shock and helplessness into anger, and sit with the discomfort of agreeing with what someone is fighting for without knowing if I could fight the same way. A solocast about racism, belonging, contradictory truths and what humanity means when even that word can be hijacked. -- More Relevant Links: My talks with Equity Coach Tayo Rockson My Talks with Sheila Chandra My article on Racism in Germany --- Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com
- TL#175September 4 · 59 min
The truth about online coaches (2026)
The coaching industry has fractured into two distinct worlds: one grounded in genuine education and responsibility, another built on engineered dissatisfaction and circular profit models. Between them lies a dangerous gap where the language of transformation masks the machinery of extraction, and where the promise of accessibility obscures deliberately incomplete offerings. Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com Episode Notes / Text : www.tlwrites.com
- TL#174August 28 · 47 min
Rocking the Boat w/ Vivienne Aerts
Five years after her first appearance on Tapasya Loading, New York-based Dutch vocalist, composer, producer, educator and psychologist Vivienne Aerts returns as our first-ever guest to make a second reappearance. Her new album, Current, was created aboard a tiny wooden sailboat that Vivienne and her husband, Ted Steinebach, first bought during the pandemic. What began with a fascination for the acoustics of open water eventually became a floating studio, travelling from Leiden towards Amsterdam and back through the Dutch waterways. Vivienne chose not to release the album on mainstream platforms, refusing to place a project built around attention, connection and care inside a system she feels is increasingly removed from those values. Listen to the second half of the episode. Connect with Vivienne Vivienne’s website Explore the world of Current Listen to and support Current on Bandcamp Why Current Will Not Be on Spotify ViviTalks on Substack Instagram Vivienne at Berklee College of Music Vivienne’s previous appearances Well-being for Artists and Making Music with Chocolate Making an Album with 100 Plus Female Collaborators, Chocolate that Empowers Local Congo Businesses and Effortless Mastery in Juggling Multiple Hats Connect with T.L. Tapasya Loading Holistic Musician Academy EveryNowHere Produced by T.L. Mazumdar.
- TL#173August 21 · 48 min
The Problem With ‘Holistic’
What happens when you stop trying to force incompatible parts of yourself into a single coherent identity, and recognize that the relationship between those parts is the identity itself instead? Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#172August 14 · 19 min
Why AI is embarrassing, not threatening
In an era when machines generate the appearance of creativity, understanding the difference is not sentimental. Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#171August 7 · 1 hr 4 min
Coaching vs Therapy (2026)
The boundary between coaching and therapy has become impossibly blurred, particularly for independent artists navigating both creative ambition and psychological weight. Most distinctions you've heard collapse under scrutiny, revealing instead that what actually matters is scope, competence, purpose, and the specific geography in which support is being offered. Here's my revised take in 2026 Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#170July 30 · 28 min
Identity and the Growth Mindset
Why a Growth Mindset less about trying harder and more about loosening your grip on who you think you are. Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com
- TL#169July 24 · 48 min
The perils of 'like' culture
How the relentless pursuit of "likes" ended up reshaping art. Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#168July 16 · 27 min
Self-Loathing: The Signal We Misread
Self-loathing is a harsh word to acknowledge, but what it points to is real. And what it shows up as in our daily decisions are the buildings blocks of the pattern that threatens to pull us away from our own creative centre. Brought to you by: https://holisticmusicianacademy.com/ https://safeandsound.studio/ Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#167July 9 · 14 min
The Full Fee: On Worth, Receiving, and Babysitting
I was a toddler when two women at a doorstep decided what I was worth. It took me decades to hear the lesson inside that deal. This one is about value decided, not discovered. About us waiting for circumstances to hand down a verdict that was never theirs to give. And about the harder half: receiving. Who taught you what you were worth? And have you been living by their estimate ever since? Brought to you by: https://holisticmusicianacademy.com/ https://safeandsound.studio/ Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com Episode Notes / Text : www.tlwrites.com
- TL#166July 2 · 21 min
Dirty Work: What Nobody Tells Creatives
Why a manager, team, assistant, audience or patron might be useless to us until we understand this first. Brought to you by: https://holisticmusicianacademy.com/ https://safeandsound.studio/ Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses
- TL#165June 25 · 1 hr 1 min
From Rock Machine to Human Be w/ Uday Benegal
Uday Benegal is the founding vocalist of Indus Creed (formerly Rock Machine), the Bombay band that that arguably forced the rest of the world to acknowledge the existence of a culture that had always existed inside post-colonial India amidst the crossfire of an East and West not always as hypothetical as portrayed. Rock Music. Indus Creed navigated a global music industry with no label, no budget, and no precedent, and still managed to land an MTV Video Music Award at a time when public internet did not exist in India, and its passport offered access to a fraction of the countries whose culture flowed freely the other way; a one-way traffic that remains a controversial dynamic in the history of the world's largest democracy. This conversation traces the journey from Bombay bus rides hoping to catch unannounced matinee shows of ‘Woodstock’, to the New York club scene eventually leading to a long creative silence, and Uday’s much awaited solo EP that finally broke it, in his Goa home this May. Listen to the second half of the episode. Resource Links: Free Artist Training. Brought to you by the Holistic Musician Academy. Connect with Uday: https://www.instagram.com/udaybenegal/ https://www.facebook.com/udaybenegal/ Connect with T.L. www.findTL.com Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com
- TL#164June 19 · 28 min
"Limiting Beliefs" — A Limiting Belief?
Most creatives know that beliefs are holding them back. Some can articulate them, analyse them, even replace them with supposedly empowering alternatives. Yet the behaviour often remains unchanged, and the resistance stubbornly intact. What comes up: Why "limiting belief" might be the inaccurate terminology What self-sabotage is actually trying to do The question I used to ask, and the one I ask now Why knowing the pattern doesn't always break it The beliefs you never chose Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com
- TL#163June 11 · 24 min
Familiarity is not safety
The brain mistakes repetition for safety, comfort for understanding, and endurance for choice. This confusion runs deeper than personal relationships; it shapes entire careers, industries, and the inherited scripts we mistake for our own lives. What comes up: Why the decisions that change your life rarely feel safe at the time Why the brain is a prediction machine, not a happiness machine Liking things simply because we've seen them before The known wound vs. the unknown opening The music industry as an amplified version of everyone's life The starving artist: when suffering becomes a costume, then an identity Is this safe, or just recognised? Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com Episode Notes / Text : www.tlwrites.com
- TL#162June 3 · 17 min
Saying 'No'
Saying no sounds simple. It isn't, and not for the reasons most people think. In this episode I unpack why the word itself was never really the problem, what's actually happening when we can't hold a line, and why the emotional aftermath of a boundary is harder than the boundary itself. Drawn from real situations — a collaboration that needed a hard conversation, a coaching relationship that got uncomfortably accurate, and years of running a business through someone else's framework, this one gets personal. What comes up: Why setting boundaries is easy and living with them isn't The two identities in conflict every time you want to say no How chronic yes becomes a survival strategy — and then a prison Why managing other people's emotions is costing you more than you think What congruence actually feels like when you finally get there Read the article. Free Artist Training Coaching + courses Music and Audio Production: www.everynowheremusic.com Episode Notes / Text : www.tlwrites.com
- TL#161May 28 · 53 min
The Lost History of Indian Jazz w/ Sandhya Sanjana
There is an entire chapter of Indian music history that has shaped global music in unknown ways remains preserved only in the human memory of a select few. Sandhya Sanjana is one of those humans. Long before "world music" became a marketing category, she was part of a generation of home-grown South-Asian artists blurring the edges of jazz, global and Indian classical music by a trial and error met with genuine curiosity, rather than novelty. Co-founder one of India's earliest internationally touring world-fusion ensembles, Sanjana has been more than thirty albums, and spent decades moving between radically different musical worlds without reducing either of them into aesthetic decoration. In this conversation, we try to trace that arc. From an upbringing between Bombay and Delhi, to the nightclub circuits of Calcutta, with first-generation Indian Jazz musicians. From backstage blessings from Alice Coltrane after the exchange of a cassette tape, to the origins of India’s first international festival ‘Jazz Yatra’ where the appearances from the likes of icons such Art Blakey, Max Roach, Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard and John Handy and their days in India in open exchange with local musicians threaten to fade away amidst undocumented history. What emerges is not nostalgia, but a portrait of a generation of artists that worked without the visibility, institutional support, or mythology later scenes would inherit. Artists building language in real time. Documenting culture through performance while remaining largely undocumented themselves. In the words of Sandhya herself, much of that era was "not presented to the world." This conversation tries to remember. Listen to the second half of the episode. Connect with Sandhya: https://instagram.com/achhamusica https://facebook.com/sandhyasanjana https://youtube.com/@achha_musica Connect with T.L. Mazumdar: https://findtl.com/ Free Artist Training. Brought to you by the Holistic Musician Academy.