Music, Plants and the Thread Between Them
Ali has been composing and producing music since 2004. Over two decades of releases under the artist names Ananui and Anima, through his own label Anima Sound Medicine. The music spans ambient, electronic, world and indigenous fusion, ceremonial sound and healing frequencies. With over 70,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and releases across all major platforms, the music has found its audience. People who use it for meditation, ceremony, yoga, breathwork, or simply to bring something gentler into their day. If you have noticed CDs among the superfoods and tonic herbs on the Na'vi website, that is Ali's music. It has always belonged there.
Before Na'vi existed, Ali travelled extensively. He lived with indigenous peoples, learning from their traditions, the plants they used, the ceremonies they held, the ways they stayed close to the earth. Those years were not research. They were simply how he chose to live. What he absorbed informed not only his music but a deep, personal understanding of natural health and the healing traditions that plants carry with them.
The Relationships That Built Na'vi
The connections Ali made during those years became the foundation of everything Na'vi offers. He built relationships with growers, farmers and indigenous producers by hand, in person, over time. Many of the producers Na'vi works with today have known Ali for far longer than the business has been running.
When Na'vi says 99% of products are sourced directly from growers and indigenous producers, it is because those relationships are real. They were not built for a business plan. They grew from shared meals, shared values and a mutual respect for what the land provides. These days, with two young daughters and a life rooted off-grid in the Scottish Highlands, the travelling has slowed. But the relationships remain, and the trust holds.
What Ali Brings to Na'vi
Ali runs the operations, the systems and the sourcing that keep Na'vi moving. Where Jemma's focus is the products themselves, their quality, their presentation, the care with which they leave the door, Ali's is the structure underneath. The producer relationships. The logistics. The decisions that keep a small, independent business running without compromising what makes it worth running.
He brings the same ear to Na'vi that he brings to a mix. An attention to balance, to what feels right, to the difference between something that works and something that truly resonates. Two businesses, two practices, one intention: that the things we take in, what we eat, what we listen to, what we give our attention to, shape how we feel in ways that go deeper than most people realise.
