What makes this different from the other albums by Rudy Adrian is that the amazing musical events are deliberately subtle and soft — and hopefully soothing, without becoming saccharine. The intention is to always ensure that the ingredients are unobtrusive and will allow the listener to fall asleep without encountering music that is dissonant or melodramatic.
The beginnings ease in, the endings fade slowly
Beyond the Sleepy Hills is a collection of musical pieces created specifically with sleep and healing in mind. These songs were designed as a suite, each track stands alone, but together they create something more than just the sum of the parts. The composer, Rudy Adrian, says that one thing that is really different from his other albums is that his usual subtle atonal sound effects and bells have been made even more subtle, so as not to distract the slumbering listener. There is a little bit more time between the tracks, the beginnings ease in, the endings fade slowly.
“I used many of the elements that regularly occur in my other albums — for instance a slightly spooky track with piano in a minor key, or a track made up of gently swirling beds of drones with soft bells – but this time I tried to make sure the ingredients were unobtrusive and would allow the listener to fall asleep without encountering music that was dissonant or melodramatic.”
Rudy Adrian is an ambient musician from Dunedin in New Zealand. Always experimental and original, his unique personal sound is also peaceful and listenable-similar to listening to a film soundtrack without pictures. Until lately, his albums have formed two distinct series: “Atmospheric Works” and “Sequencer Sketches.” Music and nature have always gone hand in hand for Rudy. He first started making electronic music while studying Forestry Science at the University of Canterbury, and in the following years at the University of Otago while completing a degree in Botany. Working in styles ranging from beatless atmospheric music to heavily sequenced electronica, he has released numerous albums of his music, as well as producing sound tracks for television in his profession as a sound engineer for Taylormade Media. He also has been one of the hosts of a radio programme specializing in ambient music on the Dunedin campus radio station, Radio One.
Beyond the Sleepy Hills is in an important way unlike anything else in his catalog, most of his work has a strong connection to a physical place on the Earth (Desert Realms, Coastlines, Woodlands, a Moonlit Lake), this time we hover on the edge of sleep, experiencing the art of introspection to heighten the listener’s powers of observation and attention. This type of music tends to be relaxing on our minds, lowering high blood pressure and perhaps leading to better sleep. We travel on a small boat through rounded seas, we swim through gentle warm waves. Sometimes I can feel the waves as I drift into sleep and possibly encounter visions, prophecies, premonitions, apparitions and artistic or divine inspiration. I love the soft drones with no pulse, no beat, no typical tempo. On Beyond the Sleepy Hills, the music makes me feel like I am looking down into a deep mountain glen, wild and lonely, the bottom is filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun, with the realization that life is only a big dream and I might liberate myself from the chains of emotions, attachments, and ego, opening up the possibility of ultimately becoming enlightened. It could happen.
The time of sleep is the best time for practicing submersive listening methods that bring realization of great bliss. Beyond the Sleepy Hills suggests exploring a series of landforms that are raised and have sloping sides. Hills come in many sizes from small and sharp to high and broadly rolling. The idea being that they go up and down in rapid succession, just as a high frequency sound wave would. There are also hills underwater, which we get into later.
Imagine rising slowly, encountering soft hazes coming into focus, with a gentle color palette and rhyming drones to reassure the listener that everything is well as the day draws to an end. We are entering “The Sleepy Hills 1” (5:16). The first track establishes the mood, the feeling for me is slow and dreamy, sustained piano under a floating chorus of subtle electronic horn drones, which continue opening wider into a bright and warm and sunny place, with warm sunshine pouring down feeling good and warm as the piano guides the way. There is a subtle tingle of a chime tree, lots of little metal bells, bringing a shiver of energized metal. The chords suggest beautiful colors coming from the darkness as the dawn begins. In my dream I have a feeling of awakening, electronics with the piano and everything else woven into the atmosphere. I sense a light from the darkness and the mixed voices of many instruments expanding and sustaining, sometimes growing stronger without becoming energetic, everything is slow paced and the stage is set, all in a slow walk from the night into the new day.
Here the skies look amazing, looking down over the hills ::
For this next track I imagine Washington Irving’s 1819 short story Rip Van Winkle, a Dutch-American man who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later to a changed world. “The Sleepy Hills 2” (8:28) gently fades up into a bright sunny night sky with the sun and stars and warm light, remember this is a dream. Contradictions abound, and yet the ride is smooth and calming. At the foot of these fairy mountains, I imagine the light smoke curling up from a village gleaming among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green, the hills are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky, and sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of grey whisps about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. As the picture becomes clearer, in my dream I imagine that I am awakening to peace and satisfaction. Here the skies look amazing, looking down over the hills which appear to be floating, with an essential direction but mostly just suspended. I am looking around at all the neat lights and galaxy stuff. Now it is a little later, the hills will go on forever and we are further above the place where the hills will be. Piano, chimes and bells are resonating, drones finding and adapting to the changing electronic atmospherics, there are so many details and we are coasting into a slow fade, a very long slow fade.
This time, on track 3, Rip awakens on a sunny morning, in the forest, and finds that many drastic changes have occurred since he fell asleep, his beard is a foot long and has turned gray, his musket is badly deteriorated, and his dog is nowhere to be found. “The Sleepy Hills 3” (3:56) continues the sleep-journey, with a deep humming expanding and sharpening slowly, I think I hear the rushing sound of deep water in this place. Here, the brightness increases but never splashes over, sustained slow motion tone filled drones. Imagine fields of flowers dimly lit after the storm, as time goes by another big thing in the sky whooshes along leaving stardust trails drawn towards this direction, tearing arcs across the horizon telling us about tomorrow and everything is even more quiet after that.
“Putting on some appropriate music can give our brains something else to focus on and take our minds off our daily distractions. Not everyone responds the same way to music. With Beyond the Sleepy Hills there is a distinct focus on sleep, no bumps or surprises, always deliberately smooth, gently flowing and peaceful.” ~Robin B. James
Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, under which a person traveling at near light speed would experience only the passage of a few years but would return to find centuries had passed on Earth. It feels like everything takes a long time, allowing for proper resting to take place. This suggestion fits well into the next track of “The Sleepy Hills 4” (9:33), for me the feeling now is like being deep underwater, the sound is like a low hum, warm and slow, becoming slower and darker. A warm new sound, whoooosh slowly the chasm opens and the view is spectacular, created by the bells against the drones in slow motion. As if from a distance and flowing from the darkness, I hear water going down into the tunnel. Looking deeper this turns out to be mostly light from above. Looking up to the shimmering surface, things seem to be getting quieter until they start rising, growing, easing sustaining, the light comes through the depths, rolling under oceans of fog clouds coming off of the highlands flowing into the valley.
Very subtle and slight ::
Now there are more ghosts here than anywhere else on the album so far, “The Sleepy Hills 5” (3:39) starts off a bit melancholy, fading in as the piano dreams of an organ, no, I see a piano with electronic spirits swirling overhead. The piano is in a haunted house, dark with some breezes getting stronger in the distance so slow and timeless, lingering and shimmering, circling around. I have found spirits in a cave, and even though we stay in slow motion, there is plenty of action with new instruments peeking out from the mix, very subtle and slight, like they may not actually be there after all.
Paleobathymetry is the study of past underwater depths, the hills deep under the waters. Further out in the open ocean, I can see below the water, hearing deep sea features such as ocean rises and seamounts. These submerged surfaces have mountainous features, including a globe-spanning mid-ocean ridge system, as well as undersea volcanoes, oceanic trenches, submarine canyons, oceanic plateaus and abyssal plains, deep underwater swaying in the dim light. “The Sleepy Hills 6” (6:51) takes place entirely at the bottom of the sea, the hills are under water and the water is breathing slowly, like rushing air back and forth breathing in and out and in. like night oceans, back and forth in and out up and down over and out. Some organ keys float in, slow sustained single and compound tones with some ghosty notes further out in distant altitudes. I am floating and trying to puzzle together the right way forward, maintaining the dark slow motion, the place opens up further and the lights are fantastic, or were we ever there?
It feels like I am having a recurring dream, this time awakening over the hills flying smoothly across the night sky, “The Sleepy Hills 7” (3:42), stand in permanence as I continue soaring amongst the drone fields, Later the drowsy sky opens up to reveal all the treasure up there. I imagine horns on the mountaintop, following a small dark orange glowing sphere drifting in an indigo field. As we travel along, down below are the forests as the leaves change for the season, suggested by an old sounding organ or special electronics, washes are rising and falling, bringing new sky pictures. What was that nimble small noise? A little fragment of a clue? A whimper or a door opening? The ringing bells seem to be calling, feeling strong, slowly rising then coasting and soaring over the fog to slowly drift as we go under, into the blackness.
Perhaps these are the last endless hopeless moments before dawn, dead wisps moving ceremonially in slow motion, growing darker while falling slowly, upside down, head over heels, gently back and forth in and out breathing slowly going deeper, observing long slow motion spectacles in the dark. We have come to “The Sleepy Hills 8 ” (8:55), something huge is swaying slowly, always so slow. I am watching to see what happens next while the dream lingers. In the new dream, the castle is so small on the distant hill, the moon makes it shine against the void.
A seamount is a large submarine landform that rises from the ocean floor without reaching the water surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet, or cliff-rock. Lighting up the seafloor even thirty feet beneath the surface of the ocean, the sun astonishes me with its power. I can see our images clearly mirrored on the underside of the waves, but reflected upside down. The solar rays easily cross this aqueous mass and disperse its dark colors. The sun’s rays hit the surface of the waves at a fairly oblique angle, decomposing by refraction as though passing through a prism; and when this light comes in contact with flowers, rocks, buds, seashells, and polyps, showing all seven hues of the solar spectrum. This sonic riot of rainbow tints is a wonder, a feast for the ears: a genuine kaleidoscope of red, green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue, starting with a dark hum growing stronger. I couldn’t help seeing the actual shadows of large birds passing over our heads, swiftly skimming the surface of the sea. “The Sleepy Hills 9” (9:52) I am stretched out on the seafloor directly beneath some bushes of algae, when I raise my head I can see two enormous masses hurtling by, throwing off phosphorescent glimmers, dropping off and then revealing that the gigantic form is still present calm and unmoving. Perhaps the way it fades out things seem to be wrapping up and then something small melds in and that takes time to work through then fade out and then another different thing works its own way through the process again, slowly getting smaller until it is gone.
Putting on some appropriate music can give our brains something else to focus on and take our minds off our daily distractions. Not everyone responds the same way to music. With Beyond the Sleepy Hills there is a distinct focus on sleep, no bumps or surprises, always deliberately smooth, gently flowing and peaceful. What makes this different from the other albums by Rudy Adrian is that the amazing musical events are deliberately subtle and soft — and hopefully soothing, without becoming saccharine. The intention is to always ensure that the ingredients are unobtrusive and will allow the listener to fall asleep without encountering music that is dissonant or melodramatic. Rudy paid extra care to making the drones subtle and avoiding menacing or unsettling tones. But nonetheless, he was also careful not to create an album that is too sweet and cloying — it’s designed to be both listenable and ignorable, depending on the mood of the person playing the music.
Beyond the Sleepy Hills is available on Spotted Peccary Music. [Bandcamp | Site]
