Deliberately woven into a magical 77-minute sonic expedition, 35 offers an intriguing glimpse into Spotted Peccary’s world of ambient electronic music.
A selection of expansive electronic meditations
Ambient electronic means many things, much of the time ambient electronic music is for listening, not so much for dancing as often there is no conventional melody or beat, or perhaps the cohesion is more about texture and exploration. Spotted Peccary is known for fearlessly exploring soundscapes, rhythms and neo-melodies from all around the globe, some dancing is allowed, some meditative trance music is included. On this new free sampler album celebrating 35 years of continuous operation, there are feelings tapping into broader cultural resonances that connect to avant-garde art, classical music and folk music, performance and some harmonic language that was imported from jazz and 19th-century classical music, space music and lots of stuff that does not fit into any pigeon holes or genre categories. There are vast deep peaceful expanses, distant extra-fast stars, an occasional flyby anomaly, and at times you can see that some stars at the edges of galaxies are orbiting faster than should be possible.
This is ambient electronic music from amazing musicians (stargazers, ambassadors from another time) that takes each listener on a journey through time and space. The sound possesses a quite extraordinary range of different timbres and vibrates along with the air around it. Come to the edge and look outward, explore with your ears a different walking path today, seek out that rugged vista, the river and its tributaries, and the wind calling, feeling as if you have found the very edge of the world, embarking on adventures that no one has before.
1. “Monitoring the Zooids” — From the album Artefact, by Johan Agebjörn and Mikael Ögren
The album Artefact is a tribute to RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA the 1973 classic science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It is dark in deep space, the feeling of the music is ethereal, kinetic, and layered. There is just no need for words, but there is a little chatter on the intercom. Each song has special synthesizer qualities and all of them flow into a beautiful mix, there is a very specific story here. “Monitoring the Zooids” (6:58), picture in your mind a scene from the novel, “Ten meters away was a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a soccer ball. Set around the body were three large expressionless eyes, apparently giving 360 degrees of vision, and trailing beneath it were three whiplike tentacles…The creature was not quite as tall as a human and looked far too fragile to be dangerous. (pg. 198 of the original edition).” Imagine that you are falling slowly through wind and darkness, there are colored lights and spaceships, swaying and moving, seemingly to the music. We are traveling through the melancholy of a long journey in the cosmos. The feeling of Artefact is complex: bittersweet and positive, the sound is dreamy and electronic with lots of sustained echoes and glowing atmospheres, decorated with a pulse and just soaring with no limits. It works well for dreaming as well as for launching your voyages into deep fantasy, experiencing science fiction.
2. “A Stretch of Sun” — From the album Other Weather, by Jeff Greinke
Celebrating the vibrant introspective ascendance of the piano, the gossamer light texture of spirit and form floating in the sky, slow, supernatural and dreamy, with subtle electronic highlights and drifting melody fragments, on “A Stretch of Sun” (4:35), Greinke makes use of the extra brightness, which vibrates to produce appreciable magic. Greinke sometimes intrepidly includes the squeaks and bowing sounds that real instruments make, and that adds a lot of emotional depth to the pictures that he paints with his compositions, thus the sound characteristics of the violin are not predetermined by the score, but their presence is accommodated to bring about a deeper realization of the intended compositional design.
3. “Higgs Field, Cauldron of Being” — From the album Gnosis, by Chronotope Project
This is classical science-fiction cinema of the mind within a scholarly framework, six tracks: meditations on the spark of life, on the dreams that vanish, on finding dangerous forms in darkness, on classical pastoral inspiration, on massive caverns with evidence of approaching mysteries, and the parable of the oblivious attempting to interpret perception and illusions. Life is being brewed in a huge laboratory, see it twitch and awaken, it opens. Mysterious coils unfold, distances are tested, something emerges and we try to bring it closer. The bass is a heartbeat, consistently providing the foundation pulse, while the strings of tones soar and metal is tapped, on “Higgs Field, Cauldron of Being” (7:20). There is peace in the flow, addressing the listener at a deep, intuitive level, seducing our quest to know. In depth explanations of the origins of this great work does not in any way change the feeling of the music, which is accessible and enlightening, with or without the program notes, either way, you will find yourself in a very different state of mind. I already yearn to hear it again.
4. “Garden of the Forgotten” — From the album Illusive, by Kelly David
Energetic vibrations and melodic fragments open into a yet larger chamber which turns out to be a conservatory with remote foghorns and forms of life that are allowed to flourish, beautifully written with satisfying cycles of tension and release. What you will hear will sometimes be something that might not be what it seems to be, just when the view of a jungle plateau is coming into focus it might soon disappear and be replaced with something even more complex and inexplicable. This is the beauty and direction of the compositional work of Kelly David. “Garden of the Forgotten” (5:19) is a more vibrant interlude, providing a tender sparkle. The pace of this track allows a bit of contrast to this unhurried journey of discovery. All of these elements are woven throughout. Listening to Illusive, you might be able to see in this soundtrack a resemblance to various different unexplored planets adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, flora, fauna, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills and caverns.
5. “All Around Us (radio edit)” — From the album Strange Gravity, by Craig Padilla & Marvin Allen
Gravity is one of the oldest studies of physical science. Is gravity the only natural attraction between celestial bodies? Leading to the next question, what really happens beyond the event horizon? Successive questions have brought the discussion to notions of time, space and relativity, always seeking an understanding of gravitational perturbations. Gyres are spiraling circulation patterns in the oceans where water and light feed new life, thousands of miles in diameter and rimmed by large, permanent currents, containing homes for a vibrant array of sea beings and support for multiple centuries-old local cultures. Now project that terrestrial image into the outer galaxies, imagine extraterrestrial liquids and gasses circulating in gigantic patterns. “All Around Us” (6:46) the way is filled with illusions and unaccountable phenomena and the journey is perilous but worth repeating.
6. “Faring Forward” — From the album Dark Measures, by Phillip Wilkerson & Chris Russell
I find this whole album Dark Measures to be full of perfect starting points for infinite nighttime adventures contemplating life and other things under the stars, from subtle to severe. Some moments of Dark Measures are together clear and quiet, gritty and dark. They are bombastic, prim, anything in between, and all of the above at the same time, inspiring interactivity and deep expression. On this track, “Faring Forward” (4:50), I hear field recordings of a crowd situation blend into high altitude presences, the best is yet to come. Hear tiny details which create a panoramic immersion, behold a distant view or prospect, especially one seen through some opening, avenue or a passage. An endless vista stretched before me. An awareness of a range of time, events, or subjects; a broad mental view. Fare forward! Not fare well, but fare forward, voyageurs!
7. “Garden of Grace” — From the album Vision Of Eden, by Bart Hawkins
Incorporating the sounds of energy with field recordings, Bart Hawkins has created a meditation inspired by the ancient story of the Garden of Eden. This journey begins where the conscious and unconscious mind meet to create a playground where the totality of unity can be experienced and is held together by the grace of the Tree of Life. Ambient landscapes with distant melodies that echo with the sounds of children playing blend with soft and warm tones that surround the listener in this angelic Garden of sound. This harmony and suspense foreshadow the rest of this album. Structures of experience and consciousness, of abundant fertility and luxuriant vegetation emerge playfully, “Garden of Grace” (7:40) is sparkling with life, bird calls and waterfalls, the sounds of children frolicking bring about a greater understanding of nature as the universe evolves in time, more and more of its energy becomes transformed.
8. “Vibrance Of Life” — From the album Precipice Of A Dream, by Howard Givens, Madhavi Devi, Craig Padilla
Pulsing electronic music improvised LIVE at the SoundQuest Fest 2021, a worldwide gathering of artists (and audience members), a 3-day online event unique in the realm of ambient music. A continuous flow of streamed performances, audio-video wonder worlds and deep immersion zones hosted on Steve Roach’s YouTube channel in March of 2021. Featuring Spotted Peccary founding partner and original recording artist Howard Givens, joined by Madhavi Devi and Craig Padilla, merging their collective yogic-influenced sound immersions into a deep contemplative live experience. “Vibrance of Life” (7:07) lifts constantly, with a vast palette of sonic colors and instruments, ponderous meditative oceans and skies, vistas of ambitious peace and harmony. Intentional creativity is a path to accessing the language of the heart within. This musical mindset for creating music yields greater access to what is possible for us and our unfolding future. Imagining rushing wind and water below us, as we warm to the center, nothing is lost when there is peace.
9. “Stars Appear” — From the album As Dusk Becomes Night, by Rudy Adrian
“Stars Appear” (6:41), is the original album’s opener, emerging and swirling, suspended across the night above, the infinite and the supra musical, blending flute and synthesizer with accents from clicking insect calls on earth, and adding a chime or bell’s double call. Rudy wanted to make something peaceful and calm for people to listen to, something to soothe the anxiety and stresses of life in these historic, unusual and uncertain times. The timeless spirit of the hours of darkness will bring you back again and again to an electronic dream of future and ancient nocturnal beauty. The album As Dusk Becomes Night is an homage to experiencing the night, suggesting the concept of transformation associated with closure or relaxation, born out of the unusual events which the whole world went through in 2020.
10. “Woven” — From the album Horizon, by Frore & Shane Morris
The album Horizon (with guest performers Mark Seelig, Dirk Serries and Byron Metcalf) is an ambitious exploration of drone meditations and percussion, combining the languages of hand-created beats with soaring electronic atmospheres, a new energy and life comes from the music. Frosty dark electronica with organic tribal drone vibrations, for those who love mystery, exploring inner space, savoring world music flavors, and intellectual excitement. Five tracks exploring the art of sustained tonal patterns, some with beats from various hand instruments, all delivered with deep inspirational passion, always changing and constantly evolving. Wide open musical colors and textures, steadily building into a tight energized groove, interlacing, braiding and intertwining threads or fibers of sound, blending elements of terrestrial ethnic or indigenous musical traditions and pulling from gentle chaos, coming together between the warp and weft of the duo Frore and Morris: “Woven” (12:47). Everything comes into play. These collaborative events suggest a mixture of the past and present, ancient and future, influenced by the previous work of tribal ambient pioneers who came before, blending acoustic instruments that are heavily processed, sculpting and carving out sounds.
11. “Water Flows of Clouds and Thunder” — From the album The Silence Of Grace, by Deborah Martin & Jill Haley
Being outdoors and connecting with Mother Nature is probably as close to heaven as you can possibly get on this Earth. Find the place where you are surrounded, the place which makes you feel most alive. Treat yourself to a musical nature walk. Time is a river flowing beyond the reach of the quietus, preserving the wild beauty and deep history that extends over the reach of humans, with perpetual cycles of precipitation, evaporation, run off, and infiltration. Water is like many mobile beings, bodies in motion, rising into the air to peacefully soar on the wind in a frolic. “Water Flows of Clouds and Thunder” (7:32) depicts dark winds gathering power, and then becomes a sparkling celebration of motion, as a delicate harp emerges to join the airborne dance.
An indescribable sense of a mysterious elsewhere ::
What I hear gives me an indescribable sense of a mysterious elsewhere, a vivid glow that illuminates the clouds and its plume, revealing a cloud-cloaked landscape, hanging pinnacled in midheaven, sometimes you cannot really see it clearly while you are there. The beauty is, in its starkness, something that seems worlds away. Humans and nature have lived together for thousands and thousands of years. Each natural object was carefully placed as if Mother Nature had a specific outcome in mind. A safe place is where someone can feel relaxed and find peace.
Experience a selection of expansive electronic meditations, flowing smoothly into the infinite beyond. The moon rises and the stars awaken. You no longer know up from down. You cannot see the forces that support you, but you trust in them to carry you through. From silence there is a lustrous distant sound, we are drawn in closer and pause to hear some fine details, then we float on beyond the source, and our perception of the sound fades, the music possibly forever continuing in our absence. This new starship is headed for the unknown, to mystery spots and places around the cosmos said to contain gravitational anomalies, where the oldest laws of nature appear to have been turned off.
Looking back for landmarks, you see none. You are above the endless ocean, and in this twilight there is nothing to see. You fly onward. The Spotted Peccary Sampler album 35 is perfect for activities such as meditation and practicing mindfulness, walking in the outdoors, taking a break at work, lifting your spirits while you accomplish your tasks, relaxing around the spaceport, and for going to sleep. You fly on into the freedom of the darkness.
I hear rich acoustic instrumentation mixed with electronics, combining sustained melodic progressive themes and lots of acoustic textures that build and strengthen, all the while residing warmly in the cerebral realm of soothing meditative instrumentals filled with passion, dreams, and magic, recalling spacious skies and mountain majesties, expressing theories of divine natural forms, there is almost nothing to compare to it.
Deliberately woven into a magical 77-minute sonic expedition, 35 offers an intriguing glimpse into Spotted Peccary’s world of ambient electronic music. The album is available from the Spotted Peccary Bandcamp website in CD format and in 24-bit audiophile CD quality lossless, MP3 and streaming formats.
35 – Free ambient electronic sampler is available on Spotted Peccary. [Bandcamp]
