Imagine the machines that shape electronic music, baffling and terrifying, bringing back harmonies and rhythms that describe an imaginary inward journey that our speakers or headphones (or earbuds) want to take with us into fabled and ever more wild and innovative sounds and places.
Space Music is dream-work
Some have suggested that meaning has something to do with the existence of a cosmic consciousness, to gain knowledge and experience and to have joy. Different generations may have different experiences at similar points in their own time-lines. Thus the only effect that matters is of interest, not how it is obtained.
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Why are we here? What is life all about? What is the purpose of existence? According to naturalistic pantheism, the meaning of life is to care for and look after nature and the environment. I like that. Answering any of those questions leads to territory that has nothing to do with the task at hand, what about the music?
Meaning is founded on the experience of awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation, you make meaning of what you perceive. Electronic inner space journeys do not require a detailed map of the territory, which in turn might transform incoming information about the spatial properties of objects, their scene-based frames of reference, and spark a full perception of sonic space. “Perception Stream” (12:26) eases in with grace and mystery, establishing a framework for some weird tones and forms to float about cautiously.
The beat picks up and there is kinetic boogie action in places woven within the title track, “Discovery of Meaning” (4:26). Consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others, a blend of images, effects, sounds, words, and kinesthetic sensations. Flocks of strange bird-like creatures are launched as we travel past, and the beat builds.
A continuum is a continuous extent, series, or whole; something that keeps on going, changing slowly over time: “Continuum, Part 1” (5:13). From the void, German language vocalisms, mixed with English, emerge and here are some translated extractions: time prevents everything from happening at once, time stands still yet slips from our grasp, our presence in time and space moves forward. The cosmos and spacetime continuum is vast and there is no finite direction for time to travel, we have been here before, we have been here all the time… The full text in German and English is available on the liner notes.
“Continuum, Part 2” (10:20) blends in some wonderful etheric vocalisms, gradual transitions from one condition to another without abrupt changes, the most abstract sorts of meaning and logical relations can be represented by spatial relations. The pull of exploration is like a current running through the human race and we are a part of it and want to feel the connectivity of the earth.
The sounds create and nourish imaginable objects ::
Where is it, we might say, that the soul is longing to go? And who will be able to soothe those yearnings for sonic travel? “Adrift in Memory” (6:21) has a feeling that is slow, dreamy and layered, haunted by vocal-like hues, textual mediums that utilize time with visual mediums that utilize space. It stimulates a desire for wandering, yearning and restless explorations, and to fill, swell full, the vastness of Space, greater than mere stars or distant suns.
The longest track is a microcosm of this album’s intended experience, in the form of a meditation on the familiar sensations of ordinary home life. “Cottonwood” (20:48) opens with summer birds, sounds of home, an audio collage with electronica and field recordings that merge with the throbbing cosmic machine with constantly changing color overlays. We might imagine that we are each on this important journey within the soul, circumnavigating the areas beyond our earth together. Imagine the machines that shape electronic music, baffling and terrifying, bringing back harmonies and rhythms that describe an imaginary inward journey that our speakers or headphones (or earbuds) want to take with us into fabled and ever more wild and innovative sounds and places.
On this voyage, we may seek to gain wisdom and pleasure, and we may further consider Time, and Space, and Death, and to launch out again and again on trackless skies. You realize that the scale of the cosmos has gotten enormous, emerging from the dream, some familiar sensations return. You find some familiar “ordinary” satellites and meteors: “Festive Awakening” (12:02). The sounds create and nourish imaginable objects of sensation and very unimaginable objects of reflection.
You and you alone are responsible for deciding what meaning is, and the kind of life you want to live, and what constitutes a significant and worthwhile life goal. This involves achieving eudaemonia, usually translated as “happiness,” “well-being,” “flourishing,” and “excellence.” Me? I dig the tunes and sense of projection. Space Music is dream-work.
Consciousness and meaning, like space-time, might have its own intrinsic degrees of freedom, and that one’s perceptions may be as real as (or even more real than) material objects. Remember: “42.” In short, the goal is to realize the fundamental truth about oneself. And to find your boogie on a pulse. The rest is destined to become the foundation of our collective electronic musical history.
Discovery of Meaning is available on Spotted Peccary. [Bandcamp | Website]
