The sane man is the strange man...

Track of the week

Today I want to highlight artist Field Rotation. Since the release of this album it has been spinning in my stereo tirelessly. It's hard to pick a track from this album but it finally boiled down to this one. This album is a limited edition and unfortunately it's already out of stock, but there is a digital release available at Fluid Audios sub-label Facture

Lemonchill - Interview

Today I sit down with Idan Or aka Lemonchill, to ask a few questions, about his life, his music. Also I try to dig into his ontology about  reality.

• So let's get the formalities done, could you give me a quick resumé of who you are and what you do?

My name is Idan Or my project (stage name) is Lemonchill, my music style is electronica although many people “tag” my music as chill and downtempo. I personally think it is more electronica oriented.

Yeah, it's really hard to label music, the borders between genres are very hazy and often there is not even any consent of the span of any specific genre. This is especially noticeable in experimental areas of music creation.

• What was the pivotal reason that made you decide to release your first album “Sentant”?

Hmm.. many asked me that question and it is still hard for me to answer that, I guess I should thank a very special lady I met at that time that was the “muse” for creating and making the album “Sentant”. Just as the album title says I had to release the feelings and express what I felt at that time. I think many people can relate to the feelings and emotions conveyed by the tracks on the album. It was a hard eight months period when I created the album, very intense and personal. I isolated myself from almost everybody I knew and from everyday life, I barely had time to eat or sleep just persistently working on the tracks, but I think the end result was very satisfying.

• Your second album “ Journey through an electric garden” was released with a very short time span succeeding your first release. Was there an abundance of tracks or did you just have a very creative period?

Well “Sentant” was complete around the end of 2007, the album “Journey through an electric garden” was complete around mid 2008 so there is a big time difference and those two albums also represents two different time periods I had. You can hear the changes in vibes between the two. “Journey through an electric garden” is more upbeat, I would call it more experimental and minimal compared with “Sentant”.

• How come you have released (relatively) such a large amount of remix albums?

Been asked that a lot. I think it is a unique remix project where each album concentrate on one music style. The first one “Sleeping with giants” released by Ricochet dreams records, was downtempo chill electronica. The second “Conversations with god” released by Altar records was progressive trance style. And the last one named “Room 305” progressive house style was released his year on Bonzai progressive records.

Personally I am extremely satisfied by this remix project as I listened to some very cool remixs to my tracks.

I can imagine that, it must be very interesting to hear other artists interpretations of your own work.

• 
  
  Do you have any favorite artists of your own and if so which ones?

Cant really say if I have any particular artist, I love many music genres although I do have my own favorite songs and tracks but I guess everybody has their own loved songs. I do love what bill leeb and his music partner ryhms fulber ( conjure one,delerium, front line assembly etc) has been creating in the past 20 year

• Can we expect to see you on any festival this summer?

Yeah sure hadra festival in France 7-10 July this year and the aurora festival Greece 23-29 august this year.

• How do you regard music? Is it just a natural thing for you to create or is there also some kind of genuine idea or concept you want to convey with it?

Most tracks I made started from a sound, a phrase, from a movie or some emotion or experience. I had that I wanted to express, I always loved music and always “played” tracks and music in my head, I am glad I had the opportunity to learn how to create and produce it so people can listen to it too and hear whats been going on in my mind.

That's nice, then you are actually trying to express yourself with your music, that is something that really can't be said of most music these days. Speaking of which, what is going on in your mind as of now? Are you working on anything new?

A new remix I made for martin juha new ep named :” memento” will be released early next month.

It has a more space ambient vibes and I am really loving this remix martin was satisfied by this remix too, so I hope the people will react the same. I am also working now with an artist form Israel named salva, we already created a few demos. The demos are much more raja ram, shpongle style so I think it is a good direction I am taking. I am currently busy trying to promote the remix albums so I dont have much time to create new tracks but I already have new ideas as to how the next album should sounds like and what vibes and atmosphere I would like to create there.

• What do you think the psychedelic experience is? Does it have any ontological relevance or is it more like watching a movie, just something that happens in your mind, a story, a fairytale?

I think it is a very unique and personal experience that changes from each person. Each person can have its own psychedelic experience and it will not be similar to what his friend had cause we never know what he or she experienced and what went in his mind at that moment.

• But don't you think that is a possibility to sort of generalize the experience, and in some way attack it with a scientific attitude? That there is something in common for everyone that experiences it?

Have to say no, I don’t think you can generalize people and the psychedelic experiences they had. You got the religious experiences you have the LSD experiences etc. I still think any experience is unique to the individual. The only thing I can think about is that all those people that do have it or go through this stage seek something more then the ordinary life or reality, I do think they this can “altar” the way you see life and especially the person own life and experiences.

* Allright :) Well thank you very much Idan for this interview and I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavours!

Track of the week

One of the best songs ever made, featured on (dare I say it) THE best album ever created, regardless of genre or time period. Well, this is my sincere and absolute standpoint. I think this song represents the most complete ending of an album, why you might ask, justifiably of course. This track is very much like a deep prayer, a call for hope, a desperate assumption that someone or something is tending the light at the end of the tunnel. This track leaves you in a state of mystery and wonder, it is not an ending track in the ordinary sense, because it doesn't include closure, and this really is the true domain of life and the psychedelic experience, mystery and non-closure. I urge everyone to get a thorough listen to this album because this track is taken out of context, and while it's still remarkably fantastic, it's hard to experience it's fullest grandiosity without the whole.

Ott - Mir

1. One Day I Wish To Have This Kind Of Time

2. Adrift In Hilbert Space

3. Owl Stretching Time

4. Squirrel And Biscuits

5. A Nice Little Place

6. Mouse Eating Cheese

7. The Aubergine Of The Sun

There aren't many psychedelic dub acts out there, not to my knowledge at least. The only one I can actually think of is Ott. With classics such as Blumenkraft and Hallucinogen in Dub on his credentials, this is no no light weight fighter, and if you don't believe that, the bass lines will prove it to you. Ott is an artist that isn't serious, although I do not doubt his sincerity, it only takes a moment to realize that this guy has tremendous humor with track names like “Jack's Cheese And Bread Snack “, “Billy The Kid Strikes Back “, “Roflcopter “ and maybe the best track name I've ever encountered “Adrift In Hilbert Space”.

Speaking of Hilbert Space, you all know what that is like right? No? Then let me explain, let's take an electron and confine it into a circumscribed section in Hilbert Space, then imagine that this volume is reduced into a smaller and smaller space. As the space gets smaller and smaller surrounding the electron, the electron will start to feel frustrated, not able to express itself to it's fullest content. This will throw the poor little electron in a frenzy, moving faster and faster in more and more erratic patterns, there have even been sightings of electrons getting frustrated to such a degree by the violation of their freedom that some have actually crossed solid physical barriers. But let's now imagine that we limit this space with a material that even the most frustrated electron can't cross, then we accelerate the cube that we confined the electron in up to the speed of light, only to stop it to a halt in the fraction of a second, we throw it into a black hole, we let it twist and spin, integrate and disintegrate. During all this process the electron itself has gone into the most erratic and frenzied behavior known in the whole of Hilbert Space. Well, if you can picture this, then you have an adequate depiction of what it is like listening to some of the tracks on Mir.

In plain English this simply means that there is amazing talent and skill fused into some tracks on this album. I'm thinking especially of tracks 3 and 4, “Owl Stretching Time” and “Squirrel and Bisquits”. The universe is a celebration that existence is, and Mir is a celebration that the universe is.

Ott's former album, Skylon was an album imbued with a great sense of humbleness. If I am not mistaken, this album was made shortly before, during or after Ott became a father. And I think that this gift of life (not that I would know anything about it) is depicted on that album, the music is very soft, tender and sweet, and if music could show you color (which I think it can with the help of adequate substances) then the music on Skylon would be pink. Mir still contains some of that essence but is a much more groovy and energetic album.

If you're interested in hearing the album out and/or buying it head over to http://ottsonic.bandcamp.com/

History repeats itself...

Well according to Terence McKenna and his theory of history and time. Where he argues that if we pay enough attention we can see the resonance of history in our everyday life, and as we move closer to the "end date" history will repeat itself at an alarmingly increasing rate. I believe that the intuition of Terence's theory is plausible, although I do not agree with him that the ordinary laws of physics will start do disintegrate, I mean honestly would we really want that? But I came to think of this when reading about the disaster in Japan, and I cannot see any other analogue for this event than the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during world war II. So, where will you see Rome fall today?

Track of the week

Are there any words?

I don't understand I know nothing about it

The reason for the emergence of mathematics

A very very, or maybe not so very long time ago, beings evolved the ability to engage in rational discourse. Language was one of the key elements of this ability, language was a necessary  condition for this to be possible. With the possibility of contemplation, an ever increasing range of questions started to originate in the mind of these evolved beings. This constantly growing nexus of unanswered questions started to erode the still minds of these rational thinkers. After many centuries or even millenniums  of engaging in this rational discourse, the obvious fact that there was no absolute truth, no certain knowledge to answer the questions that originated from this discourse, started to change the still minds of these beings into a stormy ocean and the feeling that came with it became unbearable. So instead of finding peace in the storm by letting the waves carry them to the shore, they invented something that could be called certainty or absolute knowledge, namely mathematics. Now all the uneasy souls could engage in this sphere of security, finding peace inside a system of certainty, a certainty confined in the system itself. And since then beings have found their still shore inside this system of certainties, and by fear neglected any opportunity to look outside the system into the truth.

Track of the week

Wonderful piece of music, maybe better suited for cold and rainy autumn nights rather than sunny spring days, but we'll have to make an exception this time!

Solar Fields - Origin 1

1. Silent Waling

2. Unite

3. Bigger Stream

4. Almost There

5. Next Waiting

6. Embraced

7. Going In

8. Automatic Sun

9. Reborn

10. OCT

Yet another Solar Fields album hits the shelves, or perhaps better put, yet another Solar Fields album is hitting the letter slits in various places around the globe. Did we have enough? There has been a lot of Solar Fields lately and sometimes you just have to take that last piece of cherry pie, I mean it looks so tasty, then you end up feeling ill cursing your gluttonous nature. Luckily for us this cherry pie was one of those made of yoghurt, meaning you can eat as much as you want without having to experience the consequences of your actions.

This is not new material from our dear friend Magnus, it's a collection of tracks produced under a time spam starting ten years ago. Having that said, this means that there is no “real” connection between the tracks, unless you make one up of course. It could always be argued that if there is some track lacking cohesiveness with the rest of the album, really there is nothing wrong with the album, it's YOU being out of place. So it's not a psybient album in the ordinary sense, but neither is it an album with just ten separate tracks good for listening each on their own . As with all the music coming out from Magnus, this is very profound music, and it's not easy to get a good listening experience, this is something I think has been a red line throughout all Solar Fields albums, there are exceptions of course. Namely Unite(T2), which is something out of the ordinary, and to understand what I mean and you are sitting with your cheap headphones by your computer or ipod, don't bother, this track needs a real hifi system to get this baby running. If I would describe unite with a quote, I'd do it with a quote from (peace be upon him) Terence McKenna, “It's very much like riding an enormous roller coaster, once that baby rolls out of the station, do not stand up, do not try to climb out of your car, shut up and hang on with the faith that most people have lived through this”. Another great example of a Solar Fields “stand alone” track is Little Green Cubes, on some compilation I don't remember. I think this is something that is very prominent with Magnus's music, many albums can seem dull and boring, almost unimaginative, until you pop the cd into a high end stereo system. He truly is a sound designer.

Being a mix of different tracks from different time periods there is a lot of diversity on the album, for good and bad, some might interpret tracks like Bigger Stream(T3) as odd and out of place, and I can understand that, but it's not a bad track per se. On the other hand tracks like Almost There(T4), and Silent Walking(T1) is very Solar Fieldesque, this track would fit perfectly on a more thought through album. And yes the lack of direction on the album does hurt the album as a whole although not the individual tracks. The composition, production and all that is great, and I don't think anyone would have expected any less. To me there is only one bad track on the album and that is OCT(T10), and I don't really see how this track passed the quality test.

I have mixed feelings about this album, there are great tracks on it, superb even, and some not so great although none bad except the last one. But the album leaves me with a wish that Magnus had taken the better tracks, maybe worked on some new ones and tried to make a new psychedelic journey altogether, there is obviously material for it on the album. Still it's far better than most music out there so I shouldn't complain. I guess I'll just take Leaving Home for a spin and relive the good old days.

The album can be found at Ultimae's website