(18 IMAGES AND 1 VIDEO IN FULL POST)

To Charchian, those who criticize the use of nudity in art for its overused “shock” factor are failing in their analysis. “People have the inability to appreciate the subtle differences between artistic nuances,” she says. “How could anyone pass our purist physical state- something you can’t pretend doesn’t exist – as ‘unnecessary’ or ‘overdone’?”

Intentionally or not, stripping the human body often presents it as something exclusively erotic, limiting it as an object of desire and a vehicle for pleasure. Nudity and eroticism are commonly joined conceptually, but Charchian cleverly asserts that clothing is often the culprit in over-sexed societies.

“If clothing truly controlled lust and other ‘sinful’ inclinations surrounding nudity,” shequestions, “would we be such a sex-crazed society? In my travels to countries like Egypt and India where women are the MOST covered, the men are also the most hostile and aggressive with their eyes. It is pretty basic psychology that restriction creates desire.”

Repression has long been considered a catalyst for desire. The inability to separate nudity from eroticism is symptomatic of societal brainwashing and forced out of likely arbitrary, social, or religious mores. “When you specifically are told you can’t have something, you want it more,” Charchian explains. “In a culturally conditioned and ultimately stunted state, one cannot separate eroticism and nudity. But in my perception of nudity through the lens of a naturist, there doesn’t always have to be a sexual tension.”

“To say that these [nudity and eroticism] always go hand-in-hand would be to ignore individual sexual idiosyncrasies or fetishes,” Charchian continues. “Some people find a lot of eroticism in the fully-clothed. Sexuality is a complicated part of our existence, and that is why it is fascinating to me.”

As stated on her website, Charchian is an investigator of “the state of alienation through realms of the physical, psycho-social, and spiritual human condition.” Although it is not her specific intent to be provocative, Charchian is a rebellious insurgent within a constrictive culture, battling for openness in an otherwise restrictive society. She says “‘YES’ in a world of No.” With art as her agent, she is, by default, a kind of creative hellion.

“I appear defiant because I have something to rebel against, something to be resistant to. Every artist I admire has something to say, to instigate, a passion to ignite.” Charchian, does not, however, take her freedom of expression for granted. Her parents escaped an oppressive Islamic regime in Iran, which affected her massively. It is perhaps the reason for the amount of “deep celebration of female freedom and sensuality” she conveys within her work. “That wouldn’t be possible if I lived in Iran,” she says.

Amanda Charchian Artist Interview Continues Below

“YES” has become more than just a word for Charchian; it is a way of life. Appearing in her work both physically and symbolically, these three letters represent an ideology that fosters positive energy and the overwhelming power that comes with it. “‘YES’ is a mantra,” she states. “It is a word, but somehow it is beyond a word. It transcends its own meaning. For example, when our brain hears the word ‘NO’, our survival instincts, stress responses and heart rate increase immediately. But when the brain hears the word ‘YES’, absolutely nothing happens. It is a very spiritual word.”

Her piece eYES, for example, is a meticulously-assembled sculpture of the letters Y-E-S made, from Swarovski Spectra crystals and nickel-plated steel. The healing nature of the materials and the profundity of the message are a testament to Charchian’s affection for nature and her interest in mysticism. Citing the “historical and philosophical interplay between surrealism and occultism” as one of her influences, Charchian composes imaginative images that are undeniably mythical. A photograph from the series entitled Sworn In Swarkestone depicts a woman wearing a glorious black cape that spreads like the wings of bat; she stands with her eyes closed towards the heavens, in front of a mysterious faded stone building. The scene is ethereal and preternatural and indeed evokes a kind of pagan charm reminiscent of the occult.

AMANDA CHARCHIAN ARTIST INTERVIEW CONTINUES BELOW

Utilizing almost exclusively analog cameras, she believes that “film captures the energy that is emitted from organic matter better than digital does.” There is something about those lustrous silver oxide bits that is pure magic. Film is tangible and therefore more natural. “Perhaps it is because it is a physical object that takes up space,” she hypothesizes. “It can record another physical object better.”

Taking this idea even further, Charchian also keeps a number of “magical items” inside of her camera bag. It is an ephemeral collection of creative aids that are ever-present and always evolving. Some items she keeps handy include prisms, crystals, glitter sticks, expired film, fresh flowers, and vintage track filters. “It is always changing depending on what I have found along the way,” she explains.

Creative tools in hand, her process as an artist involves translating pervading ideas into concrete projects. Channeling this spiritual inspiration, she is more of an instrument than an architect: “My strongest works were ones that appeared to me as a fully formed vision that seemed impossible. The planning part comes from trying to manifest that otherworldly flash on the psychical plane without losing the divine nature of the original inspiration. Sometimes an idea haunts me literally every five minutes until I make it happen. It’s like being on the verge of orgasm for a very prolonged amount of time.”

Harnessing ideas and following them through to actualization is a means of transferring what comes from the subconscious realm into objects as works of art. Where photography is concerned, it is a way to capture a very distinct moment and cement it in time. However, Charchian does not shoot photos to remember things; she shoots to create an entirely independent event — a new memory. The shutter of a camera captures only an instant revealing what is not cognitively perceivable by the human eye.

“When you freeze time for an image, it extends beyond time, thus making it timeless,” she says. Within a circular time perspective, this frozen moment is a way to make that moment last forever. It creates a sort of temporal infinity. It does, indeed, become timeless.

www.amandacharchian.com

Ω

THE ENTIRETY OF AMANDA CHARCHIAN’S I IMAGINE YES IS THE ONLY LIVING THING SERIES

Related posts:

1. RedD & Carl Faulkner‘s Tibetan Hentai (Non-PG)
2. Matt Leavitt Artist Interview : When Engineering And Zen Join To Inspire Art
3. Binary Fluidity: A Short Interview With Belgium Artist Arn Gyssels

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Amanda Charchian Artist Interview: Saying YES To Raw Honesty

Vote for Mysticism & Spirituality in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Download Hi-Res Infographic

Vote for Mysticism & Spirituality in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Download Hi-Res Infographic Explore all articles related to influential thinkers

Ω

Related posts:

1. Midday Veil – Moon Temple Music Video (Subterranean Ritual II)
2. garage _ psych _ dance Non-Official SXSW Party: Extras Recap
3. garage _ psych _ dance Non-Official SXSW Party: 3-Part Event Recap

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch

AU – “OJ” MUSIC VIDEO

How did your collaboration and association first form?

For the first music video (“Ida Walked Away”), the person from record label which released the Japanese edition of AU’s second album introduced me to their original released label. And I was asked to make the video. I accepted the offer without hesitation. Because I was already big fan of AU from their 1st album. - Takafumi Tsuhiya

If I remember correctly, the connection was made through Alec from Aagoo Records back when we were prepping to release the Versions EP. It’s all been pretty hands off on my end. Thankfully, I’ve never worried much about what he’d come up with as I’ve loved everything I’ve seen him create. - Luke Wyland, AU

Who came up with the concepts for both “OJ” and “Ida Walked Away,” and how closely did the both parties work together to create the final product?

There was music first. And I listened to it carefully hundred times.
There is no regulation for these and not so much discussion.
They leave me all to myself.
Just songs are very close in my mind. - Takafumi Tsuhiya

Both of the video’s were conceived entirely by Tak. We would deliver the songs and then wait a few months until he was ready to start showing us previews. As it’s gone for bot,h there was never any need to change or asks for alternate versions. In a sense, trusting his artistic vision so blindly has been really enjoyable both times. - Luke Wyland, AU

This is your second time working with one another, and the video and music have both leveled up in terms of energy level and technical ability. In the past two years, what would you say has changed most about your creative output?

Nothing changed in energy level at all.
It’s depends on where the inspirations came from.
AU’s music is always inspire me and take me to next level.
In technically, I did a lot of commercial works in the past 2 years.
This experience was feed backed to output. - Takafumi Tsuhiya

For myself, a pretty drastic reconfiguring of our sound as well as the approach to our live show. This was also the first album written and recorded with Dana Valatka on drums, which had a huge influence over the energy of the album, though making Both Lights was honestly a pretty arduous process for me. It took far longer than any other album in the past and by far caused me more stress than anything I’ve ever produced in my life. But in the end, I was committed to seeing things through beyond the my usual breaking point of loss of enjoyment. Songs would go through numerous different permutations until I felt like they had taken on a life of their own. Sometimes it was simple blind (or stubborn) commitment that allowed me to see them through to the end. There were certainly moments when I almost trashed a few of the songs that eventually became some of my favorites of the album. - Luke Wyland, AU

AU – “IDA WALKED AWAY” MUSIC VIDEO

Do you think that different cultures have different associations to what sounds correspond with what colors or visuals, or do you think those are fairly universal ideas?

I’m still looking for the answer.
I believe there is something universal in [how] sounds correspond with visuals [that] is over the boundaries of language.
And I always try to make something universal beyond a [singular] meaning.
At the same time, I think they also contain unique to the region and cultural sphere.
For example, South American artists are using color scheme totally different from Japanese. - Takafumi Tsuhiya

I’d say one could go with either idea. Obviously each culture has its own associative language built up around their historical relationship with music and visual expression, but as the collective culture becomes more and more worldwide those connections become less tied to the spaces we grew up in. I see it more and more these days a forest of trees that each have been grafted onto differing root systems. Luke Wyland, AU

 
Do you agree that there is a resurgent interest in color, synesthesia, and kaleidoscopic music and visuals? If so, why do you suppose that is?

I agree with this. Our interest has been moved [towards the] fundamentals of life. Something that cannot be explained in words would be more and more important.- Takafumi Tsuhiya

I don’t know if there is specifically a resurgence, or just more attention in the media paid to such things. For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve felt pretty surrounded by a pretty prismatic culture. Whether from the neons of the ’80s or the hippy/rave culture of the ’90s, and now a strange amalgam of it all through this current time’s nostalgic lens, things have felt pretty saturated with such things. If anything, it’s this exact focus on nostalgia that may make it seem like there is a resurgence of interest. Just a thought. - Luke Wyland, AU

Ω

Related posts:

1. Lazerbeak – “Lift Every Voice” Music Video (Interview w/ Director Matt Scharenbroich)
2. TOMAT – “1984″ Music Video (w/ Director Gabriele Ottino & Musician Davide Tomat Interview)
3. tUnE-yArDs – “Bizness” + “My Country” Music Videos (w/ Director Mimi Cave’s Q&A)

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

AU – OJ + Ida Walked Away Music Videos (Interview w/ Luke Wyland & Director Takafumi Tsuhiya)

(R) “This is one of the creatures that came out of putting black and white acrylic paint on a paper, scanning it in, and mirroring it from one side. You can see some form of underwater intelligent entity.”

“The green in the background was a something weird I made with acrylic paint — nothing special actually. The orange was a picture of a creature from under the microscope; I just cut it up and made it more geometric in a abstract way.”

“This one is actually several layers of faces and teeth put in a order [so that they] almost match. [I] ripped of some pieces to give it a good composition.”

“It’s acrylic on paper. [It's] a piece of blue Photoshopped image and a piece of carved rock that I copied and made some sort of geometric form [with].”

Recently, I thought back to when I was a really young kid, and I would make overlapping squares and circles in MS Paint and then fill each overlapping shape with alternating colors. That was my first memorable connection to geometry, and I was wondering if you can recall back to an early time in your life that stands out as a precursor to the artist you are today?

Well to be honest, I actually can’t recall any geometry-related memories, but I do know I have always been in touch with nature and the animal world, and used to catch bugs all day long when I was little. Now, I’m obsessed with animals and plants; it’s more like a starting point to a unfolding universal knowledge that expands with the years of working, thinking, and experience around that essential area.

Did you ever struggle with your aesthetic being ‘unpopular’ and people not understanding what you were all about?

No, I grew up more like a silent yet popular type of guy.

The internet has made it easier than ever for people to find other artists and musicians who are doing similarly esoteric things. People who would otherwise not know each other whatsoever are finding parallels in their music and art, thanks to the internet, though they might otherwise known each other. What do you make of this? Do you think there is any bigger picture significance to be had in all this?

Definitely. The big picture is actually that we are all evolving in a rapid way on the consciousness level. We have been so disconnected from our primordial source for a long time, and the reason why there is a massive revival of the occult and shamanism is because these are sciences that brings us closer to nature and closer to the nature of our own species; it’s a natural movement of the big picture.

What appeals to you about duality, in your personal life, or in concept? What are some dualities which are particularly interesting to you?

Well, I do love to work with duality because it holds everything in our universe. There is no one without the other, therefore all is equal, and I think the key ingredient is balancing the two. As for a visual point of view, I like to work with it because our brains automatically recognize natural physical aspects of it; for example, with black and white forms, you get a a lot of weird-looking creatures that have a strong human look.

Do your pieces follow a theme from the very beginning or is that something that evolves as you create?

It really evolves; I look at pictures and search by feeling, color, and atmosphere. That’s why some pieces become abstract.

Galactic Geometry is a great name for a website. How did you come up with it?

That’s a good question. When I had to type in my name for the website, I didn’t have anything in mind; it actually just popped up in the place I should’ve been typing. I think I used to type it in there a long time ago when I was planning on making one — but I couldn’t recall when that was. Weird.

Do you have any life philosophies you live by?

Love and light. Everything should be treated with the utmost respect and understanding.

www.galacticgeometry.be

Ω

Related posts:

1. Matt Leavitt Artist Interview : When Engineering And Zen Join To Inspire Art
2. Christopher Davison Artist Interview : Beyond Black And White Disaster
3. Bored Of Everyone Collaging Up A Triangular Storm With Arn Gyssels

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Binary Fluidity: A Short Interview With Belgium Artist Arn Gyssels

In Midday Veil’s new video for “Moon Temple,” vocalist Emily Pothast has edited source material she and guitarist Timm Mason generated last year during a residency at Experimental Television Center in Upstate New York. At its gentlest, the video is a silky smooth ripple; at its most severe, a rigid and noisy gallop through harsh-edged brain wave terrain. Pothast guides you to step through purple-hued worlds as she morphs from a candle-wielding human into multiple faces of sensuality, to disintegrate in and out of forms of ghostly apparition. 23:50 in duration, “Moon Temple” is the type of video you’d want to project on a big screen, for a richly synesthesic experience.

The band has just finished mixing The Current, their second studio album with producer Randall Dunn (Boris, Sunn o)))). Stream the entire improvised EP below, and catch them on a string of tour dates, including a set at the upcoming REDEFINE SXSW showcase at House of Commons, Austin. (More details and full lineup coming soon, and you can see last year’s recap HERE.)

Read our interview with Emily Pothast about Midday Veil and her record label, Translinguistic Other

MIDDAY VEIL TOUR DATES
March 1 Rat & Raven, Seattle, WA
March 3 Bad for Jazz # 12 at SPACE, Seattle, WA
March 9 Pastime Tavern, Dallas, TX
March 10 SXSW Runoff Fest at Super Happy Fun Land, Houston, TX
March 11 Cafe Istanbul w/ PSYCHIC ILLS & WOODSMAN, New Orleans, LA
March 15 Austin Psych Fest SXSW Party, Spiderhouse, Austin, TX
March 16 Redefine Magazine Showcase, House of Commons, Austin, TX

Related posts:

1. Translinguistic Other Interview : Forever Sounds (w/ Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast)
2. Midday Veil – “Choreia” Music Video Premiere
3. Midday Veil – “Anthem” Music Video

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Midday Veil – Moon Temple Music Video (Subterranean Ritual II)

Part I: Now Age Manifesto And Q&A

TEXT BY THAD MCKRAKEN; Q&A BY VIVIAN HUA; MANIFESTO AND ANSWERS BY TARAKA LARSON

The fundamental nature of time itself wasn’t something I’d contemplated at great length until roughly a year ago. I think what turned it around for me was when I accidentally summoned what classic occultists would refer to as my Holy Guardian Angel. Out of nowhere in the summer of 2010, I started performing sigil projection exercises which seemed to be coming from somewhere else. I felt strangely and unconsciously compelled to envision myself in third person, as an external character wearing a sleek black suit. I was confronting my demonic persona — the part of me that longed for frivolous shit like wealth and power — or something to that effect. Who am I kidding, I had no fucking idea why I was doing this, but the further in I got, the more the scenarios played themselves out in my head; they had me shaking hands with the world’s elite and proceeding to haunt their unconscious.

To make a long story short, this version of myself that I’d been unwittingly focusing on actually showed up in my room one night. I will confess that I wasn’t fully awake. I was in a hynagogic sleep state that a lot of mainstream psychologists would refer to as sleep paralysis. I taught myself how to do this by experimenting with astral projection years earlier; it fucked with my head forever. But it’s what “I” told myself that’s relevant here:

They then projected a telepathic communiqué into the depths of my spirit. My reality became this video-like demonstration which oscillated between perspectives, drawing connections to something I’d also randomly started contemplating months prior – the Gnostic concept of the Holy Trinity:

• The Father (or Holy Guardian Angel) – the me who is eternal and exists outside of time;
• The Son – the me who exists inside what we refer to as human reality;
• The Holy Spirit – the conjunctive tissue which binds us all into one coherent plotline; time itself, shown to me like a glowing orb which I existed inside of, though apart from my cosmic overmind persona (it/I watched from outside as if floating motionless in outer space).

Sounds completely nuts right? Well, it does until you realize you’re one of about a billion people throughout history who have had this type of shit happen to them. Unfortunately, these topics are usually relegated to the easily disregarded world of “New Age” literature, ensuring that anyone who believes a half-man half-God walked the earth 2,000 years ago will laugh them off without a second thought. The term “New Age” has been so intentionally co-opted throughout the years by military and religious interests that even I hate it. Luckily, writer Daniel Pinchbeck has been trying to rebrand the neo-psychedelic evolution of these concepts as “Next Age.”

And here, we have the multi-talented Taraka Larson of Brooklyn’s Prince Rama putting a much needed artier spin on ancient New Age ideas with The Now Age Manifesto. It’s a work about the importance of intentionally transcending so called normal space-time perception and entering what Larson and English philosopher John G. Bennett refer to as Hyparxis, a hypertime dimension that has a timeless quality noticeable to human perception.

In a way, these experiences and mind states kind of have to happen to you before you’ll take any interest in them – but The Now Age Manifesto details concepts that will help you get there if you try. The entirety of Larson’s manifesto can be viewed online at www.now-age.org.

Symbolic Power: In Practice

TEXT BY THAD MCKRAKEN; Q&A BY VIVIAN HUA; MANIFESTO AND RESPONSES BY TARAKA LARSON

About a year ago, Prince Rama were participating in a Portable Shrines record release event, and were projecting tripped out variations of a sacred geometrical pattern, the Sri Yantra, on the screen behind them. Their set led me to do a bit of research. What managed to stick with me the most was that in certain mystical traditions, downward facing triangles represent sacred feminine energy and conversely, upward facing triangles represent sacred masculine persuasions. I’ll never be able to get that out of my head. It was because of this area of internet inquisition that now when I look at Larson’s use of intercepting triangle images throughout The Now Age Manifesto, I see the convergence of masculine and feminine sexual energy creating an orgasmic state of dislocated timespace perception. The underlying philosophy behind basic magickal practice involves the recognition that states of stoned, erotic, and artistic excitation are the holiest of sacraments. Larson calls this Hyparxis.

SOUND AND MUSIC
Sound is both FORM and FORMLESS.
It can be recorded on various forms,
but its original state of being is formless.
Its paradoxical state makes it a fundamental building block
for constructing the architecture of utopia.
SOUND CAN CREATE FORMS.

The science of cymatics demonstrates that a single tone can manifest
complex geometric forms out of sand.
SOUND CAN DESTROY FORMS.

Ultra-sonic weapon used to sink approaching ships.

[The "Trust" exercise has] become kind of a very personal exercise for myself. I feel like it’s really intrinsic to the idea of music-making – and performing, really. There has to be this element of trust between the creator and the audience, the performer. I feel like trust and danger are very linked together; without danger, you might not see a reason to trust; if you don’t trust, then you’re in danger. I feel like, in a lot of ways, music-making is kind of a dangerous process – and performing, too. There’s an element [of putting yourself out there. On the other side of creation... there are like these destructive elements that come into play... we can make [destruction] into something constructive, and have that balance. Creating is sort of a community and a bond between the audience and the performer. I feel like whenever I do that, I feel so much more connected with the audience… if there’s a trust, there’s a bond, a connection that wouldn’t be there otherwise. It’s really intimate, too.

We just performed with Liturgy. They’re a black metal band. The lead dude, Hunter [Hunt-Hendrix], gave a black metal lecture at the show we were doing. His lecture was kind of all about courageousness and how it’s related to [transcendental] black metal… for him, courage is a big part of [transcendental] black metal. For me, trust is a big part of the Now Age. Trusting is… really like surrender, and surrender is the ultimate form of courage. It’s the bravest. It’s like giving yourself completely over to whatever situation, trusting that you’ll come out of it alive, as a better person. – Taraka Larson

Part II: Revelatory Experiences With Prince Rama

Q&A BY VIVIAN HUA; RESPONSES BY TARAKA LARSON

Prophetic Dreams

Basically, I was on a house boat when it happened. I was kind of really involved in filmmaking at the time; I thought that was what I wanted to do. I wasn’t playing music at all. I had this dream that I was in this weird sort of an abandoned park of some sort, with these kind of abandoned structures, almost as though it had been an outdoor market at some point. And I was kind of walking around, and there was this one abandoned structure that seemed like it had some movement going on in the background. I stopped to see what was going on, and there was this animal, sleeping in the back. I couldn’t really make out what it was. And then it got up and kind of saw me and started coming towards me. It was like this giant, seventeen-foot-long prehistoric leopard. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so insane.” I got my camera out — my Super-8 Camera — and was like, “I gotta film this.” So I take it out and just as she’s getting close to me, I started filming. As soon as she heard that sound, she just leapt back. It scared her or something. She went back to hiding where she was, and I was like, “Oh no! Come back!” I tried to coax her to come back again, and she kind of slowly crept back. I pulled out my camera and softly pressed the trigger, and she leapt back again.

It kept going back and forth a couple times. I can’t shoot her; it’s not working… so I finally put the camera down and am like, “Alright, just come over here.” She came over and once it was established that there was no more threat of her being filmed, she just collapsed in my lap and laid her head in my lap. And I started stroking her and singing to her, and I was singing this really weird language — I don’t even know what; it was a really weird hymn of some sort, a really haunting melody. I’d never heard it before, but I could tell she was responding to it. She was becoming more and more relaxed and then, all of a sudden, there is a gurgling sound in the back of her throat and it was almost like she was trying to make sounds with me. A voice came out of her, out of nowhere — a really beautiful, high-pitched harmony. She was singing with me. We were both singing together. I woke up from the dream and it just seemed so clear to me; I can’t film anymore. I have to sing. This is what I need to be doing. It was almost like the leopard was my soul, visiting me. By me trying to film it, it wasn’t responding, and it was trying to leap away from it. But as soon as I started singing, it knew the song. It had remembered… it was kind of poignant. It was kind of a game-changer.

When was this?
This was like my Junior year of college? Maybe like 2008? No, it was more like 2007.

Do you consider this a realization on a subconscious level or the universe directing you in that way?
Probably a bit of both.

It seems totally intense to have an animal like that hanging out on your lap.
Yeah, totally. I don’t usually have dreams like that. I generally have, I don’t know, kind of annoying dreams about like, checking email or something… I had [another] dream right before 9/11 that was like, this city on fire… there were planes all around, and I didn’t know it was New York City, but Abraham Lincoln came up to me — he was in a lot of my dreams for a while — he was in like every single dream for a really long time — and said, “New York City is burning.” And the next morning, 9/11 happened.

Paranormal Encounters

Me and Nimai both have had pretty extensive ghost experiences. I had one not too long ago; I was at my parent’s house in Florida, which we found out later was built on this old Confederate farm. There was apparently a slave quarters that had burnt down on my parents’ property, and I had no idea until afterwards, when we all started having weird ghost experiences — everyone in my family [did]. I had this one where at the time I had this weird dream. I woke up and got up and splashed water on my face and went back to bed — but the bed just felt really weird. I felt, I don’t know, kind of an erupting feeling coming over me where I was paralyzed; all of my limbs felt really cold. There was something really heavy pinning me down, and I look to the side of the bed, and there’s kind of an open closet right by the bed. There seem to be these silvery film projections — that’s what they look like at first — but it was just a man who was dressed completely in an Confederate soldier outfit. He was kind of an older man, but then his face and body started transforming to become younger and younger, and then behind him, all of a sudden — this is going to sound really weird — this other image started coming up behind him and growing bigger and bigger. All of a sudden, it came in front of him and totally eclipsed him. There was this giant baby head. I don’t know. He was growing younger and younger, and all of a sudden, this giant baby head came and was staring right at me. I was like, “Oh my god, this is so crazy.” So I was like, “I’m going to turn around. I’m going to count to ten. At that time, you guys are all going to leave, because I want to go to sleep.” So I turn around and I count to ten; I look back and there’s nothing there. And the pillow next to my head started — I don’t know how to describe it, but you know how when someone first gets up from a really cushy area, you can see the imprint of where they were kind of rise, like inflate? It was totally like that. There was something that was lying beside me and it just got up. So I felt the sheets kind of uncrinkle and smooth out, and I kind of felt the heaviness lift from over me. We have a lot of stuff like that happen. I don’t know why; I feel like ghosts just like to hang out with us.

And they’re always just chillers? You can be like, “Okay, we can hang out, and I’m going to count to ten and you guys are going to leave,” and that works?
Um… no… that was kind of a more peaceful one. I feel like I’ve gotten better. I was trying to tell you one that wasn’t so scary for me. We definitely — me and Nimai both — have had experiences where they’ve kind of messed with us, and it hasn’t been as easy to get them to leave. The place that we were at before — one reason my family left was because it was so haunted. Sometimes it’s tricky; sometimes they’ll take the forms of people who are familiar to you. I remember when I had my wisdom teeth taken out, and I was already in kind of a weird state. I wasn’t really able to eat a lot; I wasn’t sleeping a lot. I was already kind of delusional a little bit, but I feel like because I was kind of inebriated, my guards were let down so they were able to mess with me more than usual. I remember one time they took the form of my mom and it felt like my mom was in the room with me, but it wasn’t her. Just stuff like that would happen.

The ghosts you see are really clear, then? They’re not like, translucent?
Yeah, exactly. There’s different kinds, I guess. There’s the kind that, I said before, almost kind of seems like a film projection or something; it’s kind of silvery clear. And then there are other ones that totally look real. They look like a real person until they just disappear. Nimai had this experience where one took the form of a guy she was dating at the time. He was in bed with her, and it looked like him… but she looked down at his feet, and instead of his feet, there was like this trail, like ecto… so that’s kind of half and half. And sometimes they’ll just get into your subconscious. You won’t necessarily see ghosts, but you’ll feel them, and they’ll just kind of put images into your head. They’re weird. It’s almost like they tap into your mind and just put these images there that you’re not really creating yourself; it’s like watching a movie or something.

While you’re awake? Or is it a between wake and sleep kind of thing?
Kind of between awake and asleep a lot of the time. But it’s different than your mind producing it. I’ve had that too, where it’s like, lucid dreaming or whatever, but this is different because you feel that same kind of sinking feeling — that cold feeling, where you don’t really feel like you’re in control.

Why do you think some people are so much more receptive to these things? Why do you think that happens to you and Nimai so much more?
I don’t know. I’m not really sure. There’s some people who see them way more than we do. A friend of my mom’s — she would just see them all the time, and it was so intense for her that after a while, she just kind of had to make a pact with the spirit world. She said, “I really just need to lead a normal life. I can’t see you all the time. Please stop.” And for a while, she just started ignoring them, and they gradually just kind of left her alone. But at any time, she could see them, and they would be there. I think to some extent you have to be a little bit receptive to begin with; I feel like if I was dead set on not believing in ghosts, I’d probably have so many other explanations as to why these things were happening, and I’d probably go to a shrink or I don’t know what, haha. I think it has a lot to do with… I’ve been fascinated with other dimensions, and I think that even though it can be kind of scary sometimes, it does kind of fascinate me.

It’s cool that you guys have each other to relate to on that level. I have some friends who grew up seeing that kind of stuff and just start to go crazy, because there’s no one else to talk to about it.
Yeah, totally. I think that’s important. I think there’s something in the genes too … my parents — my mom — has definitely had a lot of ghost experiences growing up. And her family, on a whole, are from Russia, and… there seems to be a heritage of psychicness. My mom is totally psychic; it’s kind of annoying. You can’t keep anything from her. And her mom is kind of like that too. I feel like it’s just kind of passed down. I worked for this guy, Paul Laffoley, and he’s kind of a medium. He talked to me a little bit about just… the medium trade, and how you get yourself into it. A lot of times, it’s not something you can really train for. It’s just something you’re born with, or you’re not. His father was a medium, and his grandfather was a medium, and it’s just kind of passed on.

How do your experiences with ghosts relate back to your music?
We had some [EVP (electronic voice phenomenon)] going on a track on Shadow Temple… just this strange mysterious sound; we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from or how to get rid of it. The place we recorded in was an old church, so we just figured it was a ghost and left it on the record.

END.

www.now-age.org

Related posts:

1. Prince Rama – Shadow Temple Album Review (w/ Full Album Stream)
2. Prince Rama – “Summer Of Love” Music Video
3. Prince Rama Tour With Gang Gang Dance, Share New Karaoke Video

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Prince Rama Band Interview: Utopia Of The Now Age (w/ Manifesto)

Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain was released in 1973. The psychedelic story is geometry-heavy and laden with symbolic imagery and metaphysical themes. In short, the visually-stunning masterpiece has inspired countless creations, and it seems to be receiving another breath of fresh air as of late.

REDEFINE MUSICIANS, ARTISTS, AND FILMMAKERS WHO HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY.

It seems Finland’s SINNAI are amongst the creative folk inspired by Jodorowsky, and they’ve shown that in their latest music video. The band is less than a year old but are releasing their krautrock-inspired Olympic Games on February 21st, 2012, on Splendour Records (Casiokids, His Clancyness, Brad Laner). “Anthem 1&2″ is the first single for that album, and they’ve decided to match it up to scenes from Holy Mountain.

It goes without saying that the video is visually incredible. And SINNAI certainly did credit Jodorowsky on their YouTube credits, but it needs to be asked: is this re-appropriation an acceptable homage or an easy way out? It there artistic integrity or is it trite?

Towards the bottom of the post is a Physical Therapy 3-step remix of “Anthem 1&2,” along with two fan-made music videos set to Holy Mountain. The first uses Amon Düül II’s “Müller’s Frau Jam”; the second uses Sleep’s “Holy Mountain.” It could be argued that the SINNAI remix is most artful of the three, but does it matter? Are these the video equivalents of cover songs?

Siinai – Anthem 1&2 (Physical Therapy 3-step remix) by Electronic Beats

Related posts:

1. Midday Veil – “Anthem” Music Video
2. Midnight Magic New EP + “Drop Me A Line” Holy Ghost! Remix, “Psycho For Your Love” MP3 Download
3. Holy Ghost!, Jessica 6 Live Show Review w/ RAC, Eli Escobar

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

SIINAI‘s “Anthem 1&2″ Music Video Set To Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain

Q&A With Emily Pothast, Translinguistic Other Founder & Midday Veil Vocalist

I first became interested in Gnosticism when I was living in a part of Texas that is completely dominated by fundamentalist Christianity. I knew the dominant culture was fucked, but I didn’t feel like it was useful to be completely dismissive of the religious mythologies that held so much resonance for these people. I wanted to know where these ideas came from and to see if I could learn something about the patterns behind them.

– Emily Pothast, on mysticism

Didn’t you tell me once that you had some kind of experience where you went out-of-body because you electrocuted yourself with some of your gear during a sound check? Talk about that a bit.

Yep. It had to do with a short in an amplifier and a building with old wiring. It was super weird. My lip touched the microphone, and everything went completely white. Whatever electromagnetic integrity holds my consciousness together was completely overridden by the strength of the current, and for a brief moment, I became a passive conduit for electricity. I felt my “self” taking the form of the wiring of the building and reaching out into the electrical grid beyond. And then I came back. It was over within a matter of seconds.

'The years... when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me... Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration and the integration into life.'
-- Carl Jung on The Red Book, 1957

BUY: THE RED BOOK

In general, I’m interested in the mystical strains of various religions because they tend to emphasize direct experience over dogma. I first became interested in Gnosticism when I was living in a part of Texas that is completely dominated by fundamentalist Christianity. I knew the dominant culture was fucked, but I didn’t feel like it was useful to be completely dismissive of the religious mythologies that held so much resonance for these people. I wanted to know where these ideas came from and to see if I could learn something about the patterns behind them. So I started looking into the history and politics of early Christianity, which led me to Gnosticism¹, which is far too broad of a topic to get started on here — but yeah, it’s super interesting.

As far as my personal history of spiritual experiences, the big one would be losing my parents in a car accident in 2005. I was really close to my family — especially my mom — and that experience just threw me into this incredibly deep and infinitely painful abyss, which ended up being very transformative for me as an artist. Pretty much all of the assumptions I had about life before that point collapsed and everything I have done since then has been rebuilt in the shadow of that experience. The album Eyes All Around is about that process of going through hell and eventually coming through the other side.

Jung’s The Red Book is endlessly fascinating to me because he also went through a very harrowing period personal crisis, except his had a spontaneous onset. The The Red Book was his personal journal where he recorded all kinds of visions he had during that time, which essentially amount to prophecy, both visual and literary. He went in a psychiatrist and came out a prophet.

Midday Veil are about to go into the studio and work on another more song-oriented outing right? Plug away.

Yep, Midday Veil are about to go into the studio with Randall Dunn and record our second full-length album. It will consist of some stuff you’ve probably been hearing us play live for the past few months, and some other things that are very much still in flux. I’m excited because I think the new stuff really represents the band coming into its own.

Didn’t you guys record some stuff in The Integratron²? That’s one of the cooler ideas I’ve ever heard. How’d that go? Any weirdness?

Aw, thanks! The Integratron is amazing. The building is incredible and it’s situated on a geomagnetic vortex, supposedly. They also do healing sound baths with these quartz crystal bowls that are designed to resonate with the frequencies of the room, so you can feel the sound coming through your body like a physical current. If you go, you definitely need to get one of the sound baths!

As far as weirdness beyond the inherent weirdness of being there, I didn’t feel any. We did make some recordings in there but we’re still sorting out what to do with them. They have some incredible moments, but we didn’t multi-track, so we just have room mic recordings and a big part of the amazingness of The Integratron is the way it actually feels to be there. The acoustic properties are very strange. The sound travels in unexpected ways. Learning to play music inside The Integratron is like learning to play a completely new instrument! So whatever happens with the stuff we have, I think I’m definitely interested in making another trip down there at some point to see if we can’t figure out a way to record more spatially in order to really get a sense of what it’s like to be in the space.

How do you feel about how the drug war influences the culture surrounding our music scene? Do you ever find yourself wishing you could shill something other than booze legally? Any thoughts on the ridiculously high prevalence of alcohol problems among musicians?

Well, I don’t feel like it’s my position to shill booze or anything else (except records!), but it’s true, nearly all of the legitimate music venues in Seattle are bars first and venues second, so I guess everyone in a band that plays those venues shills booze indirectly. The bars make money off selling alcohol, which no doubt influences the music that gets played and promoted and also probably encourages musicians to drink more than they would if they weren’t hanging out in that kind of environment all the time. It would be an interesting experiment to play music in a club that just served pot brownies, for instance, and see how that changed the overall contours of the experience. It would be very different.

“I think the idea of having songs that are completely set in stone is a little like having a supreme deity who created the world exactly as it is, static and unchanging. Charting the development of themes in linear time, or intentionally building toward a climax is, in fact, a very idiosyncratic and Western way of looking at music. But if you take a longer, wider look at the history of humans making music, you find strong traditions all over the world of music that unfolds around a central point and illuminates the contours of a single eternal moment.”

– Emily Pothast, on spontaneous creation

2011′s Escalator Fest³ featured like 2 bands (out of 10, Midday Veil and Rose Windows) that I would say wrote “actual songs” by any conventional definition of the word. Both of these new releases on your label are based on spontaneous experimentation. What are your thoughts on the importance of spontaneity in the creative process, as it’s obviously something you pursue?

I definitely pursue improvisation in my process and am most drawn to musicians who also practice a certain kind of cultivated spontaneity. The four core members of Midday Veil have been playing together for almost three years now, and our process has definitely matured a lot. Early on, I had some songs that I had written on my own that we adapted for the full band, but now when we write songs together, it’s generally something that starts as an improvisation and gets refined over time.

To me, there is always something magical about the very first time a melody or rhythmic idea emerges, and so on some level, taking an idea beyond that initial improvisation is always a little like trying to draw a picture of a bolt of lightning from memory. (That’s why, as far as my personal tastes go, Subterranean Ritual II is the most exciting thing Midday Veil has released so far.) But we’re also working on bringing some of that spontaneity into more recognizable song structures by creating compositions that are a framework for improvisation to unfold in. Like, this is the shape and color of the tent, but what happens inside the tent is always a little different.

For me, that interest comes right back to your other question about spirituality. I think the idea of having songs that are completely set in stone is a little like having a supreme deity who created the world exactly as it is, static and unchanging. Charting the development of themes in linear time, or intentionally building toward a climax is, in fact, a very idiosyncratic and Western way of looking at music. But if you take a longer, wider look at the history of humans making music, you find strong traditions all over the world of music that unfolds around a central point and illuminates the contours of a single eternal moment. For me, that expansion of time is the essence of psychedelic music. Music is art that unfolds in 4 dimensions, and psychedelic music is psychedelic insofar as its ability to imply dimensions beyond that.

I’m interested in music that explores, but first goes to the trouble of setting up good conditions for exploration. Set and setting. Then it becomes more about the journey than any particular destination.

Is this maybe a subtle way to encourage different, maybe healthier choices in chemical consumption among the listeners? Clubs themselves won’t make dick on any of that unless the laws change.

Well, Fungal Abyss are very open about the fact that, for them, the process of getting into that meditative, creative headspace involves mushrooms that are currently illegal in the United States, despite the fact that they were deemed sacred by many of the indigenous people we stole this continent from. But ultimately, we [at Translinguistic Other] put out their album because the music is excellent, not because we have any agenda of encouraging one drug over another. The shroom thing might inspire some people to turn on and tune in, but other people it will probably just use it as an excuse to completely dismiss it before giving the music a chance. However people choose to react, I think that says more about them than it does about the label or about Fungal Abyss. I think it’s my job to help put the art I want to see out into the world and try not to worry too much about what other people do with it in their free time.

From Improv To Tape: Recent Releases On Translinguistic Other

Fungal Abyss — Bardo Abgrund Temple

Every time I take mushrooms, I personally experience a similar sensation of a veil lifted and a world of guitar noise, cresting electronics, and godhead reverb echoing eternally behind the scenes of our manufactured reality. I feel this is relevant information when discussing an album by Fungal Abyss, Seattle epic metal dudes Lesbian’s mycology-obsessed free-form psych project.

Members of Lesbian were in a crazy technical spazz-core band called The Abodox and have been practicing their instruments obsessively for decades now. Despite this, they’re smart enough to know that when free-from riffing on the fly, it’s best to keep things insanely simple as to avoid glaring fuck ups.

Most of the tracks on Bardo Abgrund Temple are little more than a base primal drumbeat laced with no nonsense fills and a bunch of same key effected guitar noise layered on top. In fact, that’s pretty much what the entire first 20-minute “song,” “Arc of the Covenant,” is. It’s cool for sure, and reminds me of bands like say late nineties/early ‘aughts Bardo Pond sans vocals. Not honestly what you’d expect from the Lesbros. Dudes are choppier than a schooner ride through hurricane waters — and they’re toning things down on that front quite a bit here. On the plus side, they’re not singing for once, which is a bonus, and there’s exactly zero bullshit metal posturing. So its way chiller vibes than what they thrown dow in their main project.

In my mind, the album, which is over an hour long, peaks on the song “Time of Bones,” when one of the guitar players remembers: “Oh shit, yeah, I can shred,” and proceeds to drop some light speed blues licks for a spell. Or is it the song “Timewave Zero,” which references in title and then actually samples the immortal Terence McKenna? You can never go wrong with shit like that, and you know what, you can stream the entire thing online for free (see below or visit their Bandcamp) but you can’t buy it as a download for some reason.

Midday Veil – Subterranean Ritual II

You might also want to grab Midday Veil’s Subterranean Ritual II on Amazon, because it’s less than $2 for a 35+ minute record. The Veil have been pursuing the art of spontaneous musical channeling from the jump, and you should be able to tell just from the cassette’s moniker that it’s their second foray into cutting free-form experimentation to tape. It definitely works better than the first, due to longer song lengths, less instinctual vocal outbursts and more focused intentions.

The first track, “Moon Temple,” starts off meditative, turns tribal, and unsurprisingly peaks at the end when guitarist Timm Mason drops some staccato fret board shred-i-tude for a few sustained minutes. It’s what the whole track seems to be building to and when it hits, your mind is taken to a wondrous level of sublimely blown. It’s probably the most structural moment on the tape, where years of scale worship bear luscious rewards. The next track, “Naxos,” is ominous in tone and kind of doesn’t go anywhere much but sounds spiritual nonetheless. You just kind of think its building to a crest like the first song, but it never comes. Interesting in a sound-tracky way for sure and makes me think about performing arcane internal rituals in a cathedral at dawn while the sun drenches my spirit with life rejuvenating energy. Good, but in a background music kind of way.

The thing about Midday Veil is, they’re one of the few psych bands writing actual songs these days, which sets them apart from the pack. Their strength rests largely on the potency of Miss Pothast’s pipes which are wisely restrained to background ambiance here. Trippy improv albums are fun, but I’m more looking forward to their next studio outing which will most likely feature something I won’t be able to shake out of my head after the music ends. Then again, maybe that’s just the drunk in me talking. That dude never shuts up.

Midday Veil – Naxos by Translinguistic Other

Upcoming Releases On Translinguistic Other

Dictionary Of Terms

¹ Gnosticism (from gnostikos, “learned”, from Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge)
A scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common toearly Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism (especially Zurvanism), and Neoplatonism. A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis (esoteric or intuitive knowledge), is the way to salvation of the soul from the material world.

² The Integratron
PHOTO CREDIT (R): The Milky Way over the Integratron by Wally Pacholka
A space in Southern California, self-described as “an acoustically-perfect tabernacle and energy machine sited on a powerful geomagnetic vortex in the magical Mojave Desert… The Integratron is the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed by Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.”
(Source: www.integratron.com)

³ Escalator Fest
A multiple-day festival of psychedelic music, which has taken place annually in Seattle, Washington, since 2009.
(Source: www.escalatorfest.com)

Related posts:

1. Midday Veil – Moon Temple Music Video (Subterranean Ritual II)
2. Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch
3. Midday Veil – Eyes All Around Album Review

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Translinguistic Other Interview : Forever Sounds (w/ Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast)

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW

Celestial Views

Malaikat dan Singa translates into English as “Angels and Lions,” setting the intention for a project that is symbolically rich. With implications that place it in the realm of both the celestial and terrestrial, Malaikat dan Singa celebrates the dualistic nature of existence. Dionyso shares some potential references found in the project’s name, listing: “Sex and spirit? Spiritual love and fiery lust? Balance and aggression? Pairs of opposites? Alchemical reference? Dream diary? Tarot reading? Expression of the extremes of human experience?”

Such dualities form a large part of what inspires Dionyso, alongside mystical Jewish texts like the Zohar and the abstract poetry of William Blake. Those literary sources, used prominently throughout Dionyso’s work, explore what he calls “an axis between particularity and infinity, between totality and nothingness.” They are sources which both help define and describe his life curiosities.

“There are many, many levels and layers of creation and destruction being dealt with both in Kabbalistic thought and in Blake’s mysticism. That is what I am interested in exploring myself,” he says.

Malaikat dan Singa’s first record was released in 2009, written to impress a American woman who had been residing in Indonesia. Yet given the ferociously carnal nature of the record, one not privy to that knowledge would never suspect it to be romantic at all. Malaikat dan Singa may initially have been inspired by romantic love, but sweeps right over human emotions to encompass much more significant issues. Dionyso describes the songs as “love songs to infinity — love songs to the entire universe and whatever void lies beyond it.”

Released in 2011, Malaikat dan Singa’s second album, Suara Naga, continues to step outside of the individual to examine the splendor of the infinite. Dionyso serves as the vessel through which creation comes rushing forth, and as such, all aspects of him as a carnal being intertwine so closely with his creations that they are difficult to separate.

“I could say that for me, sex, magic, god, spirit, and psychic fire are all intertwined and distinguishable only at the most subtle levels. I think that the urge of desire as a creative force that drives the expansion and contraction of the stars, galaxies, and the universe at large is an important meditation,” he explains, albeit with some difficulty.

By the time Dionyso began writing material for Suara Naga, the relationship which originally inspired the project had just terminated. Nonetheless, Dionyso insists that “neither of these albums could really be said to be about a person, or a relationship, or any particular thing… [The relationship was] just what was going on in my personal life, but I don’t really think that writing songs about your personal life is really interesting when you are concerned with the entire Universe, Space, and Time, etc. — except as much as one person’s personal experience of life might be a single point reflecting the blazing light of that Totality.”

“Who gives a damn about my personal expression — whether I’m happy or had a bad day,” he adds bluntly. “I’m not interested in singing about that kind of shit. I want to confront existence itself; I want to shout into the infinite void.”

Earthly Passions

The world of independent pop music is currently inundated with acts self-identifying as “tribalist” or “primitivist” in their sound. Polyrhythmic compositions and nontraditional percussion have moved from being the stuff of “world music” to being the trendy fodder of experimental pop. Yet despite its multicultural influences and thundering rhythms, Malaikat dan Singa is a project which transcends the trendy co-option of “world” sounds and evades easy labeling. Dionyso has developed a huge artillery of musical influences via his longstanding ethnomusicological bent. Accordingly, his particular breed of sonic polyculturalism is a unique and elaborate collage fit for a true scholar.

“What is world music? Is there any way of being influenced by music that is not from this world?” he questions confidently.

“There is very little in my music that can be identified as coming directly from a specific cultural location — combinations of sounds are no different to me than combinations of colors,” he continues, likening music to visual art. “If you use a certain shade of red with yellow, that will evoke to many people a popular fast food restaurant, or it will evoke the national flag of several different nations. But it might just be a red thing next to a yellow thing. So [it is with] a certain kind of guitar sound within a certain kind of drum beat, with reed instruments playing a certain way, or singing with a particular emphasis…”

“My own musical choices are going to be informed by every single piece of music I have ever heard, and everything that I can possibly imagine, whether I know how to play it or not. This to me is the triumph of the human imagination,” he concludes.

Malaikat dan Singa may seem to the unacquainted as a project which reinterprets traditional Indonesian music or makes references to Southeast Asian spirituality, but such is not the case. “Malaikat dan Singa has really nothing to do with specific Indonesian cultural expressions at all,” Dionyso assures. “I just use the language; we aren’t doing Indonesian music… [but] there are correspondences because all of the peoples of the world are all human. As a whole, human beings gravitate towards certain modalities of expression, regardless of cultural specificity.”

In fact, careful dissection of Malaikat dan Singa’s music will ascertain that its prominent influences have less to do with Indonesia and more to do with the aforementioned literary influences and musical influences like classic rock and roll, Tuvan throatsinging, and Jamaican dancehall.

“I really like dancehall music, especially when the singers kind of start rap-chanting with very strange vocal inflections and aggressive textures that remind me of throatsinging,” says Dionyso, “but a lot of the lyrical content really frustrates me. What a brilliant musical form, yet a lot of these songs are kind of the same old shit — bitching about bitches and hoes kinda stuff, glorifying rude behavior and what not… or they are very specific to time and place and not really relevant outside of a very limited cultural context.”

Dionyso decided to engage with these frustrations by combining the qualities of dancehall, throatsinging, and rock and roll that interest him with Indonesian, a language chosen for linguistic properties Dionyso had long been searching for.

“I have taken a lot of inspiration from both Blake and Kabbalah for many years; both have informed a lot of my past work with Old Time Relijun, too. However, when I started working with these rhythms, I found that having to work in English was not really fitting with the mode of expression I was searching for with this project. I thought about using some Blake quotes in Spanish and decided that wasn’t really working for me, either,” recalls Dionyso.

With Indonesian, Dionyso took an approach not unlike that of a rapper searching for the right lyrical cadences. He “sampled” from Blake and the Zohar, using them as what he calls “a springboard from which to leap into pure Imagination Unsnared.” He researched sound profiles of various groupings of Indonesian words and their meanings, sometimes using the rhythmic musicality of the language to form free-associated blocks of sound.

“The songs are written in Indonesian based on things I might want to say, but the words have to possess an inherent musicality,” Dionyso describes. “I’m also looking for more esoteric kinds of connections in the lyrics, and playing with things that can’t really be translated because it is the sound itself of the words being pronounced that drives the song forward.”

Dionyso explains that certain Indonesian phrases can mean “five or six different things, depending on context.” The language’s contextual vagueness and loose grammatical structure allow him much flexibility in “searching for anagrams and words between words, following the flow in sounds, and taking previously unseen pathways.” Simply put, the language plays nicely with Dionyso’s improvisational songwriting tendencies, which ebb and flow like so many cycles of creation and destruction.

When Dionyso’s abundance of esoteric literary, metaphysical, musical, and cultural influences coalesce, Malaikat dan Singa is what emerges. It is the sound of time-tested musical genres being imbued with spiritually-fresh air.

“It’s Surrealist Shamanism meets Gangsta Rap,” says Dionyso. “I’m just going off about my mojo like everybody else; I just like to throw it down in cosmic terms. It’s all about shape-shifting, having visions of worlds unseeable.”

www.myspace.com/arringtondedionyso

Related posts:

1. Arrington de Dionyso – Malaikat Dan Singa Album Review
2. Young Circles Band Interview : Expanding Horizons (w/ Full Album Stream & Lyrical Analysis)
3. Arrington de Dionyso – I See Beyond The Black Sun Album Review

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Arrington de Dionyso Interview : Shouting Into The Void (w/ Full Album Stream, Lyrical Analysis & Translations)

Finisterrae
Directed and Written by Sergio Caballero Lecha, Cinematography by Eduard Grau
Spain, 2010

What exactly is Finisterrae? Dadaist art project? Absurdist bildungsroman? Destructionist popcorn flick? Whatever its inevitable classification may be, it will arrive there surely by accident. Filmed as nothing more than a few beautifully captured scenes and strung together with the thinnest of plot threads, the film, directed by Spain’s Sergio Caballero Lecha, simply is what it is.

The “story” behind this art flick is that two ghosts (you know they’re ghosts because of the eyeholes cut in their sheets), fed up with their afterlives, set out to find a way to return to the plane of the living. On the way they murder an indecisive hippie oracle, take up residence in a natural history museum, and confront creature from the underground that appears to have malicious intentions. And while the props and sparse dialogue border on low-brow slapstick, the deadpan dialogue and almost brutalist approach the two “heroes” have towards their environment keeps things refreshingly awkward throughout.

Cinematographer Eduard Grau again deserves immense praise for his exquisite handling of each and every scene. The young director of photography’s work on Finisterrae rivals the top-notch job he did on Tom Ford’s A Single Man. He beautifully captures the Camino of Santiago with breathtaking precision, allowing the scenery to develop in time with the story. The lives of the ghosts and the state of the coast are one and the same.

While each scene makes no attempt to follow the one preceding it, it is not accurate to say that the movie is a collection of non-sequiturs. Lecha’s witty visual timing and cadence for nonsense is enjoyable on all levels. Case in point, when the ghosts take a respite in one of their many forested locations, one looks into a decaying tree trunk only to find a film-within-the-film of a man regurgitating food and condiments onto a cutting board. The ghost comments it is a relic of the past, a Catalan art video. The other ghost does not care. We ask ourselves, “Why was that video in the tree?” Then we ask, “why not?”

So perhaps, like the Catalan video, Finisterrae is meant to be immediate and unmemorable. Memory works in succession with logic. When logic is stripped, memories become disorganized and it is hard to place a timeline to events. But despite the immediate mental vaporization of the imagery in this film, we can’t help but be captivated by these scenes as they happen in front of us. Art is imitating life, and in this case, magnifying the transience of existence.

In the end, Lecha’s Finisterrae both succeeds and fails because it does not actively attempting to defy definition and perplex viewers. Like the pair of ghosts the film follows, Finisterrae seeks only its physical space, taking no more from the audience than what they choose to give it. Unlike rebel instigators Matthew Barney and Alejandro Jodorowsky, Finisterrae’s mist of confusion is simply a passive byproduct of the images on screen and must be actively engaged. So go see it, and experience it, but do not worry about it sticking around. It couldn’t care less about what you think.

Finisterrae will screen at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival at these times and locations:

Harvard Exit – May 31, 2011 9:15 PM

Harvard Exit – June 5, 2011 9:00 PM

Related posts:

1. Ghosts Of Cité Soleil (2006) Film Review
2. Goya’s Ghosts (2007) Film Review
3. Sound Of Noise (2010) Film Review

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Finisterrae (2010) Film Review