Inspired by a spiritual experience in early 2020, these tracks are ambient reflections of a temporarily lucid state of mind. The entire EP was recorded using just one virtual modelling instrument over one week, using a microtuning designed to produce very clear, transparent sounds.
Grab a copy on Bandcamp, or stream the full album on Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The story
“This is a bit full on,” I thought as my breathing intensified. “Wait—what?” my eyes rolled back in my head, my chin raised, as an intense feeling of energy started to pour through me, from the base of my spine to the top of my head. I shifted on my meditation mat as the feeling intensified, my whole body lighting up with this intense fountain, waves of it pulsing through me.
Orgasmic, rolling waves went through me—sexual, emotional, electrifying. I felt like I was levitating off my meditation mat, felt like my whole body had been mounted by Shakti—like she’d sat on me and thrust me inside her. My whole body heaved with the deep breaths passing through me. The room filled with golden bands of energy. Gradually the intensity faded… I was left rapt, in wonder and awe.
Next door I heard my (now ex) wife and her friend laughing. It was around 9 am on a weekday morning and I had to go to work. My usual 20-minute morning sit had turned into something else entirely. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me, but it was one of the most intense, and the first time at home, not on retreat…
It was also the first time I’d experienced what the Buddhists call ‘Siddhis’ (powers) in such a visceral way. For the next few days I was walking through those ‘lanes of gold energy’—feeling them as much as seeing them. Like contour lanes on a map. It felt like a 4-dimensional fabric of the Universe—in time, as well as space. Walking through the street, people followed the contours—it was like I knew where they were going before they went there. I had the same feeling at work—like I knew the shape of a conversation before it happened, the end of a paragraph as the first sentence began. Strange, disorienting, and wonderful—I swam through this world for 2 weeks as it slowly faded.
Fortunately, I had some sense of what was going on, and knew I should expect this strange, wonderful dimension to fade. In 2019 I’d been exploring the Theravada Buddhist ‘maps of enlightenment’ through the work of Daniel Ingram and the translations of the Scriptures. I could place what I had experienced as an incident of the ‘Arising and Passing’ (A&P)—the “teenage phase” of enlightenment, Step 3 on a 12-step path—of no major consequence.
I was still disappointed to lose this incredible feeling and state of mind, but I could see it in this framework, and I was cautious not to get hung up on it, proclaim I was the new Messiah, or any other crazy shit. Instead, I talked with friends, teachers, monks, and an online meditation community to try and make sense of it.
I also made this music in the beautiful afterglow—inspired by the peaceful sense of peace and calm, and using a tuning system I had recently discovered called ‘just intonation’ to achieve very clear and pure intervals between notes. If you listen carefully you will hear very little ‘warbling’ or clashing in the chords that develop—every frequency sits in a perfect, mathematically pure and simple place, perfectly complementing the lower notes.
So… I played, I explored, and I recorded these pieces. I hope that you find them inspiring on your own journey, and useful for your own practices. This is a strange and magical Universe that sometimes hands its gifts to you unexpectedly.
Does any of this resonate? Have you experienced anything similar? I’d love to hear your story.
