The mind is a distracted sort when it chooses to collaborate with the flash-bytes of the Internet. Shift of control and multi-tab tasks, thoughts in 140 words or less often scribed while doing some other shit as well. Wouldn’t call the collaboration conducive to deep listening. Blame it on the radio, the early days of flash-and-bite-size sounds, the compaction of long-form, turning the tree into paper. Or blame LP art, gratuitous, incongruous and often ill-matched, accompanied by entirely useless liner notes.
I am writing all this while listening to an album that proposes to “help listener to breathe through its energy centers (chakras), or even from the core of the existence… to travel in astral ways, and explore the unknown.” What is a mere preview of an album that proposes such lofty mysticism supposed to achieve: A glimpse of the eternal (while we brew coffee) ? An OBE experience (while scanning click-trap articles like “Ten Shoes That Seinfeld Wore (Number 3 Absolutely Blew Me Away)” ) ? A feeling of ‘every cell alight’ (while sharing a ‘stirring’ or ‘alarming’ news item that turns out to be a hoax) ? “”“”“”“”“”“”“” (“”“”“”“”“) ?
Yes. This Ummet ja Lammet nugget, in its mystical ambling detached way, its lawnmower in the lower regions, cuts through to the senses. I’m not exactly “exploring the unknown” (probably my fault, as I am listening, but also writing, drinking freshly brewed coffee, clicking the “like” button on fake news), but the preview draws my mind to a pleasant and receptive paused state, what Nathan Cook describes as “entering a cerebral place where instead of shutting down you’re heightening awareness, heightening sensitivity.” Could be the coffee though.
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