Low Sun Equinox is a celebration of the spiritually-rich winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. Dark has taken over the land with only a few hours of daylight and very little in the way of sunlight for days, weeks at a time. It’s a time for reflection, contemplation and the moving forward into renewal or departure. The low sun, if it emerges, casts beautifully icy hues of orange, yellow and every shade in-between against a dark gray sky and a disappearing horizon. I wrote this poem to try and capture its essence, however impossible that might be:

The emerging light
falls against the dark
dreams of yesterday
holding to tomorrow
the faith
in the hope
and the hope
for faith as the cascading light
dissipates
absorbed into the darkness.
The longest night
upon us,
we look into ourselves,
conscious of breath
and the power
of an unfolding
eternal now.

The longform ambient tracks that I create serve a couple purposes for me. For one, once these pieces are complete, I use them for my own meditation and yoga practices as well as for sleep. However, when I’m working on them I’m focused on creating the sounds of imaginary worlds. These imaginary worlds take many forms from fantastical landscapes to elusive horizons on the open sea and space journeys where the listener is invited into a world of interstellar travel and discovery. I’m inspired by fiction I’ve read, but also I just like to imagine these worlds and the feeling of what it would be like to inhabit these worlds.

For this release, Fire Mother Descends on Galant Pass, I was imagining a soundscape of a sun-worshiping society that lived in the mountains, somewhere deep in the northern hemisphere, maybe the pacific-northwest meets the Aztec culture. With the second longform work, ‘Seasonal Rains’ I was imaging seasonal rains and the cave dwellers carving pictographs into the cave walls awaiting the Fire Mother’s seasonal return.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include that I had just binge-watched Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse series when I worked on this recording. I spent time with Graham Hancock in Sedona, Arizona several years ago so I was quite familiar with his work, but the Ancient Apocalypse program brought things to life in a way that I hadn’t envisioned them in his writings or presentations.

Aurora Tidewater at Felwood Rock is a longform ambient music journey that takes the listener deep into the heart of being. There are two mixes for this recording, the Horizon Mix is more open and spacious as if you’re looking to the horizon, the other, the Ice Caves Mix, with more of a deeper and cavernous resonance, a mix that fans of Steve Roach’s longform works would likely enjoy, particularly his recording A Deeper Silence, a frequent touchstone for me.

When I created Aurora Tidewater at Felwood Rock I was trying to recreate the still space that exists around large bodies of water, majestic mountainscapes and the otherworldly experience of watching Aurora Borealis. All of these things are natural elements that so few of us get to experience in the natural world in their natural states, instead our experience is relegated to one of simply ‘watching’ on a screen. Having an experience through a screen is something that almost any of us can do now; with Aurora Tidewater at Felwood Rock – A longform ambient journey, my hope is to bring the listener closer to realizing that space as they meditate, do yoga, drift to sleep or simply listen. Each of these activities require a peaceful and relaxed state of mind; my hope is that Aurora Tidewater at Felwood Rock brings you closer to that inner calm that we all carry with us but sometimes struggle to access.

In peace,

Matt

#mindfulness #meditation #sleep #yoga #relax #relaxation #stressreduction #anxiety #study #concentration #focus #ambientmusic #dronemusic #ambient #innerpeace #calm