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Insomnia
New Release – Low Sun Equinox – A Longform Ambient Journey
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.
New Release – Fire Mother Descends on Galant Pass – A Longform Ambient Journey
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.
Ambient Soundbath Podcast #109 – Featuring theAdelaidean: In the Key of Sleep
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I’ve been enjoying the work of theAdelaidean for some time, but when his record focused on sleep, with a longform track, from Projekt Records came across my desk, I knew I had to feature it on the Ambient Soundbath Podcast for all of you to enjoy. One thing that I really love about the mix I’ve put together here is the open sonic space of the rising and falling. I usually do present very dense sonic tapestries, but with this there’s a very nice space for the ebb and flow of breath. I’m listening as I write this and it’s instantly relaxing.
Here it is – This entire episode of the Ambient Soundbath Podcast features: theAdelaidean: In the Key of Sleep
More about the artist and this recording:
In the Key of Sleep’s hour-plus title track is a gentle, minimalistic-ambient hymn to the art of slumber, a practice that doesn’t come easily to everyone. An insomniac for most of his life, Australian composer theAdelaidean’s eighth Projekt release draws on a limited palette of sustained synthesized strings, rippling electric piano and muted bass that chart a course through tranquil harmonic progressions, via a series of subtle transformations and gently surprising abstractions, to sleep.
Getting to “In the Key of Sleep” is a journey in itself through five re-imaginings and remixes on the core theme, beginning with a self-contained homage to the perfect afternoon nap, “Floating,” an abbreviated reworking of one key moment from the larger work. A series of near-complete reinventions follow, the first of them “Falling,” its brittle, diamond-sharp synths evocative of the random detours our minds sometimes take before giving in to slumber. “Flying” follows, capturing through wide-spectrum sequencers and intermittent bass stabs the adrenaline rush of a good dream, rushing like a river over the events of the day. “Free” brings the listener/dreamer to a state of pure release, adrift against a soundtrack of cinematic ambience, avoiding both defined melodic statements and resolution alike. The final variation, “Flux,” concludes in a locus of complete separation from time and space, beyond consciousness, beyond thought. Here at the centre of sleep, there are no dreams, just a slow pulse of being.
The final track, concluding what is in effect a double album, brings all these elements together, patiently repairing the mind from its daytime travails.
Please consider supporting the artist and Projekt records here.
In the Key of Sleep invites the listener to surrender to the inevitable, knowing that what awaits is both familiar and unpredictable. This state of mind is familiar to deep appreciators of ambient music, who use it as accompaniment to states both of higher consciousness and of unconsciousness. For theAdelaidean, this album is both an exploration of that tension and a cure for his own sleeplessness.
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1. Floating 09:16 2. Falling 04:30 3. Flying 03:44 4. Free 13:25 5. Flux 06:59 6. In the Key of Sleep 65:30 |
 “In the Key of Sleep (excerpt)” video at YouTube |
Artist Bio
For over three decades bestselling Australian author Sean Williams has recorded experimental music undertaking deeply personal aural explorations that draw heavily on sources and techniques following the great spiral of life.