It is possible to listen to the first one hundred and seventy seconds of this seventeen minute song for three weeks and never tire of it.
My knowledge of classical music is thin at best, while my knowledge of modern classical music is even more questionable, however putting ego aside it is truthful to state that I know significantly more than the average person and while I would feel ignorant to speak with full fledged affectionados I see no problem throwing my hat into the ring in this matter. (That was the disclaimer paragraph so I do not have fifty emails tomorrow from people criticizing my observations)
In the end though, fuck them. Music is art and just as in other types of art the creator may have had intentions or cornerstones of which their creations are set upon it is the one taking in their work who can make the final judgement. Do I elevate Springsteen to a higher level because his background mirrors my own, my families? Of course, but does it subjugate my observations and feelings? No.
There is little on the web about Lena except that she began her craft from a very young age. Her work is more of a biography than anything written on the web and her work is a combination of ambient and neoclassical pieces played with strict technical precision. Doc is a Finnish producer of Electronica, Ambient and Experimental music. That exhausts my biographical knowledge of the two.
Their music is far removed from a Philip Glass and Terry Riley, and terribly distant from most of Karlheinz Stockhausen's work as well. It is more banal, though I say that as a compliment much like "Kind of Blue" is more banal to "Sketches of Spain". Both are epic jazz pieces but I have to be engaged to take on Sketches while Blue doesn't require any proactive engagement, rather absorption. If I had to compare this piece and their work to anyone it would be Arvo Pärt, the great Estonian minimalist.
However the above is just a feeble attempt to put this work into context historically. In real life when I hear this piece I am reminded of the possibility of connectivity that exists in the universe. My first real experience with this came five years ago in the middle of the Arabian Gulf. Before this I had touched the realm of possible Brahman, though Hindu philosophers and Upanishad scholars would scoff at my example, while surfing.
When I was 13 there was a storm rolling in out of the east and I was at the peak bowl in Manasquan, long before the dredging broke up the structure of the wave. It began to rain and lightning struck far offshore in the distance. I stayed in as the wind shifted to the west creating perfect five foot hollow sections refracting off of the jetty. I was the only one in the water with all the waves to myself. I could hear each individual drop of water breaking the tension of the surface and when I rode I could hear the slicing-chop-swish-riiiiipwhosh coming off the rails, see individual particles of foam floating in the west wind and feel the wind rustling the hair on my toes. There were dolphins just out of the line up, when I would duck dive a wave I could hear them talk to each other in their high pitched squeaks.
Fifteen years later I resolved to volunteer to go to sea in an attempt to escape my shore based life which was bordering or surpassing the boarder depending on who you ask, of alcoholism and depression. Overweight, my blood pressure had shot up more than thirty points in one year and my breath had turned into wheezing. It seemed like the logical thing to do as so many before me had lost and the found themselves once again in the middle of such savagery.
On a weather deck every night around two in the morning I would commence with an hour of cardio in the 110 degree heat and then cool down and begin a practice of Ashtanga Vinyasa. Though a bastardized version of it which began in the vigorous style of the modern genre, it evolved into the kind mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita and the classic Four Yogas of the late 19 century. In these times, when my breath became one with my movements, when my movements became one with my mind I experienced full connection to the environment while blocking it out at the same time. The typical noises of a large ship passed by, noises which were so loud those on the weather decks were required to wear hearing protection. The heat was relegated to a normal room temperature bearable to the average human and whatever feelings of remorse, dread and regret passed through and out of my veins into the ether.
I returned from that trip with many new experiences, I visited Asia and took in all of the pleasures of the natives, visited the deserts of the Middle East, crossed the Pacific, lost forty pounds, kicked drinking into blackout states and stopped smoking. But in retrospect those nights on the weather decks, fully engaged and connected made me realize that there are levels of consciousness in this life that are rarely touched upon. As a short cut one could take a few tabs and tap into this realm but the dangers are too high and the benefits not as astounding. Acid is Diet Coke to the real thing, the hand to the vagina and the groomed trails to the pure powder. The work involved to reach that realm must be pure and earned.
And with that when I put this song on that is what comes to mind. Total connection out of something that appear chaotic to the uninitiated. It digresses into thoughts of space, String Theory, Rare Earth Hypothesis, Abiogenesis and the Unified Universe. All ideas that make little sense to most, some of which do not to the brightest minds on the planet. But neither does Atonality or Aleatoricism until you hear it.
