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Mystical Music

swilow

swilow

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Hi guys :)

Don't know about you, but I find that certain passages of music can really bring about that sense of awe and grandeur and a hint of another, more orderly and significant world. Some music can really transport a person, can induce a different perspective. Some sounds seem to be directly related to mystical neurological states. Consider the sacred syllable 'AUM' or 'OM" (I prefer the former). I had an experience on the psychedelic drug, DPT, where my entire body was vibrating at the exact frequency of AUM :). I could not hear the sound, I could feel it throughout my whole body. If I had no awareness of the sacred syllable, I would have emerged from this trip (incidentally, I was 'crucified' during this experience and viewed myself from the perspective of Dali's "Christ of Saint John of the Cross". This was a wild and audible experience. In short, try DPT! :D

I'm going to start with this track by Robert Rich, who is ostensibly an ambient musician, ranging from aciddy weirdness to dark ambient. He is known for his extremely long concerts where he invites audience members to sleep :). I saw him at a psytrance/minimal festival 3-4 years ago and he was the best one there. I thought we could share some music that we consider sacred. Please don't post your favorite One Direction song; I'm talking about music or soundscapes that evoke that sense of divinity or The Other. So, whatever you post, please add context- we don't want this to be just another video thread, so if you don't flesh out your response, it may very well find all traces erased :) I'd love to hear some tribal, ethnic, field-recording, ritual music, islamic chanting, etc. Stuff that touches the spirit. <3

This track is called Erasing Traces from Robert Rich's "Calling Down The Sky" album and was recorded in front of a small crowd whilst it stormed outside. Mysterious, haunting, upflifting...

 
My biggest passion in life is listen to music and dig for music.
here a list of songs that fits exactly what you are asking!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GJ376uysLo
this is tribal ambient. the way the track evolves is truly grandiose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiqMG3ED5A0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4YqVqTiAcM
this one is very special. especially from 6 min and up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC2Di0jMRrk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnOhzv-226Y
my favorite artist of all time. kettel is my god :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXmX8PMjm4A
I think this track is exactly what you asked for!

cheers
 
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^Some great suggestions... I'll need to listen more deeply when my ears are better...

Can I please urge anybody with arms to lie down, breathe deeply on a sunny afternoon, not too warm or cold, winter/autumn/spring/summer, with gentle sunlight upon thee and open yours ears to this thing of fleeting beauty- (Ninae, if you read this, behold the output of Tromso)-

Biosphere: Subtrata



I had a memorable moment, accompanied by this music in the specific conditions I mentioned, but in late winter- on bit of opiate and drifting so beautifully...<3
 
Indeed, music can be a strong force towards evoking mystical and awe-inspiring feelings. Humans have been using it for these purposes all along. Art in all forms can do this, but to me music is the most direct and visceral art form (to witness anyway). It's almost like magic, it's a way to communicate and alter the emotions of others. It's definitely one of the best things in the world. :)
 
Leibniz said that music is just the brain doing mathematics.

Perhaps music is a small glimpse of a/the platonic world?
 
Try listening to the song in the op and this one simultaneously.



Enjoy-yes, no?

trying all three atm..
 
Anamo7tram said:
Leibniz said that music is just the brain doing mathematics.
Click to expand...

There's definitely a sense of geometrical completeness, particulalry in modern, beat music. Anything from rock and roll with resolving chord changes to highly sequenced electronic music seems to have a shape and formula.

I always feel like this song has a kind of underlying sense and tonal constancy, not mystical, but pleasingly somehow correct sounding:

 
I'm digging this thread so far. I've needed good psychedelic music for a while and some of these are perfect :)
 
I always end up listening to Faust whilst tripping.
Especially the album "so far"....especially on dpt.
 
Mystical poetry often doubles as romantic poetry to give it a wider appeal where "the one" can be another word for God or re-uniting with your higher self (which is kind of the same thing).

Troubadour ballads also had a lot of lyrics like that which can be about leaving your earthly love behind to seek the true love of your heart or uniting with God and finding enlightenment. The Cathars were a subversive Christian sect that were all eventually cornered and burned in the castle in France they took up shelter in. It was a more Gnostic type of Christianity with many Eastern-inspired ideas like karma and reincarnation mixed in, and didn't just rely on an outside authority like Jesus or the church to do all the work for you, and that's why they were destroyed (inner mysticism or spiritual development is disempowering for the religious authorities).

It was quite a beautiful belief, I once read an interesting book by a woman about her past-life memories from her life as one of those. She wrote about how she met with her soulmate or male counterpart but he sacrificed being with her to seek out his own enlightenment or salvation which he saw as more important or the only way to lasting happiness. So she didn't understand how he could do that and died of a broken heart or starved herself to death. It shows how these ideas don't just belong to the East and have been quite wide-spread accross Europe, they've just been so effectively eradicated.
 
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^I'd be interested in any examples of such poetry.

Lets get some northern drum swedish folk in here. I get a real sense of place from this sort of drumming, something ancient...



Something darker. I personally really like ambient, and if you like dark ambient- that is deep drones, sound of plasma colliding, the whispers of doubt- you have to know Lustmord. He specifically did an album entitled Rising (fucking cheesy and horrid video) for a black mass for LaVeyan Church of Satan 06/06/06 celebration. But I find his album, The Dark Places of the Earth, to be his most evocative, even though it sounds like nearly every other album he has done. It is dark, but does not need to be the darkness of negativity, but more the mysterious movements of unseen forces like gravity and huge, emptiness of intergalactic space, the majesty of an abandoned galaxy.... :)

I posted a track earlier by Robert Rich, and this is a track by him and Lustmord:

 
I love lustmord.
in a similar genre, there's Coil, Ben frost, Vidna obmana, alio dies, mimesis (there also sorts of poem and words spoken), tim hecker, murcof, the caretaker


for ambient I love:
Woob
gas
muhr
secede
the orb
kettel
swod
 
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^Know a few but will need to check out more...

Good ole Tangerine Dream of course. I discovered a guy call hecq who is cool. And yes, Stars of the Lid. Natural Snow Buildings make some epic lo-fi stuff.

Ambient is nice. :)

I find this artist, Sleep Research Facility, really intriguing. He made a few albums from 3 second snippets of a broken fan. :\ That is called making the most of things.

He made an album around the first few scenes in Alien. Now this shit actually is dark to me...

 
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willow11 said:
^Know a few but will need to check out more...

Good ole Tangerine Dream of course. I discovered a guy call hecq who is cool. And yes, Stars of the Lid. Natural Snow Buildings make some epic lo-fi stuff.

Ambient is nice. :)

I find this artist, Sleep Research Facility, really intriguing. He made a few albums from 3 second snippets of a broken fan. :\ That is called making the most of things.

He made an album around the first few scenes in Alien. Now this shit actually is dark to me...

Click to expand...

ambient and idm is my favorite music!

hecq is a master. but he dont only make ambient. I prefer his ambient work from his idm stuff.
stars of the lid is very reknown but I find it a bit boring.

im listening to Voices from the lake- live at maxx. totaly mindblowing you should like that!
 
It's a very interesting topic and I'll try to find some good examples.

I guess to me what is the most spiritual or can give the highest inspiration is high quality classical music, choir music, especially with psalms and children, and some of the good new age/meditation type music, if you can find it, can also be amazing. I think harmony is the real key here.

Popular music can be inspiring in that way, too, if just for the atmosphere or being able to lift you to a higher level. But a lot of it is very negative energy/low-consciousness, even if it's presented in a glamorous way, and that's what is typically considered "cool". I like the most what is of positive energy and emotionally uplifting - like "Birthday"/Sugarcubes, "God Only Knows"/Beach Boys, "If I Can Dream"/Presley. As for classical, "Air" and "Morning Mood" are the most uplifting works or best soundtracks to a happy life I know.

And, yes, most spiritual music seems to come from people who were influenced by drugs in one way or another.

I can't imagine something like "Morning Mood" could have been written by someone who had never been exposed to consciousness-enhancing substances for instance (or maybe just a saint?).
 
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This kind of thing can be pretty wonderful when it's good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R4-eL3IdhE

I like the combination of sounds/visual, very uplifting. It's strange the way there's no disharmony in it and you can be "safe" as opposed to most modern music. It can feel like like your body craves it and is actually healing.
 
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^Hell yeah, I second Ash Ra Tempel. If you haven't yet, you should get into the entire komische musik/krautrock scene as a whole, late 60s to mid 70s. It's a varied scene, where early electronics overlaps with psych rock experiments, avant garde at times. Especially the earlier artists like Popol Vuh or Amon Düül II - these guys are the pinnacle of first generation psychedelia as well as being the forefathers of modern electronica. The German scene, at times, produced much more interesting material compared to what was going on in the US.

Popol Vuh were contemporaries of Ash Ra Tempel but were tilted further towards the synth/electronic/spiritual angle. Lots of people here would dig them I'm sure (hey willow!).



Talk about ahead of their time --
 
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