Mix: 63. The Heart Sūtra

First off, here’s a kind thank you to Eamonn for inviting me to Noods Radio to guest on his chOOn!! radio show. Not just a wonderful curator of great things, that aren’t just bleeding-edge, forgotten, or obscure, Eamonn also runs the equally inspiring reissue label (under the same name) featuring the groundbreaking work of artists like Toshioki Matsumura, Luca Rigato, and most recently: Shinichi Omata, whose seemingly, lost technodelic classic, Boku・Neko・Platanus is getting the chOOn treatment. Knowing who was hosting me, I knew I had to step in with both feet firmly planted.

For this mix I chose to focus on something that’s being going through a bit of a renaissance. It’s the idea of “spatial” audio or music.

Most listeners or music makers, perhaps, already know what constitutes the makings of a song. There are various terms that describe the overall contours of music.

Some of these you might know intrinsically, like: melody, harmony, dissonance, consonance, or even assonance. It’s those concepts that make up the majority of what we consider “tonal” music.

Then, going further, we venture to the realm of atonal music — music not written in strictly “traditional” terms. Here we find ideas like: texture, atmosphere, and spatial sound, concepts that explore other ways of creating music. From here, it’s this concept of “spatial” that drew my attention. Can my readers, or simply listeners, in general, appreciate what spatial music is? I wondered.

As more of the music we listen to gets increasingly shifted to that space between our headphones and ears, further away from room speakers, I keep thinking about something. How certain music, purposefully, tries to find a way to recreate that liminal space that can only be experienced in place (far from headphones). It could be a concert stage, a recording studio, or some dreamt up sonic space. Forget about stereo movement — how about lateral and longitudinal? How about music that expresses physical distance?

There’s something intriguing here, in spatial sound, that harkens back to “universal” music as it once was. Sit yourself in a concert hall, in a temple, or find yourself in a desert, a jungle, or situated in a communal ceremony, wherever sound dances around and through you, leading you in such a way you can palpably feel the power of music. Perhaps, a fourth world through multidimensional sound? My hope, is that this mix gives you a sampling of what one can do with music, if one puts some effort in exploring such realms.

The Heart Sūtra

Tracklist:

Zhou Zhi-yong (周志勇): 河水蕩漾 (Rippled River)
Morgan Fisher: Spinbeat 1
Mar-Pa (マーパ): G2O
Forest (森林): Fairy Tale
He Xuntian (何 训 田): Heart Sutra
Yoko Kanno (菅野よう子): 夢幻 (Mugen)
Yoshihiro Kanno + Tomoyuki Okada Percussion Ensemble (岡田知之打楽器合奏団): January – Silver Storm Illusion
Kohsei Morimoto (森本浩正): Fantastic Chaos Part-Ⅰ
Yuki Takao (高尾有紀): 月の舟
Toshiya Sukegawa (助川敏弥): 樹雫

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