City of Nine Gates

Background

This album contains work mainly from 2002 and 2003, and takes its name from a Vedic euphemism for the human body (count ’em).

These works were produced with extensive computer involvement, but there is still considerable improvisational performance intermingled with sequenced material. The main keyboard synthesizer used is the Korg KARMA, supplemented by a Novation ReMOTE, along with a sizable retinue of software synths including Native InstrumentsReaktor, and Absynth, Korg Wavestation (recently reincarnated in software, thank heaven), Virsyn’s Cube and Tera, and Spectrasonics’ Atmosphere. A significant amount of additional processing is done on most tracks, largely using a bevy of VST plug-ins, including all the iZotope modules and many modules from Cakewalk and Sony.

These tracks are explicitly focused on our perception of tonality, and our perception of space. Please see the Commentary section of this site for full immersion in conceptual wahoo.


Anawanda Wan (5:23) — There’s a lot going on beneath the surface, even when no one is listening. What is the sound of one body metabolizing? If a body falls in the forest and there is no one there, will it weep?

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Binaural version converted from 8-channel:

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Phloem (4:16) — Other cities in another kingdom have fewer gates, or hardly any at all. Hardly any are needed. A point source, pressure varying over time, ecco!

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Saint Elmo (5:04) — A few megawatts, some dark light generators, a smattering of virtual fluctons. We spent a lazy afternoon among the synaptic clefts in the upper hippocampus, with gun and camera. We saw no hippos, but the light show was quite wonderful. Atonal, arhythmic, and a little train of latent impressions went by, which was quite amusing.

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Thrimadornith Ri (5:09) (binaural) — Before his awful majesty the many-armed Indra was ever spoken of in hushed anticipation, and his foes laid themselves at his feet with devotees alike, thrilling to the finality of his spendid effulgence: silence itself reigned.

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Tucamara Tu (3:31) (binaural) — Beware the jabberwock. He sleeps by the river, but he does not sleep.

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Wending (6:41) — Adrift in the limbic system. The old brain at play with the new. The rhinoencephalon sniffing its way into the light.

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Arboretum (4:30) — The great tree of life is emulated in the branching nervous system, which gives support to consciousness itself, which cognizes the vibrations of the song of the universe, transcending matter, time, and space. Individual consciousness becomes one with the observer of all creation and from this unity springs the tree of life. Or something like that.

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Bongduridium (5:41) — The machinery of civilization threatens to become music, while the air thrills to its automated muse. Is there breath in the machine? Or does the automaton sleep forever in fossil darkness?

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Corazon (6:56) — Behind my old house in Malibu, I found a bowling ball under a bush. It was engraved with the name "Herb." Not too many weeks later, another bowling ball turned up. It was not inscribed, but we all knew its name was "Flo." You've got to go with the Herb and the Flo. The heart does, and the breath floats on this sea of living currents.

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Terraforming (6:40) — You can bring a whore to culture, but you can't make her think. Unfortunately, that's not true, but the reverse is. If you stop thinking, you can build a city the size of a planet, or turn any handy planet into a city. No, that's if you never stop thinking.

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