Beyond Sensory Experience - Ratan
Drakhon (of MZ.412 fame) and K. Meizter (an Uppsala-based scientist/artist) had, over a number of long conversations tinged with beer, come to the realization that music is inextricably programmed into the human brain and that numbers were the primary language of communication. One should, they posited, be able to utilize both and fathom some grander vista of the possibilities of human existence. Undeterred by the cold light of day, they set out to fabricate tools in order to pierce the veil of the next realm; they set out to apply the numbers to music. Beyond Sensory Experience is the effort of K. Meizter and Drakhon and the three records -- Tortuna, Urmula and now Ratan -- strive to invoke an expansion of human consciousness through concentrated listening.
The final act of the trilogy, Ratan begins on the edge of perception, a gentle beat crumbling at the periphery of your hearing. An orchestral swell blossoms like a seismic movement, followed by an equally spectral drift of voices as if a floating chorus of Russian folk singers just broached the horizon. The liner notes are filled with black and white pictures that appear to be lifted from old Soviet-era mad scientist movies and, for the centerpiece, they have a picture of two old scientists sitting at a table, playing chess. "The Last Operation" is the title of this picture and of the opening piece, and the track, after swelling and moving into the foreground, finishes with a mechanical voice (as if from a ruined voice box) saying, "This is my last operation." This, then, is the culmination of a lifetime's work with numbers and sound.
Drakhon and K. Meizter bring us gradually into a psychotropic state, layering drones and rumbling atmospheres with faint percussion like the crump-crump of distant mortar shells. Operatic voices drop from the sky like streaking meteors, their final flight a keening waterfall of wordless sound. There are brief glitches of back-masked sounds worked into "Observing the Invisible," old tape being rewound so as to subliminally influence our mental state. Our first journey into shared consciousness is "Inside Erasmus's Head," which adds acoustic guitar and ghostly voices to the mix as well as a phantom flute and bell tree which caper like a Japanese phantom just out of reach.
"Numbers Rule The Universe" fills your head with the sound of molecules exploding, sizzling and popping as their constituent particles are blasted free of their prison of concentric valences. It is the digital transmission -- all those protons and electrons escaping -- of a primal, orgasmic moment of creation. "Ratan" is the Ohm moment, the birth of the world-sundering drone which shatters all remaining individual consciousness. In the minutes following come the whispering voices, the hushed voices of the Fates as they reveal to you the secrets of the universe.
Ratan, like the other two discs in the trilogy, is meant for headphones; this is a record for solitary listening in a sensory deprivation tank. Unlike the others, there are more voices on Ratan, more distorted whispers thrown up from the dark undercurrent of our collective headspace. This is cosmic exploration straight down through your navel and up your Kundalini spine. Drakhon and K. Meizter have crafted a dark ambient adventure of the most introspective kind. Highly recommended.
Beyond Sensory Experience
Old Europa Cafe [2004]
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