Exotoendo - Push Kara
There are six intermediate states through which a human being travels during the Buddhist cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Inspired by the Bardo-Thödol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Exotoendo's Push Kara is a transformative work of ritual music, intended to assist you in visualizing the True Reality which may be glimpsed at these liminal points of existence. The six states -- "bardos" -- are life, dream, transe, death, existence and reality, and each track maps itself to one of these states.
The first long breath of Push Kara is the five minutes of "sangs-rgyas-kyi dgongs-pa 1 (life)" wherein a breathy flute pines against a minimal rhythm section of bells and gongs. A single voice drifts in, a solitary monk chanting slowly in an incense-filled prayer room. Reality begins to fragment in "sangs-rgyas-kyi dgongs-pa 2 (dream)" as a female voices enters the audio environment, her long tones cascading down as if they have fallen from Heaven. The tinkling bell tree and solitary flute of "sangs-rgyas-kyi dgongs-pa 1 (life)" are lost as this single descending voice removes you from the affirming light of life into the subtle darkness of the dream. Whatever grasp you had on reality, on the shifting tones and peals of sound which kept you breathing are lost as you chase this voice into the perpetual gloom of the subterranean rumbles which begin the thirteen and a half minute "'pho-ba (transe)."
Stringed instruments rise out of the gloom as "'pho-ba (transe)" unfold, shivering notes which hover around another chanting voice. The pace and repetition of the rhythms puts you into a deeply meditative state. Push Kara was recorded in an abandoned industrial vat which lends a sonority to the echoes, and the subterranean rumbles of "'pho-ba (transe)" begin to fall further apart, their echoes lasting longer, and the scattered sound of the stringed instruments fragments into the sound of invisible insects whispering in your ear.
Each of the bardos offers an exit point into the Buddha state and "chi-khái bardo (death)" is the moment of death, that final instant where your breath hitches at the edge of cessation. The subterranean thunder is gone and all that remains is the tiny prick of miniscule bells ringing at the edge of your perception. A rain stick perpetrates a fraud of weather and, even more distant, is the barest hint of a stringed instrument being played by an idle wind. Everything slowly comes to a halt as you finally stop breathing.
During the three minute interlude of "chos-nyid bar-do (existence)," a woman's voice rises out of the drifting miasma. Speaking rapid French, it almost sounds as if she is your guide to the next iteration, giving you directions so that you may find your way to your next reincarnation.
The final bardo, "srid-pa bar-do (reality)," is the intermediate state of gradual change as you move towards your re-emergence from the womb. As with the other bardos, "srid-pa bar-do (reality)" is meant to give you insight into this state of Totality, it is meant to allow you to participate in the Buddha nature which can be achieved. The long tones which sweep through "srid-pa bar-do (reality)" are elephantine streams of elastic memory, the Totality of human experience which dips all the way forward and backward through Time. You become part of everything and part of nothing, you are the hedge down at the edge of the garden, as each elongated note spreads your consciousness out.
I am a restless spirit. I find it very difficult to sit still and enter a Right-Minded state. Meditation, to me, has always seemed to be an impossible state to achieve, and yet, with Exotoendo's Push Kara, I find myself much more readily entering a hypnotic state of mind. It could be the continued state of sleep deprivation in which I find myself or it could be more readily linked to the expansive suggestion implanted by listening to this record. I'm inclined to believe it is the latter as Exotoendo's ritual music breaks down my restless energy and releases my reflective soul. This is old school chill out music, and you can feel the pulse of several thousand years within each ringing bell and each infinite tone.
Athanor [2001]
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