Inroducing my friend to Pau D'arco with some 1:1 EL: he was introducing me to the joys of ambient music with spice...first time we go in to 'disintegration loops' by William Basinski, it is very layered and peaceful and somber...gives the room an ecclesiastical feel...my friend becomes a little melancholy toward the end. Second round he lines up two ambient Aphex Twin tunes, Lichen followed by Nanou...absolutely gorgeous, again very churchy but so organic. I am looking at a calendar pinned to an alcove which the sofa I'm on is facing, with 'Madonna del Cardellino' by Raffafello repping December and from the same hook I am hanging an Appalachian dulcimer which covers most of the left of her face so that only the facing right eye is revealed. In the warmth of 'Lichen' she eminates gold mycelium which floats in the air thick suddenly with a tranquil intelligence...utterly organically her face and the dulcimer morph to that of an elephant...a singular organic being exuding a gnarled and earthen ancientness...dulcimer jimjam trunk flowing green, purple, brown...a fierce and awe inspiring vision that combined with the future ambient soundtrack gives the impression of Church...I am beaming, delighted in my insignificance beholden to this Archaic...then the laptop returns to shuffle, and some other early nineties Aphex tune i am not familiar with is playing out, a brutal, industrial, atonal rush of noise and rubbish rave beats churning from tinny laptop speakers... and wakes my friend from his own trance as he jerks forward, gasping, eyes wide and a look of pure horror on his face as he falls forwards and reaches out to press stop!! Of course I find this somewhat startling but I am flooded with serotonin and smile warmly at his warping (no pun intended) countenance and he returns it before bursting into peals of joyous laughter. 'Richard you ****ing prick, what are you UP to!! When that music came on it made me trip SO hard all of a sudden'...he related how it, some six-seven minutes into the experience, suddenly and significantly amped up his visuals to a sudden and uncomfortable level at which point we were both coming back, feeling incredibly relaxed and euphoric, putting on some super upbeat African soukous music which had me dancing and I could not stop. We were both elated and wired for a couple of hours after that!
By coincidence some friends of ours had a similar experience a couple of days prior. He and two others had been smoalking EL and listening to some 'chilled out beats'. They had all gone deep at once when a blast of 'saxophone beats' had them all open their eyes simultaneously at the peak! Apparently they all recognised each other and spent the rest of the trip eyes open, hysterically dancing at each other.
The great communicator!
