__ _ _ __ |/(/-------------\)\| | | ____. ._____: ._____. ._____: ___. .______ _/ _ |___.__\|_ |__\|_ |__\|_ |/ _|/____.___| (_ _) _| | / | / | / | \_ | | | | \ | / | | / | / | _ | | ___|__/______|_________|_________|__________|___\ | - -|_______\-diP--------|-------------------|-----------aSL-\_____|- - | | | . enoughrecords . | |_ _ _ _| /(/-------------\)\ enrmp181 - megatone - imago mundi nova Author: Marcel Gherman Artwork: Mihai Tarus Front cover: “Compressed time – 9” Back cover: “Compressed time – 10” http://www.art.md/tarus/biografia/en.html TRACKLIST 1. Imago Mundi Nova pt 1 2. Imago Mundi Nova pt 2 3. Imago Mundi Nova pt 3 4. Light 5. Point X BIOGRAPHY Musician, radio DJ and journalist from Moldova. Between 1994 and 2003 author of programs on electronic music on the national radiostation of Moldova, including programs "Techno Mix" and "Zona De Limita". Since 1994 author of numerous articles in the local press, in publications Saptamina, Democratia, Sud-Est Cultural and Contrafort. Currently working for magazine Sud-Est Cultural and sustaining a permanent header in magazine Contrafort. Has a particular interest for Indian spirituality, most notably the Advaita Vedanta doctrine and the works of Sri Aurobindo. Music released on international labels and broadcasted on more than 20 international radiostations. RELEASES ON CD Albums: "A Journey To The Core Of Reality" (Tibprod) "Mulberry Forest Voyage" (Krakilsk) "Vicious" (in collaboration with Kenji Siratori) (Hypermodern) Tracks on compilations: "Flying Dragon" - compilation "Cat-Zen Jammer" (Tibprod) "Space Station" - compilation "Noise To Meet You Europe" (Simlog) "Bindu (Lifeforce)" - compilation "The Scariest Weapon vol. 3" (Invasion Wreck Chords, distributed thru Ant-Zen and Adnoiseam) "Eden 2007" - compilation "Season Of Snow And Ice" (Zaftig Research) "Nirvana" – compilation "Tranchillizer" (Peak, quoted as one of this year’s most successful psychedelic chill out compilations) "Universal Memory Access" – compilation "Dark Ambient Radio vol. 1" "Obsidian" – compilation "60X60 International Mix" (from a selection of electroacoustic tracks by international artists previously presented in concerts, at festivals and universities in USA and abroad, including presentations at Oxford and Cambridge, and featuring an audiovisual collaboration with video artist Zlatko Cosic, recently presented on french TV channel TNA) (Vox Novus). MP3 ONLINE RELEASES: "Eden" – netlabel Protoplazma "First Space Voyage" – netlabel Enough "Moon" – netlabel Axesscode Selection of tracks on netlabel Electronichunt IMAGO MUNDI NOVA Minialbum "Imago Mundi Nova" was inspired by an exposition of painter Mihai Tarus, a follower of Sterligov and Malevich. This exposition entitled "Pictural Assemblage" impressed me especially by the presence in it of a cycle of works called "Compressed Time". The main theme of minialbum "Imago Mundi Nova" is the influence that non-figurative fine arts can have on electronic music as morphing soundscapes, textures and sonic sculptures. The avantgarde movement in fine arts from the beginning of the 20th century, whose axiom was "Imago mundi nova, imago nulla", was discomposing object and form into elementary particles and then reassembling it at a higher level, in a scrambled and deconstructed way, into a surreality. This method of deconstruction may be applied in electronic music as well. The music in minialbum "Imago Mundi Nova" is not based on sound objects, but rather on waves and currents of deconstructed sonic particles. There is a model of development in time that all temporal arts follow, in every work of music or literature, in theatre and film. In fact, this archetype is omnipresent in nature, at all levels, from micro to macro. All things start from an initial balance, following a disbalance, towards a new equilibrium, all objects lose themselves in order to find themselves again, everything begins from a primordial unity, following multiplicity, in order to retrieve this unity, as the evolution of the universe from a Big Bang, thru an expansion, towards an implosion and a collapse in a singularity. The tracks on minialbum "Imago Mundi Nova" tend to follow this model thru typically electronic means of expression, thru stable and unstable forms, with a culmination placed in the point of the Golden Section proportion. They portray time, history and future as waves in hyperspace, the feeling of future at this dawn of the 21st century. Marcel Gherman SOUND ART: THE CONCEPTUAL LANGUAGE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC The mutations that produce within the world’s cultural paradygm impose as an imperative of the day the search for new languages of expression for an adequation to reality. In this context, electronic music is by definition a product of change. As generally accepted by the theorists of this genre, unlike traditional music which is based on melody, tonality and rhythm, electronic music has as primary resource of expression the sound itself, being therefore also defined by the notion of sound art. At the present, electronic instruments are capable of synthesizing, practically, any possible sound, offering an extraordinary creative freedom. These artifficial sounds cover the entire spectrum of human sensations, from states of bliss to depression, from calm to agitation, from pleasure to pain. There can be created objectual sounds that imitate real ambiences – sound of rain, of forest, flowing river water – an equivalent of the hyperrealistic computer graphics which the spectator doesn’t distinguish any more from reality. Also there can be created abstract sounds that would evoke the deepest layers of the subconsciousness. If traditional music is determined by rigid rules, then in electronic music everything is possible. The artist has the freedom to define by himself the principles by which his creation “functions” and the way it is supposed to act on the listener. If written language is, from a certain point of view, a rearranging of preexisting words, then in electronic music we are capable to generate from void the atoms of language. The phenomenon of electronic music evolved within the more general context of the avantgarde movement initiated at the beginning of the 20th century, in parallel with the wave of change in fine arts and literature. The surrealist group of Andre Breton was separating itself from the conventions of realism and tended to transcend form and matter, orienting itself towards a metaphysical, impersonal art that would operate with symbols and archetypes, represented in painting by Malevich’s cycle of "Supremacy". In the first period, Debussy’s innovative ideas have lead to the creation in collaboration with russian engineer Lev Teremin of the electronic instrument Teremin Vox, which was marking a separation from the principles of tonal music. Schoenberg and Webern gave their own contribution to the elaboration of a new musical language thru the conception of dodecaphonic music, as well as Olivier Messiaen, whose pantheist and transcultural vision resulted in an unexpected fusion between european and indian musical theory. And his two genius disciples, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis, transformed electronic music into an acomplished artistic genre. If traditional art has at its origin a dualist conception, which values the harmonious element and eliminates disharmony, then the avantgarde art, which electronic music is part of, is based on a holistic vision, according to which all nuances are equally important. In dodecaphonic music there are no more harmonies and dissonances, but rather only stable and unstable structures thru which the artist elaborates the temporal dimension of a musical piece. A valuable example can be found in Iannis Xenakis’ piece "Metastasis", which starts with a state of equillibrium, in order to explore afterwards the extremes of disharmony and to return in the end to a new harmony. The theme of "Metastasis" is the world’s condition after the shock of the second world war. The series of compositions created by Xenakis on electronic instrument UPIC, including composition "Mycenae Alpha", contributed decisively to the elaboration of new sound morphology. UPIC is capable of transforming graphic images into sound and operates with microtonal units of up to 120 divisions in an octave. The cycle of compositions "Kontakte" by Karlheinz Stockhausen, dominated by synthesized percussive sounds, became equally important in the process of creation of the electronic music expression. Nevertheless, despite the apparent differences, the general form of development of a classical work is identical with the one of an experimental piece. Both follow the same path from an initial balance, thru a disbalance and a development, followed by a concentration of energy and a culmination, that leads to a new balance and, also, in both cases is applied the proportion of the Golden Section. In fact, all temporal arts – music, literature or theatre – tend to imitate this universal archetype of form that is omnipresent in nature. Within the perpetual cycles of nature, all objects lose themselves in order to find themselves again and thru this journey they become self-complete. Every artistic creation appears therefore as a mathemathical equation that tends to a solving, following a universal code of life. This idea reminds us of Mircea Eliade’s "Myth of Eternal Return", who affirmed that symbols and archetypes, when applied in art, can contain a volume of knowledge larger than it could be ever expressed thru spoken language. There are computer programs capable of transforming any multidimensional data into sound. All databases extracted from nature, as for example, the topographic maps of the oceans, or even the graphics of financial evolution of corporations, manifest a surprising musicality. There were also conducted experiences of transforming sequences from DNA code into music. An example is the piece "S2 Translation" created by band The Shamen in collaboration with biologist Ross King and included in the album "Axis Mutatis" (1995). For this track a DNA sequence was transposed on notes, and various data, as solubility in water or reaction to light, were applied to sound parameters. The result of this experience is very surprising. An uninitiated listener of track "S2 Translation" would be witnessing a melodic structure of an extraordinary complexity, without even suspecting that the author of this composition is not a man, but the Creator himself. Electronic music is therefore a mean for gaining knowledge. The symbols and abstract forms to which this language appeals encourage us to decypher the access code to nature’s mainframe, in order to solve the final enigma of life. Marcel Gherman Magazine Contrafort, April 2008 Translated from romanian THE FOURTH ELEMENT In shamanic practices there are two basic techniques for inducing a person into trance: sensory overload and sensory deprivation. Both infinite motion and its absence reveal the still and unchanging element in the world. To know this immobility within the stream of time and space is to find the common factor, the continuity, the universal model and the archetype present in part, to find the infinite and eternal within finite. Indian spiritual tradition considers that Nirvana can be attained thru a simple elimination of all thoughts and impressions that come to our mind, this way the deepest layer of our self and of reality is brought to surface, as an ultimate truth. According to the legend, this condition has been attained by Buddha thru a total renounciation, a truly difficult mission indeed because of our high degree of attachment to the objects and forces of the material world. During some experiments of exploration of total sensory deprivation, in which a person is introduced into a water reservoir, it has been observed that during the first 15 minutes the subject’s consciousness is dominated by residual thoughts. After that comes a period of discomfort and panic, which, if overcome, is followed by visions and hallucinations. Silence, as the expression of what remains when all audio sensory signals are eliminated, represents the substrata of reality, the common space in which all sounds manifest. The fact that we are capable of perceiving silence means that this substrata exists. The hindu text Mandukya Upanishad which is part of the Vedanta philosophy defines the primordial sound that created the world, the Omkara, as a universal archetype that dominates on all levels of existence. Represented by the syllable Aum, it is compared to the sound of a bell, that appears from void in order to return to infinity. This sound consists of three parts, beginning, middle and end, which symbolize past, present and future, the forces of creation, conserrvation and destruction, the three Gunas or basic attributes of human nature and the three states of consciousness: awakening, dream and deep sleep. These basic elements constitute the threefold fundament of our world of multiplicity. At the same time, in Mandukya Upanishad it is also mentioned the existence of a fourth hidden element, which is a sublevel of the first three elements, the common space in which they occur, their true nature. According to the text Maitrayana-Brahmaya Upanishad, the threefold elemts are an illusion and only the fourth is real and represents the truth. It is the existence that precedes essence and causality, that being, that ens that escapes to rational knowledge based on logic and deduction. Wittgenstein wrote in his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" that "...mystic is not the way the universe fuctions, but the fact that it exists". Hindu tradition affirms as well that pure existence (Sat) is the first attribute of the universal spirit. In music, silence represents the same as a canvas for a painting or an unwritten page for a book. The famous jazz musician John Coltrane stated that the best music is based on silence. By contemplating this substrata in a work of art, we perceive the presence of the eternal in time. There is an archetype of form that applies not only to temporal arts – literature, music, theatre – but also in spatial arts, as painting, sculpture or architecture. It remains even when the method of deconstruction is applied to the extreme, as it happens in the case of audiovisual installations that imply conceptual time, or in the use of the cut-up technique or the surrealist automatism in literature. This universal model consists of an initial balance, followed by a disbalance and a development which leads to a maximum concentration of energy and a culmination placed in the point of the Golden Section, which ends into a new equillibrium. The cycle is reproduced perpetually in nature, being applied at all of its levels. It is the rhythm of life. The purpose of this path would be to reveal in the moment of culmination the Fourth Element, the presence of the atemporal in time, a certain subtle harmony and equillibrium that remains in the extreme disbalance and chaos. By participating at this process in nature, by passing thru this experience, we find something that can nevcr be lost, that which is infinite, self-complete, eternal and indestructible, the harmony that dominates in chaos, the light that conquers darkness and so we overcome our doubt and become firm and strong. From the moment when we find a certain living proof for the presence of this superior equillibrium, no force in the universe, nothing and noone can influence us anymore. Then we overcome ourselves and we transcend the world. This decisive moment is present in a musical piece, in a fiction story, in a human life and in the evolution of a universe. It is important to experience this moment. Marcel Gherman Magazine Contrafort, may 2008 Translated from romanian CONTACT Email: marcel_gherman@yahoo.com http://www.myspace.com/httpwwwmegatonecom http://www.myspace.com/megatoneelectronica http://www.sud-est.md http://www.contrafort.md http://enoughrecords.scene.org