Cradle of the Horizon
Trying to understand the open and relational (process) idea of inter-becoming? I have a suggestion.
It is that you find a place to relax, put on some headphones, and listen to Primitive Motion's Cradle of the Horizon. The piece explores the acoustic properties of different performance locations, some inside and some out, giving an overall sense of the mutual becoming of inner and outer. Your listening will take about 23 minutes. Consider it a form of sonic meditation.
Your listening can be an occasion for sensing the reality of what we process thinkers call inter-becoming. Inter-becoming is three ideas combined: (1) the idea that the world outside us is also inside us, (2) the idea we are likewise in the world, and (3) the idea that that together we are flowing through time. It is akin to what Buddhists all 'dependent origination' or 'pratitya-samutpada.' Everything originates in dependence on everything else. From this Buddhist point of view, in and out are mirror images of the other; and at a very deep level, both are migrating through time, unobstructed by rigid walls or borders.
Of course conflict is real in human life. We are not simply "flowing" with the world or the world with us. Migrants are stopped at borders. Prisoners are incarcerated behind bars. We dwell within cages of our own making and are enslaved by others. When bullets fly people are harmed. Conflict is real. Violence is a fact. The harsh is as real as the soft; the violent is as real as the gentle.
Still there is a place in the heart and in the universe where free flow reigns. In this place we feel the inter-becoming, each in our own way. More than that, we realize that we are the inter-becoming: a fluid node in a vast web of evolving relationships, some happy and some sad. We awaken to what Whitehead calls "the fallacy of simple location." We are located here, in our bodies, but also there, in the sounds.
This sense of inter-becoming, of full aliveness, is both ancient and contemporary, mystical and scientific. It is, the better hope. But it must be heard. Thanks to Primitive Motion, with their Cradle of the Horizon, for giving us the opportunity. The 23 minute song is well named. To the degree that we are in touch with our inner neanderthal, each in our way, fresh possibilities arise. We are cradled in the open horizon. Some call it God.
-- Jay McDaniel
Cradle of the Horizon
"Turning dream states inside out with a set of refractive synth patterns,
field recordings and striking passages percussion, woodwind and voice,
Primitive Motion's Cradle of the Horizon dives further
into the Brisbane duo's impressionistic realm."
Primitive Motion
Primitive Motion is a duo based in Brisbane, Australia. They have released five albums, including most recently House in the Wave (Bedroom Suck Records, 2018). They are Sandra Selig (voice, cymbals, Bolivian flute, glass bowl, plastic bottle) and Leighton Craig (synthesiser, voice, field recordings, clarinet, metal bottle."
They speak of their genre as neanderthal pulsewave. This phrase well captures the sensibility, important to process thinking (see above and below) that what is most needed in our time is a recovery of the deeply ancient (neanderthal) and the profoundly futuristic (pulsewave)
Here is what they say about Cradle of the Horizon.
"This work follows the thread of two live Brisbane performances in late 2018 that explored the acoustic properties of disparate performance spaces: one indoor at Milani Gallery in response to the gentle hues of large scale paintings by Rosslynd Piggott in her exhibition Rose, Rose and a Shadow of Violet; and the other outdoor in the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens at the Liquid Architecture event Why Listen to Plants?
While the acoustic cocoon of the gallery offered a shell to the ear in which to create interior seas, the garden amphitheatre opened the cage for sounds to take flight. Despite the similar instrumentation and musical narrative of the two improvisations, the sound drew breath from the air around, and the ringing cymbal lived different lives in each location.
This recording is a third iteration of the work and an amalgam of internal/external elements, the sound captured both indoors at our respective home studios and outdoors in locations ranging from Japan to nearby Peregian Beach. Perhaps you might like to put the shell to your ear through your headphones or lie on the grass with a speaker. In and out, woven sound, one is the image of the other.
Recorded between February and May 2019 at Woodburn Laboratory and Kindling House, Brisbane, Australia.
released June 19, 2019
They speak of their genre as neanderthal pulsewave. This phrase well captures the sensibility, important to process thinking (see above and below) that what is most needed in our time is a recovery of the deeply ancient (neanderthal) and the profoundly futuristic (pulsewave)
Here is what they say about Cradle of the Horizon.
"This work follows the thread of two live Brisbane performances in late 2018 that explored the acoustic properties of disparate performance spaces: one indoor at Milani Gallery in response to the gentle hues of large scale paintings by Rosslynd Piggott in her exhibition Rose, Rose and a Shadow of Violet; and the other outdoor in the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens at the Liquid Architecture event Why Listen to Plants?
While the acoustic cocoon of the gallery offered a shell to the ear in which to create interior seas, the garden amphitheatre opened the cage for sounds to take flight. Despite the similar instrumentation and musical narrative of the two improvisations, the sound drew breath from the air around, and the ringing cymbal lived different lives in each location.
This recording is a third iteration of the work and an amalgam of internal/external elements, the sound captured both indoors at our respective home studios and outdoors in locations ranging from Japan to nearby Peregian Beach. Perhaps you might like to put the shell to your ear through your headphones or lie on the grass with a speaker. In and out, woven sound, one is the image of the other.
Recorded between February and May 2019 at Woodburn Laboratory and Kindling House, Brisbane, Australia.
released June 19, 2019
