1. Silversun Pickups | Busy Bees
I have loved Silversun Pickups for a while now. There is not a single piece from them that I do not get into fully. This particular song, Busy Bees, off of their freshly released album Neck Of The Woods is a recent favourite. I have always adored Euphoric melodies above all else and this is something SSPU excel at without fail. Brian Aubert's singing style has been a huge inspiration to me. He has this incredibly well balanced Androgynous voice where you are hard pressed to determine whether he is a Male or Female singer. In fact it makes me forget entirely that he is even Human and rather sounds like he comes from another world. Few people are capable of pulling off Androgyny so well in singing but Brian's vocals never cease to impress something within me. Busy Bees shows off Brian's vocal range impeccably and he just soars. The lyrics are also incredibly meaningful and well written as always is the case from SSPU. I dream of being able to sing like this. That this level of Sparingness can come from humans is a testament to just what energy we all possess within. The Ecstatic harmonies are a constant accompaniment during journeys in the car when I am on my own going somewhere or returning home when it is dark out in the country and there is no light around other than my headlights on the road and the stars above.
2. ÆGES | Southern Comfort
ÆGES is a new band on my radar but I instantly felt their vibrations while enjoying their first album called The Bridge which was released recently. I enjoy all forms of Heavy Music, Metal and Punk forms in particular, especially when there is any form of Euphoric or Melancholic melody involved. ÆGES do this extremely well like a combination of Deftones and ISIS, who, synchronously enough, announced their forming of a new band called Palms just as I was sharing this song, Southern Comfort, amongst friends online. There is something to the contrast of intense distorted harmonies combined with clean Euphoric vocal melodies which I find Endlessly Resonant. The same goes for vocals when they are screamed/yelled/growled and are still very much Melodic. It is again one of those things which not too many a being can do well but when it is done well it is done amazingly so. When I really feel it, it feels like an arm made of Iridescent, Vibrant, Mist shooting into me and jarring my heart into a new kind of Motion.
3. Hysterese | Vogue
This piece off of Hysterese's self titled debut album has been on repeat for a long time with me since I discovered them Serendipitously via an underground Punk blog (a very good way to discover Music, just collect underground blogs and listen to absolutely everything, all the demo releases you can get yours ears and heart into. Dig and never stop digging!). Again the euphoria here is contrasted with brilliantly balanced Heavy elements. There is a totally Fresh and Open feeling that echoes through me when hearing this song in particular although the entire album is superb. It reminds me of similar feelings experienced while listening to Descendents albums. There is an air of I am who I am and you can fuck right off if that isn't okay with you which is the only way I would ever live. This breed of music shall always hold True in many beating hearts. It brings people together, the World over, as it was always intended to. It lets people know it is always okay to be who they are without bending over backwards to fit into a prescribed image of how someone should be in Life. The multiverse is based upon Creativity and Creation (not in the biblical sense). If you can't create yourself constantly, then you are the product of the creation of others. Free Will allows you to choose between being someone you are not and Being Yourself Purely. There are consequences for either. When you are who you truly are you don't have to worry about facing the pain of a multitude of layers of aetheric skin cracking and peeling off of you until you get that you are you and not someone else. This music straight up sand-blasts any remnants of those layers away.
4. Meshuggah | The Demon's Name Is Surveillance
This piece (nay, the entirety of the album Koloss) is Unrestricted Driving Intensity. A rain of fizzing White Light shards that is absorbed with Abandon. There is sometimes this preconception that people who are in touch with the Consciousness aspects of Reality are all Light and Fluffy; that preconception is entirely incorrect. There is an immense amount of Highly Consciousness Influenced Music, and Consciousness Connected Music, which is extremely intense. Fluffy and Pretty has it's place, don't get me wrong, but I love the extremely intense and energetic side of of Consciousness as much as its Gentler angles. Meshuggah's music is a picture perfect of the very is-ness that is the Multiverse. It takes the unperceived intensity of an infinity of Raw and Pure Consciousness data/energy and distills it into a straight-to-the-core injection of Heavy audible bliss. When I put this music on the system it has a calming effect on me as much as it also boosts my energy. It is the experience of floating in the centre of a hurricane where you are able to perceive the Tumult all around you but in your space you experience absolute Stillness and Clarity.
5. Light Bearer | Prelapsus
I am constantly floored by what Light Bearer does. It is more perfection of the contrast between Gentle and extremely Heavy. The perfection of Imperfection. There is a certain epicness to their songs which is enormously Uplifting and Soul Fulfilling. Prelapsus is my favourite piece from their first album Lapsus due to the heart enlarging clean/soaring vocals towards the end of the song as it climaxes and blossoms. Their songwriting and lyrics are beyond impeccable and tell of incredible but relatable stories. This is music that tastes of the glitter of Consciousness itself to me. It sounds much like the music I experience in Dream Reamls on occasion. I often find myself in lengthy, out-of-time, lucid dreams elsewhere in the Multiverse, singing in such similar ways to the ending passages in this song and it is the most fulfilling feeling. A feeling that is truly only able to be communicated directly through Music.
6. Deftones | Minerva
Every now and again this song finds its way back onto repeat and vibrates my entirety. It is the utter sense of floating at the Edge of Everything, where Sunrise and Sunset meet. The energetic intensity, Destructiveness and Grace of a Coronal Mass Ejection from a star while standing on the edge of a cliff with endless ultraviolet oceans below, eyes open, hair suddenly moved by a wind blowing through you rather than at you. The whole of Deftones' catalogue has, much like Silversun Pickups, accompanied me during time spent on the road losing track of everything for an hour or two, defeating Time and creating Eternities. This speaks to the Effectiveness of Music to not only communicate but to be a gateway and bridge to realms of no-Time impregnated into this realm we call foolishly Reality. But you should really be watching the road while you are driving, Jes… Of course, and the pregnant Immensity does not take away from that. Somehow while music of such Connective nature is being experienced the body can still perform practical tasks.
7. Nine Inch Nails | Right Where It Belongs
A song which speaks to Contrast and Illusion itself. I never tire of it much like I never tire of NIN and all of Trent Reznor's productions. Music can still be genuine when it is also popular. This goes to show that a lot of beings can relate to what is being communicated even if they do not fully realize what it is they are really feeling and understanding at deeper levels. "What if you could look right through the cracks? Would you find yourself afraid to see?... Never a more apropos lyric for 2012 when the whole World is beginning to need so desperately to know Truth of all sorts. It's funny, as in Curious and Questionable, when you tell someone the truth because it is what they want and need but they then cannot digest it and pass it off as Untrue. People can be strange like that but at this time I'm feeling that the need to Know is beginning to trump the desire to be blind out of Fear. There is much to be known and much wisdom to be gained from learning such knowledge. Everything always reaches Equilibrium no matter what. When something is suppressed, like a bottle of air being dragged to the bottom of the ocean, its desire to reach Equilibrium, To Surface, To Be Known, is amplified by many magnitudes. The longer a critical lie is clung to, the more intense its peeling away shall be. This song brings about these thoughts within me in a most direct fashion. What if all the world you used to know is an elaborate dream?
8. Burial | Forgive
The very first piece I heard when Burial's music was shared with me by a friend. I felt resonance with it immediately, if not even experienced pre-echoes to the impact it would have upon first listen. Musically it is very simple, a repeating phrase draped in the textures of a fading morning dream experience. The echo of something loving being whispered in your ear almost quiet enough to be Pure Silence but still audible. Simplicity is what breeds Intricacy. You need not look very far to see fractals in Nature, in all of Reality, in all of the dream… To know that this is the case. A repeating motif such as Forgive is in itself Forgiving. It is much like the scent of Spring blossoms in the black warmth of Night while walking nowhere. Such a brief exposure to the vibrational construct of Forgive was enough to alter my life more than the usual piece of Music would do so. I recognized it although I had never heard it aurally before. It feels as if it were bright directly from expanded realms into this one. It is certainly one of the few pieces of Music which can cause everything to cease motion around me and simply listen to it. The voice from the other side of the wall letting you know that it is there and that you can be alone together.
9. Grouper | Close Cloak
Just as immense an experience for me as Burial's Forgive. This piece also causes the World to freeze over and be covered in a valance of Spectral Dust in Endless Suspension. Much like Forgive, Close Cloak feels as if it is injected directly into this realm from further expanded realms. The same feeling that I had heard it before also accompanied it upon my first listen a few years ago. It has such a staggering effect on me that if I let it play on repeat enough, my vision will almost disappear and I will be transported into daydream somehow still performing tasks, although I find that whenever this piece is on I am never doing much and I go out of my way to stop doing anything just to listen to it and let it in. It is like someone coming to your door to give you an envelope which contains a message you had been expecting for a very long time although you hadn't yet known the contents of that message, more felt it. You open the envelope and it is there, a glowing orb of pure White Light. You drop the envelope and suddenly you become that orb of light and there is absolutely nothing else. It is the state of being Completely Alone and not needing to feel the presence of anything else at all because there is nothing else you need. Nothing else that could possibly amplify your being in this state.
10. Sleep | Dopesmoker
For this one you shall need to experience it yourself. If there were ever slabs of Music so Heavy that they could nullify Time and bring about Singularity on their own, this most certainly would be one of them. Don't forget to breathe.
