Completing a full year of release and starting a brand new year in the middle of this global awakening situation, carries with it a mixed feeling of being lost in the noise and yet merging with the global conscious and actually being heard. I made the release on schedule on the 5th of the month in conjunction with the full moon. For some reason, I could not bring myself to do any of the other things – write a blog post, make social media posts, etc.
It was also smack in the middle of the #blacklivesmatter movement which I support wholeheartedly. We Indians often want to forget that we are #peopleofcolour and this selective amnesia covers the 200 year history where we were systematically oppressed in our own homes. Truth be told, things have not changed much. We have not shaken off the conditioning of those years. We are racist to our own brothers and sisters who live in states other than ours even though they are from our own country. We have some of the most racist people on this side of the planet and tolerance of differences of race, skin, colour, gender, religion, culture, language and political affiliation is very, very low.
And yet, I am not blind to the light that casts this shadow side that I just talked about. We have some of the most conscious, awakened and compassionate people here. We have communities that are willing to give up their mortal bodies to protect others, to protect the environment, We have communities and groups and individuals spreading the light in various ways through work, through meditation, through self-awareness and through simply living a conscious life full of compassion.
Humanity has stepped on to a new level of dysfunction right now and it is not a coincidence. We are approaching the darkness before dawn and it will most likely be our darkest hour and also the hour of our awakening. This level of dysfunction cannot be sustained and it will not be sustained. The mother is providing her own catalysts through extreme weather and people are supplying anger, violence, hate and fear. It will all lead up to a tipping point and we will witness a shift. How this will occur and how much destructive change will occur we are yet to know, but I am humbled by the privilege to witness this, experience this directly and play a role in it.
These words, as I type them out, give me some inkling as to why I did not feel like talking about the release earlier. But this piece is significant in some ways in my journey and deserves to have its story told.
True Sight was originally called Ankh. Not the Egyptian Ankh but the Hindi (Aankh)/Bengali (Aankhi) word for eye. As I polished it up for release, I felt like it needed a better name. The track marks a step in my musical journey, shifting towards better sound design strategies, incorporating glitch style edits in a more subtle manner and getting inspired by the sounds of Enig’matik Records.
It is a calm and serene journey, with hints of anticipation towards the end. It has an overall peaceful energy that was a translation of how I was feeling at that point in my life. I had just entered a major relationship with a wonderful person. We had moved in together into a very nice apartment, which coincidentally was the same apartment I had moved into after leaving my parents’ place for the first time. It was also a time for new beginnings in my career as a media production specialist. I opened a production company after being offered a partnership by a person I had recently met.
None of these things lasted very long. The business partnership was dissolved within a year of inception. The apartment was subsequently changed for a bigger one. And the relationship fell apart in a few years and the apartment then had to be given up.
I am saying all this not with a sense of mourning or loss. That period is long since past. I am simply stating the flux in which we exist and how all things must come to an end one or another. Nothing remains but nothing is really lost. Shpongle got that one spot on. The essence of everything is the immortal unified consciousness, all things arise from and return to it.
Thus this piece was part of a brief interlude in my life. A small yet significant oasis in the journey to self-realisation. As I write this, seven years after the time when I made this music, I am very much a different being than the one who sat down one winter night to transcribe a feeling of joy and bliss and yet a sense of foreboding and anticipation.
I was still using Logic and the Sculpture synth still is a favourite of mine for creating string-based sounds. I wish I had something similar in VST for in my current Ableton based setup. However, life goes on and I have a brand new set of instruments that I am working with right now, including an acoustic guitar that I have started learning. I don’t think I will make music in 2020, This year is more about pivoting, introspection and learning. I am changing my career path from providing services as a media production expert to a brand new handmade art pieces/ functional home-decor maker and seller. In the meantime though, there’s a lot of music that needs to be released. So here’s True Sight, free to download on Bandcamp.