Atmospheres: Contemplative Dark Ambient (Chthonic Cathedral Project Playlist)

Editor's Note: Though this much-requested series of playlists-with-liner-notes for the Chthonic Cathedral Project was built with the long term in mind, it has been "homeless" for quite awhile. All my playlists had to be rebuilt over and over again due to platforms shutting down without warning. For a long time they were hosted on Playmoss (a site I once loved), and most recently they were hosted on bndcmpr dot co, until that too went away.

The Substack version (published 18 Dec 2019) is the only one that has remained intact until now.

I'd love to include a link to the full playlist so you could just hit play and listen continuously. That's how it's meant to be heard. But in solidarity with musicians, I've always refused to put my playlists on Spotify. I've never even had an account there.

(Side note: of course it's water under the bridge now, but still, I can't help but wonder what my creative life on the internet might've been like today if I hadn't been forced to rebuild all my digital nesting spaces from the ground up so many times over the past 25 years. What a waste of valuable human time and attention).

I've cleaned up and imported the rest of the public playlists from Substack too:

• The Inward Eye

• In Sorrow

• No Light In Sight

• Haunted From the Depths

• The Void

• Blood of the Earth

I've removed all the dead links, but left the track names (and my amateur Photoshopped images) intact. This image even has a watermark for "Black Stone Abbey," which was a short-lived version of our name.

Here's hoping the Dark Forest will serve as their long-term sustainable home going forward.

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Tracklist#

1. Alphaxone - Road to Nowhere

2. FoetusDreams - Continuum

3. Skadi - Libertas

4. Altarmang - Saiph

5. Mount Shrine - Forest Wanderer

6. Irezumi - Untitled 6

7. Stephen Parsick - Creation

8. Visions - Temples

9. Audela - Lèvres Voilées

10. Creation VI - Triads (Field One)

11. Phelios - Stasis Device

12. Tim Six - LËD

13. Retribution Body - Release

(Total time: 2 hr 37 min)

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Liner Notes#

"The only way to get rid of misconceptions about contemplation is to experience it. One who does not actually know…the nature of this breakthrough and this awakening to a new level of reality cannot help being misled by most of the things that are said about it. For contemplation cannot be taught. It cannot even be clearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized…there really is no adequate psychology of contemplation. To describe "reactions" and "feelings" is to situate contemplation where it is not to be found…"

~ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 6

For many of us, the word contemplation carries associations of thoughtful dreaminess, introspection, or reflective moods. Yet the capacity for contemplation rests deeper than the capacities for thought and emotion. Contemplative practice arises through deep listening and attentive presence. Welcome to the zone of deep listening: thirteen carefully selected atmospheric dark ambient tracks to hone your capacity to listen not just with the ears, but with the heart, the soul, and the subtle body. As R. Murray Schafer writes in The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World:

"Through the practice of contemplation, little by little, the muscles and the mind relax and the whole body opens out to become an ear."

In a cultural milieu that over-emphasizes the kind of understanding gained through rigorous exercise of the intellect and conscious mind, I welcome the phenomenological approach of music-based contemplative practice, for it is rooted in direct visceral experience. Low-frequency drones possess uncanny power to bypass my normal intellectual defenses, tapping into forces lurking far beneath waking awareness, and opening pathways for music to speak directly into the flesh, cells, and bone marrow.

Inspired by the work of the Norwegian educator and therapist Olav Skille, whose work studies the beneficial effects of sound waves in the 30hz-120hz range when transmitted through a vibroacoustic device, I've been using this playlist to help me envision and design my own do-it-yourself interior space for vibroacoustics. To cultivate a more spacious and meditative capacity of engaged attention rather than the much-vaunted attention of the intellect, I find low-frequency drones serve as an extraordinarily effective method of "training" the listening muscles that extend beyond my ears.

The last track - "Release," recorded at a 43-minute live performance in a church (also on video) by Matthew Azevedo of Retribution Body - gives me a whole new level of appreciation for bass, not to mention a desire to experiment with my subwoofer setup. I recommend a good subwoofer and/or headphones for this playlist, especially the last two tracks. (Also note that the tones between the 15-17 minute mark of "Release" can be slightly startling if you tend to sink into meditative states easily, so you may want to prepare yourself.)

When putting together a playlist focused on contemplative atmospheres, I favor musical selections that convey an unassuming quietude and everyday wonder. Perhaps you've heard about the trend of "productivity playlists" featuring instrumental music to help employees focus at work? I consider this - the first volume of my Atmospheres series - more like a "non-productivity" playlist. But contemplative non-productivity is not the stagnation or passivity of inertia. It's a patience of beholding. It's an invitation to allow your imagination unfettered freedom to roam. It's a call to continually discover and rediscover the textures of the music, allowing layers of meaning and symbolism to emerge that might otherwise remain obscured.

Settle in, get comfortable, cue up, and enjoy!