Years in the making, the Soundtrack to Postcards from Babylon brings the project into a new dimension, at a time when many of the themes of PfB have intensified and grown in mainstream awareness. Weaving together Alex Forster’s evocative music and Christian de Sousa’s spoken-word renditions of texts drawn from the book, the album takes us on a visceral journey through the physical and virtual landscapes of capitalist civilisation, searching for understanding, change and liberation.
Becoming the Birdsong
The Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi gives a playful teaching on meditating with sound as a pathway into deeper conscious connection of being.
The Ocean Within
Deep-beat lyrical meditations on the how the inner worlds relate to the outer – from two seminal figures in hip-hop…
[Dispatch posted by the Bureau for Agent G in the field]
.
A Room Full of Two Hundred Friends
Clubbing and dance music have always ridden the edges between catalysing liberation and commercialising escapism, existing in a kind of subcultural tug-of-war between soul and money. 2014 was a bad year for quality clubs, with a number of legendary venues across Europe closing and others being squeezed by gentrification and property speculation.
Adam Bychawski explores the issues currently facing clubbing communities while Ade Fakile and Sam Shepherd reminisce about the unique experience that was the recently closed Plastic People.
Post-Colonial Streets: Carnival in London
The annual Notting Hill Carnival in London has spanned the full spectrum of the post-colonial experience, from multicultural street parties to race riots and back again.
Josy Forsdike takes a photographic review of the early days >>
.
Make Your Transition
The PfB Sound Blog and Soundcloud page are in development. We’ll be presenting a curated flow of DJ mixes and original productions, all produced or offered as musical responses to the PfB invitation: “What’s going on out there? What’s your journey? And how can we be free?”
While you’re waiting, check out Polarone’s ‘medicine wave’ for deep listening and embodied journeying. Make a a little space to move, turn the lights down and the sound up, and see what happens…
Posted in
Tagged with: Babylon, Freedom, Healing, Music, Techno, Transformation, Transition
From: Sound
Tagged with: Babylon, Freedom, Healing, Music, Techno, Transformation, Transition
From: Sound
Shamanism and the Transformative Power of Drum Meditation
All around the world, indigenous and traditional cultures have used rhythm as both the catalyst and container for the transformation of consciousness. Introduction to shamanism and the power of the drum by Gary McGee.Read >>
“It’s Always a Spiritual Thing…”
“It’s always a spiritual thing…” – DJ Deep speaking about Techno, the genre he has embraced after many years as a respected figure playing and producing soulful deep house.
Take a nocturnal journey into a Parisian warehouse rave with this deep, driving live mix from the underground…
TranceFusions
Many western electronic music-makers creating deeper, rhythm-based music have sought to connect and work with indigenous musical traditions that share a focus for trance states and spiritual awareness.
This meeting of Morrocan Gnawa musicians and Ambient & Techno music-makers brings a sometimes harmonious, sometimes uneasy, sonic dialogue between the ancient and the modern. 21st-century cultural evolution explored through sound:
Listen & watch Biosphere playing with Maalem Mohamed Kouyou >>
Read the overview & see the other sessions >>
.
Posted in Sound
Tagged with: Electronic Music, Globalisation, Gnawa, Indigenous Culture, Spiritual Practice, Trance
From: Stream
Tagged with: Electronic Music, Globalisation, Gnawa, Indigenous Culture, Spiritual Practice, Trance
From: Stream
Chant Down Babylon
Sending out the rootical sounds of the Burning Spear to launch the PfB Stream…
