Chaos in Premonition, article by Robin James

Inspired by the mysteries of the afterlife, Chaos In Premonition takes listeners back to the fantastical realms that Spotted Peccary artists Deborah Martin and Dean De Benedictis built in their first collaboration as Desensitized, the 2020 release Hemispherica Portalis (Portal of 1000 Years). As with that project, Martin and De Benedictis recorded their latest release live in the studio together, forming nine original pieces from edited improvisations with acoustic instrumentation such as clay ocarinas, flutes and Tibetan bowls and a variety of digital and analog synthesizers.

Whether collaborating with other artists or working on her own projects, Deborah Martin has been inspiring listeners with her graceful musical journeys on the Spotted Peccary label since 1994. Often powerfully deep, and occasionally playful and carefree, Deborah’s music is always rich and simply beautiful, offering crystal clear visions and magically compelling voyages through an inner realm of ethereal visions, ancestral legends, and timeless places.

Recording under his own name, as well as the alias “Surface 10”, Southern California based composer and electronic musician Dean De Benedictis has been exploring all corners of the ambient music genre since 1996. Dean’s interest in a variety of styles and cultures enriches the quality of his musical expression as he searches for common threads within the fabric of differing genres, drawing from them a natural sense of emotion, expanse and mystery.

Together as Desensitized, the two artists share a common vision to partake in the sublime retreat of sonic beauty, transitioning between elements of the natural world and auspices of modern technology.

Poetry, and perhaps music too, never needs to explain itself. Can it explain itself? Why should it explain itself!? It just is. Music has many historic traditions, but the art of listening can begin in the world where you are right now. New sounds are being invented, and clocks are ticking, and I merely opine, as one does from time to time. Here are nine tracks, the spirit here is restless and explores or amplifies (distorts?) a wide and changing range of strange clues. The story is layered and complex too. What I find are strange sounds to listen to and that is what I like most. You might say that “odd things to listen to” describes a whole musical genre, but this project is different, it is the strange one in a population of many random contrarians and individualists. The pursuit of music is often playful and imaginative, daring and expositional. This is time spent listening carefully because it is interesting and I want to hear it all, or I might miss something.

What the heck is this sound? (I want more) It is not for exercising to, but it does work as a complex background, in an abstract way. Time is flowing differently sometimes. It is maybe something like experimental jazz or rock or playtime or dance or some time to just quietly sit and listen. There is plenty to listen to. Electronics with harps and flutes and bells and all manner of percussion. Cool sounds. Something to try to focus on as you wait for the daylight.

On the other hand, it does also work as a slow acting soporific, and as a satisfying form of sonic wallpaper. What I hear is a celebration of the individual and a creed of nonconformism, exercising every freedom of choice, giving limitless value to individual dignity, personal love, and creative effort. Perhaps this music is about examining the individual’s knowledge and perception of reality, as well as the individual’s relationship to society, the universe, and God, I am crazy about this, so I am unreliable and hopelessly prejudiced on this matter.What I love are elemental collages exercising granular control of the content, that gets me every time. I want to wonder, is this some kind of a science-fiction thing? Is there a philosophical connection between surrealism in art and existentialism? What would that sound like?

The first track leaves sonic artifacts in an atmosphere of stereo emotions, “Ionic Realms” [Victronomy Plubonius] (4:52) presents two combined musical narratives, wordless stories or amazing ideas; there is a juxtaposition of a complex duality on several levels. The landscape is regal, a slow circle reveals castles and huts. The wanderer is represented by a malfunctioning time machine that brings melting realism.

With bowed metallic shimmers and a harp, eventually the ticking of the clocks, “Abundant Time [Stemiostratamos]” (4:46) delivers mystery and relentless maddening ticking sometimes too close. Using the subconscious as a source of creativity and searching for an underlying epistemological view, perhaps pause to ponder abundant time, the harp is lit by breezes, across a glowing night sky, slowly haunted by ticking from more than one timepiece, mechanical fog fading in and past and out visiting several times. What is constant is the glowing night sky.

I hear a gong rumbling slowly in a distant cave, “Chaos In Premonition [Firestimo Mutato]” (8:54), a melody sparkles then flitters and in places new elements emerge, joyful and fast moving at times, flying in a sunny sky over fields of wildflowers. We might be inches off of the ground or we might be arcing high across the horizon, gentle so gentle, an atmosphere of constant change suspended and contrasting, flutes changing into fire, stimulating dancing cave worms glow red, but are not actually on fire.

There are distant night bugs somewhere out there, “Deep Chasm [Subliminostrum]” (10:40), down in the delicate darkness with lots of layered granular textures suggesting an atmosphere of gloom, caves and tunnels, a cathedral deep below very deep, sounding slowly in the darkness, ultimately creating an atmosphere of peace in gloom.

Now I think that there is a new part of a story here and it is frightening at times, there is a ghost choir very far away and rattles waddle, dry seeds shaking, rattles crunch while dry plant-based chimes ring and ghostly smallish bells tinkle. “Mutations Of The Highest Order [MOTHO]” (8:47) fosters an atmosphere of silence with mild imperfections, metal ringing, signaling? I hear hand percussion rolling slowly in dream time, step by step steady jogging in the wilderness. For a moment a gigantic moth with wings the size of a football field struggles to right itself. I heard it clearly.

We are on a strange journey, right now we are in a very big old magic castle, there is a flute and there are hands keeping a marching beat, following the transverse wind melodics perfectly. “Logic Of Expression [Praetoreum]” (5:39) cultivates a simple continuous hand made beat or pulse, gathering the willing from all quarters, hands walking in a line. Yes it is spooky here.

“Immortals And Their Graves [Sacriligonus]” (7:38) with a flute driven dramatic flourish, whispers deep in the wood chant in fragments, day or night it does not matter, an atmosphere of danger with shadows. The cemetery location is always a constant refuge for the living, where the dead rest, nobody goes there; except for wood spirits, sometimes we remember that we all go below the surface of the Earth. “Crevices In Dark Places [Anexplicora]” (7:12) with night sounds in the wilderness and crickets crunching, I hear a drone melody on an organ that eventually emerges from a dark and gentle and delicate slow moving something. Something is taking form, yes, that is a ghost — I think so. A noisy crack in a distressed void, the atmosphere is all about night bugs. Some other parts of this track are darker with very scary horror music in miniature places, a crepuscular chorus and a haunted tableaux come to life.

For the closing track, “Sleep Of Innocence [Embulata]” (4:52) followers will find the great release, the gentle flow upwards. Does the dream have a false sense of confidence?

Never ask, just accept the gentle release, gentle clouds with voices singing lullaby tones floating in a night rainbow sky, and hidden layers of caliginous kaleidoscopic shadow spirits. It just is strange to listen to.

Existentialism was a form of philosophical inquiry that explored the problem of human pataphysics. Psychic automatism in its pure state is surrealism, dictated by transformative thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern, quipped Breton, back in the day. I personally do not believe that the difference between surrealism and existentialism is that surrealism is an artistic movement and an aesthetic philosophy that aims for the … the juxtaposition of opposites on several levels. Surrealism could have been a celebration of the individual and a creed of nonconformism. What could that sound like?

Some say the existentialists also extolled the individual, and such values as individual dignity, personal love, expressing creativity and exercising freedoms of choice, all that could have been of paramount importance. How are surrealism and existentialism similar? The explanation of poetry, like music, is universal and eternal, never finding the end.

On Hemispherica Portalis, the first from the creative entity calling itself Desensitized, we are faced with unknown possibilities. The sound: electronica and air, changing into new unnamed forms and impressions. It starts with flutes, winds through a vast array of electronic illusions and ends with harps. The sound brings the listener through new territory in the electronic ambient universe, two astonishing artists collaborating on a colossal sonic adventure, a series of creative acts and intellectual contemplation where the “experiencer” and “experienced” argue about the ways in which supernatural agents formed the earth and peopled it, the causation to direct the natural forces to produce various effects, and often inspires at least one ambition of science: to invent an explanation, translating the unknown into the known. However, the constant listener should not make the error of believing. Always question what can be assumed, and most of all, enjoy the show.

These albums of sonic mythology are really different and essential, I think it is best suited for late night listening, when the planet is very quiet. There are so many tiny details and shivers to be experienced. Questions to be pondered, such as, are those myths and legends fanciful stories of something that existed only in the minds of our ancestors, or were they based on true events? How was the earth created? Why do we have night and day? Why do people die? How did the human species arise? There are no lyrics heard in the music, so your thoughts and discoveries are ultimately unlimited.

Music is organized sound, an invisible expression that lights up your inner universe. Here are some new colors and materials. Here are some delicate flavors for your tongue’s ears, moving between different points in time, experiencing products of vivid imagination, whose goals aren’t purely to portray phenomena beyond comprehension, but perhaps they function to assure, encourage, and inspire. In the history of humans it has been said that the world has always existed, or the world did not always exist but was created in some way, or the world previously existed, but in another form, and has somehow been brought into this present moment. Music can provide an atmosphere for thinking new thoughts.

I sometimes wonder if some kinds of music permits the spirits of ancient humans to continue to navigate the seas, explore lost civilizations, examine sacred writings, tour ancient places, investigate ancient discoveries, question mysterious happenings, to ponder creation, divine will, fertility, death, and love — such concepts that are a universal part of many cultures throughout the world. Tales are told and sung, perhaps someone might embellish a detail here, exclude a name there, transpose two incidents, amplify a cryptic part, perhaps sometimes one might give greater motive or justification to an action. The only important question might be, do you like the way it sounds?

Perhaps this one album, Chaos in Premonition, changes everything. Music is organized sound, an invisible expression that lights up your inner universe. Here are some new colors and materials. Here are some delicate flavors for your tongue’s sensitive ears, moving between different points in time, experiencing products of vivid imagination, whose goals aren’t purely to explain phenomena beyond comprehension, but perhaps they also function to assure, encourage, and inspire. In the history of humans it has been said that the world has always existed, or the world did not always exist but was created in some way, or the world previously existed, but in another form, and has somehow been brought into this present moment. Music can provide an atmosphere for thinking new thoughts. On Hemispherica Portalis I hear lots of textures, there are no words except for the song titles. The artists deploy new technologies which create a sonic experience that has never before been considered to be possible. On Chaos in Premonition, a new discovery unfolds.

Chaos in Premonition is an album that invites contradictions and makes peace with them, thanks to the masterful approach of its creators.

Spotted Peccary Music will live stream the album throughout the day on SPMLive: https://linktr.ee/ambientelectronic.tv

Tracklist
1 Ionic Realms [Victronomy Plubonius] 4:52
2 Abundant Time [Stemiostratamos] 4:46
3 Chaos In Premonition [Firestimo Mutato] 8:54
4 Deep Chasm [Subliminostrum] 10:40
5 Mutations Of The Highest Order [MOTHO] 8:47
6 Logic Of Expression [Praetoreum] 5:39
7 Immortals And Their Graves [Sacriligonus] 7:38
8 Crevices In Dark Places [Anexplicora] 7:12
9 Sleep Of Innocence [Embulata] 4:52

Buy/Stream:
Website: https://spottedpeccary.com/shop/chaos-in-premonition/
Bandcamp: https://desensitized-spm.bandcamp.com/album/chaos-in-premonition
Smartlink: https://orcd.co/desensitized-cip

Spotted Peccary Links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spottedpeccary/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpottedPeccary
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spottedpeccary/

Submitted: October 21, 2022

© Copyright 2022 Robin James. All rights reserved.

Originally published at https://www.booksie.com.