The Living Music List #19: On Mindfulness
Meditating on the transformative power of awareness and how we might harness it to improve our art.
Currently listening to: Thru Her Wisdom Eye by Surya Botofasina & Mia Doi Todd
I was first introduced to Surya Botofasina’s ambient jazz collaborations with their album Subtle Movements (with Nate Mercereau & Carlos Niño) released in January 2024. When André 3000 dropped New Blue Sun, I found more of Botofasina’s influence, as he is credited on most of that record’s tracks (as are Mercereau and Niño). Since those two records, I knew this was a collective I needed to keep a close eye on, and I am once again thrilled at the inviting peacefulness of today’s release Ashram Sun. Listening to this song and others on Ashram Sun are like laying down in a cozy camp surrounded by fellow travellers quietly going about their business and basking in an aura of ease. These tracks sound simultaneously full of certainty and playfulness. They beckon toward my inner child with a gentle smile and all feels safe and right in the world. What more could you want from music?
Reflection
Hello, friend.
How are you feeling right now, here in this present moment?
Are you feeling present reading this, or are your thoughts and eyes already dancing away toward some other stimulus?
Do we exist in the past, the present, the future, or somewhere in a state of constant flux between them all? Being present feels good and right, but is it really so wrong to let our minds wander forward or back?
I promise I won’t turn this reflection into just another lecture from a faceless voice urging you to check on your breathing or beat a mantra to death with your inner monologue. In fact, let’s acknowledge that you’re reading someone else’s words—now is not the time to be a prisoner to the present.
Engaging with any kind of art is an invitation to revisit your past (this is literally called a reflection, for fuck’s sake… by the way, I had to Google if it was “for fuck sake” or “for fuck’s sake,” and also I can’t help but hear that statement in an exasperated British accent without the “for”, but I digress) and to envision possible futures (you can wonder, how is this piece of art changing my perspective, and how will I think, feel, and act once I move on from it?).
Of course, I hope you are present enough to still comprehend these words to arrive at those memories or futures they elicit. The point I’m gleefully rambling toward here is that, in a sense, the substance of this reflection matters less than your ability to receive and make meaning out of it.
Your mind is racing toward several different conclusions, responses, and hallucinations about what the hell any of this might mean to you. You’re seeing things. You’re hearing these words in a voice that isn’t actually mine. My loose ideas are being transformed into emotions and questions and maybe even inspiration for your own reflective writing later on.
Our brains are magnificent, confounding apparatuses (apparati? Do you google words and phrases as much as I do when writing?) that can create realistic illusions of sensation. Recently, a coworker mentioned that their husband was in the military and recalled being trained to better handle cold weather through meditation by imagining the sun’s warmth on your skin. In the 1980s, a study showed that Buddhist monks were able to raise the temperatures in their fingers and toes by up to 17 degress through a kind of meditation called tummo, which translates to inner fire.
You have the power to affect your physical reality without moving a muscle. While you may not be physically moving it, your brain is sort of like a muscle in that it can be trained and strengthened and stretched. It’s going to take some consistent exercise to get to 17-degrees-warmer-extremities-level strength, though.
So, how can we use mindfulness and this reality-altering power of our brains to become better artists?
Maybe it’s as straightforward as training our belief that we have the capability to produce meaningful art. That’s a start, but maybe you already know that—if so, good. You’re an artist who endeavors to make art, so you should. Don’t forget it.
Then maybe the next step is to work on existing in two places at once, across both space and time. Sounds like a bit of a jump, I know, but we established earlier in this ramble that this isn’t actually that difficult to accomplish. Our brains naturally float to the past and future constantly. What would happen if we could focus our mindfulness practice on fully seeing those alternate times and realities while actively creating in the present one? Again, you might already be doing this every time you clack away on your keyboard or spray paint on your canvas. Art is sort of innately this—tapping into those altered, purely mental states of being and channeling the feeling of living them into your chosen act of present expression.
So let’s go one more step further. Let’s meditate on our art’s ability to transform the present state of its receiver. During the process of creation, separate your mind’s eye from your sense of self. Become an observer, a receiver. This is the practice of awareness, and this is the crux of mindful meditation to many practitioners—take a giant step back from your own thoughts and simply observe them without feeling or judgment, as if they were completely separate and objective, neither good nor bad.
Being in a state of awareness seems like the perfect way to edit and finish our art. We can detach from our ownership of it and our protective feelings over it. We can strip away the worries of judgment and value we imagine coming from others when we are appraising it from our own point of view.
Remember, though, that this practice is likely only useful when you feel you have exhausted yourself in the process of making something. Because art is often about pouring out the contents of our soul and rearranging it into something consumable. If we detach too early, we may withhold vital pieces of our very necessary personal bias and judgment and vulnerability.
Once we do feel like we’ve released all we needed to, though, we are ready to step back. Reaching a separate, objective place when viewing something as subjective as a work of art is the ultimate tool in the artist’s toolbox. It’s like having magic spectacles that change our way of seeing it, as if we were first-time viewers. If we can achieve this, maybe we can strengthen the impact of our art on others in a way that our pure self could not on its own. We can affect the realities of others in an increasingly powerful way, making them feel and think and communicate more deeply and more urgently.
TL;DR: Become the unfeeling observer. View the subjective objectively. Transform your art into something more powerful than you could have possibly imagined.
Music Recommendations
Hello again, friend.
Thank you for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed the reflection—and I hope you can take some time today to let your mind wander where it wants, and then come back to your current moment.
Let’s get to today’s music lists. In Ambient, we have a lot of intriguing new releases from major labels in the ambient space like Past Inside the Present, Neotantra, 12k, Room40, and more. In All Genres, we have a new Bon Iver EP, new albums from Joy Oladokun and Kelly Lee Owens, and newly unearthed Roy Hargrove tapes.
Happy listening.
The Living Music List—Ambient
Ashram Sun by Surya Botofasina (album / jazz, field recordings) [Spiritmuse Records / Bandcamp]
Diaphonous by Innesti (album / drone, field recordings) [Past Inside the Present / Bandcamp]
Gems III by Celer (album / drone) [Room40 / Bandcamp]
This Darkness From Which We Cannot Run by Glacis (album / drone, classical) [whitelabrecs / Bandcamp] {note: releases tomorrow, October 19, so still pre-order at time of publishing this list, but some singles are available for listening}
Monumenta by Mardit B. Lleshi (album / electroacoustic, classical) [whitelabrecs / Bandcamp] {also releases October 19}
Bleed by The Necks (album / jazz, experimental) [Northern Spy Records / Bandcamp]
Truth Has No Temperature by Lee Anthony Norris & Árni Grétar (album / drone, electronic) [Neotantra / Bandcamp]
In Our Dreams We Meet by HERE (album / drone, dark ambient) [Neotantra / Bandcamp]
083024.vacantdreams by How Much (album / experimental, noise) [Co-release from Fish Prints, Infinity Dungeon, & Ingrown Records / Bandcamp]
Graveyard by Violet A. Foster (album / drone, dark ambient) [Forest Kids Collective / Bandcamp]
Deep Valley by Seaworthy & Matt Rösner (album / field recording, ambient guitar) [12k / Bandcamp]
HOPE Vol.1 by Petite Victory Collective (album / electronic, experimental [note: not entirely ambient, several tracks are rather upbeat and kinetic]) [Petite Victory Collective / Bandcamp]
skies of night by tom eaton (album / drone) [Independent / Bandcamp]
The Living Music List—All Genres
Note: All of the below projects are available on major streaming services.
SABLE, by Bon Iver (EP / folk)
Dreamstate by Kelly Lee Owens (album / dance)
Dotr by LP Giobbi (album / electronic)
Godspeed by The Blessed Madonna (album / dance)
2024: A Case Study of the Long Term Effects of Young Love by Jaden (EP / R&B/rap)
Observations From a Crowded Room by Joy Oladokun (album / singer/songwriter)
Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me by Porridge Radio (album / alternative)
Glimmer of God by Jean Dawson (album / alternative)
EMOTIONS by CKay (album / Afrobeats)
Tell My Therapist I’m Fine by Bishop Briggs (album / alt rock)
Tension II by Kylie Minogue (album / pop)
Goodbye Horses by ian (album / hip-hop/rap)
Elite Vessel by Lexa Gates (album / hip-hop/rap)
Grande-Terre by Roy Hargrove (album / jazz)
The Space Between Two Notes (feat. The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Per Zanussi & Audun Kleive) by Eyolf Dale (album / crossover jazz)
Find Your Flame by Nubiyan Twist (album / jazz)
Little Big III by Aaron Parks (album / jazz)
Defense by Panda Bear & Cindy Lee (single / alternative)
Escape From Limbo by Yoko Gold (album / R&B/soul)
The Gift of Love by Jennifer Hudson (album / holiday [note: this is a Christmas album, so it slightly pains me to include it now, but it is a new release and is going to HIT when the time comes because it’s Jennifer Hudson!!])
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That’s all for this week’s issue. Thank you for reading. Until next time.
Your friend,
Melted Form
Remember to listen to the hum, buzz, & hiss of the world around you—there is music to be heard there.
Read the previous issue of The Living Music List:
Afterword—Let’s Get In Touch
Are you an artist, a label owner, or a member of the press? Want to share an in-depth feature of your upcoming release, an advertisement, or a guest post for a future Hum, Buzz, & Hiss issue? Get in touch with me at meltedform@gmail.com. As always, I would love to hear and recommend your music, especially if it’s new and ambient/electronic/experimental.
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