The Slumbering Pillar

by Milieu

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	1.	The Slumbering Pillar (00:00:00-01:58:20) 01:58:20
	2.	The Slumbering Pillar (01:58:21-03:56:27) 01:58:07
	3.	The Slumbering Pillar (03:56:28-05:56:17) 01:59:50
	4.	The Slumbering Pillar (05:56:18-07:55:00) 01:58:43
	5.	The Slumbering Pillar (07:55:01-09:52:29) 01:57:29
	6.	The Slumbering Pillar (09:52:30-11:54:54) 02:02:25

about

"I go from bedside to bedside,
I sleep close with the other sleepers each in turn,
I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers."

-Walt Whitman, excerpt from "The Sleepers"

'The Slumbering Pillar' is the fifteenth published release in the Sleepbuilding series, originally broadcast overnight on February 21st, 2023. It consists of two major pentatonic scales playing each of the oscillators in the Buchla 258t dual-oscillator, with sequencing informed by the usual probabilistic/subtractive/Boolean trigger array and multiple Turing machines handling modulation of the scales, all within my R-EW Audioholistics modular system.

This session was chosen for release after throwing the I Ching, and being given direction toward something that halts progress, albeit with the caveat that this only means a decision must be made, that continuing as before is no longer possible, clarifying that any choice made to proceed will be correct and fruitful. 'The Slumbering Pillar' stood out to me from the other sessions, as I considered this - it is the lone session from the backlog of broadcasts that specifically refers to stillness in its title, and the fabric of the sound itself reiterates this, with slow arcs of chordal tones, intermittently lit in the darkness by flickers of illuminated texture. It sounds like a recording of a resting place at the bottom of a sea, except that the waters are warm and convey a sense of the most divine and comfortable sleep I can imagine.

Overall, the Sleepbuilding releases have been designed for a number of different purposes, lending themselves well to several waking, working and resting states, but 'The Slumbering Pillar' somehow feels more inert to me, a truly drowsy and soporific ambient work. Perhaps this is the deeper level awareness of the major pentatonic scales - easily the most recognizable and widely played scale in Western music - and hearing them played in the absolute opposite of melodic composition is what makes the air around the sound seem to slow down.

'The Slumbering Pillar' knows not, cares not. It rests, in the most absolute of all possible rests - musical, physical, philosophical - and the world moves on above and beyond it. Here, time is a worthless bounty of riches, gold and jewels left to rot in the rib cages of sunken ships, allowed to dissolve wastefully as we join in a long contented sigh with the sound waves. The end of all progress, planted like a plinth in the seabed, where making no decision at all, ever again, is the only path left to take.

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YouTube playlist of all Sleepbuilding broadcasts: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbcjgVJRSgeSHy00DZLB8zFFIJbIgcYjo

All prior Sleepbuilding releases to date (all FREE): campsite.bio/oscillog

For more generative ambient music delivered to your inbox automatically each month, please consider subscribing to my Vibratelepathos series: vibratelepathos.bandcamp.com

credits

released August 29, 2023

W/P by Brian Grainger. Generated and broadcast live from White Pillar on February 21st 2023, using the R-EW Audioholistics modular system. Mastered by The Analog Botanist, August 2023. Text by Brian. Poetry excerpt by Walt Whitman. Design by ABM&D using visual sampling of 'Elementary Games' by Frantisek Kupka, ca. 1932. This is Milieu Music number MMD087. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2023. All nights preserved.

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Milieu Dayton, Ohio

Psychedelic electronic music, sun-warmed analog ambient and sci-fi braindance, for cats, aliens and epicureans alike.

I also release music as Coppice Halifax: coppicehalifax.bandcamp.com

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