ID Music: Autumn 2021 Digest
A pure flow of ritualistic melancholy and gratitude
Greetings from the low-rolling plains of East Central Indiana,
This update is overdue as I’m still figuring out what a “newsletter” actually is. I’ve been using Substack like a blog, because I liked blogs, and because I’m still trying to get my head around the idea that writers and readers are migrating to a platform that is basically a direct mail blog?
With that in mind, I’m absolutely delighted that so many people have signed up. Connection is the first priority, but paid subscriptions are also very much appreciated! We are grateful for your contributions to our expanding Bandcamp library.
Thank you.
Inter-Dimensional Music airs on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays on 99.1FM WQRT Indianapolis. You can find us on the West Coast of Texas each Sunday on Marfa Public Radio. And our broadcast surfaces randomly across Southern California on LOOKOUT FM. The online archive is updated on Tuesday or Wednesday.
There will be more to come in 2022 when I finally start using Substack as a newsletter rather than posting things without notification (i.e. blogging). In the meantime, here are a few items you may have missed:
ID Music: Rituales de lo Habitual
A four-part series of programs loosely based on my annual essay for Aquarium Drunkard where I use music as a way to proselytize about Zen. In this case, it’s about appreciating ritual and devotional practices without understanding, and the direct experience of unfamiliar culture, whether it’s a first encounter with Buddhist chanting, or a first listen to the mournful devotional wilderness hymns of Timber Rattle. Readings from Zen Master Seung Sahn’s Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake throughout.
Aquarium Drunkard: Cosmic Chambo presents Rituales de lo Habitual
The first installment in the series is the most direct audio companion to the essay. It begins and ends with Kwan Seum Bosal chanting from the Kwan Um School of Zen. In between, heavy “tribal” sludge metal, proto-Buddhist drone, vintage Southern California industrial light and magick, ecstatic dance, and a heavyweight vocal raga. Plus a lot of death metal. This program originally aired as part of the September 2021 Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard session on dublab.com.
Inter-Dimensional Music 20210917
stream | download | instrumental
Deconstruction, critique, simulation, tribute, and/or outright appropriation of ritual and devotional practices. RIYL approximations of Hindu, Shia, and yoga music, James Ferraro, UFO cults. Continue reading.
Inter-Dimensional Music 20210924
stream | download | instrumental
Our casual survey of amorphously devotional music and psychedelic rituals continues with spiritual jazz "crafted with the full intention to awaken those who hear it,” live Nyabinghi rhythms, countrified drone-folk, and an ambient edit of long-form doom metal. Continue reading.
Inter-Dimensional Music 20211008
An appropriation of ritualistic death metal’s morbid, grotesque aesthetics as a crepuscular yin to ambient music's radiant yang, bookended by some of the most unabashedly peaceful hippie zones we encountered this year. Continue reading.
You’ll also find our annual three-part Autumnal Melancholy series inspired by the legendarily depressing lo-fi black metal of New Zealand forest hermit Striborg. The metal parts from Asunder, Nadja, and Hellish Form are downcast and relatively chill, there’s a lot of Grouper and Grouper-adjacent haze, lovely psychedelic downer folk from friend of the show The Modern Folk along with Flying Canyon and øjeRum; and a surprising number of references to the Cure’s Faith. The poem “They Are Listening” by Gary Snyder helps us keep things in perspective. Start here:
Our two most recent programs – the mostly ambient Pure Flow and a Jerry Garcia-themed Thanksgiving show – are also now available to stream or download.
Thanks for being here.
Bowing deeply,
Daniel “Cosmic Chambo” Buckmaster-Chamberlin
You can support ID Music and Cosmic Chambo by sharing this post, subscribing, and/or purchasing music from the artists we play on our airwaves. Tell them where you heard their sounds if you want to go the extra mile. Listen deep in the Bandcamp library.