Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

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obnoxion
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by obnoxion »

Kenazis wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 2:10 pm Must say I strongly disagree with Dissection been an average band, composition wise (and lyrically) their material are very talented and almost unique I say. I also love Ophthalamia and that band is also one of a kind. How Jon was involved in Ophthalamia? Emil was the second guitarist, that I know.
Old Dissection is objectivelly a great band. Subjectivelly, it just didn't light my fire. I have listened "Storm of the Light's Bane" album dozens of times, and though I liked it, I never loved it. I guess the Swedish melodic death metal type wasn't something that touched me deeply, though I did enjoy it. Dark Tranquillity was great, and their lyrics are very, very skillfuly done. Perhaps their "Away Delight Away" is the best song from this diffuse genre melodic death metal. The one song from Dissection that I loved turned out to be a Tormentor cover, "Elizabeth Bathory".

I don't remember from where I knew Jon was involved in Ophthalamia, but wikipage seems to confirm that he was somehow involved with the vocals under the alias "Shadow". Anyhow, I only owned Ophthalamia's "Via Dolorosa", and that is a masterpiece.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
obnoxion
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by obnoxion »

obnoxion wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 2:42 pm Ophthalamia's "Via Dolorosa"
I have to add that the central theme on the album, spring sacrifice, is surprisingly rare topic in black metal, considering how central it is as an occultist theme. Igor Stavinsky's piece on the same theme is one of my favourites in classical music.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
Kavi
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Kavi »

I thought I wrote about "Voice of the Silence" and meaning of silence but it seems I didn't.
Many musics emphasize the meaning of silence or pause.
Miles Davis, "the icon of cool" played his solos in restricted manner and gave space of silence in the midst of his trumpet.
This idea of omnipresence of silence is in sufi influenced music also present.
Yesterday I read about aahat naad and anahat naad. First one is about physical sounds, the sounds what can be heard and acoustics study them. The latter is metaphysical or spiritual sounds one does not hear. But yogi could hear them during the practice.

Does Blavatsky's work reflect this theme of silence in music too? At least she starts in book with nightingale, bamboo flute and other instruments.
Nightingale is famous for its voice and is usually seen as a influence for singers.
How it is possible for person or occultist to approach this "voice" in different musics?

EDIT:
P. S. If I have understood correctly and guessed things these 5 different levels and sounds which are written in Voice of the Silence reflects the Hindu deities?
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Insanus
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Insanus »

Also worth noting is Alexander Scriabin. Dude was a great crazy russian pianist in the late 1800's, very into theosophy. He created this strange chord he called "the chord of pleroma" that supposedly revealed transcendental truths immediately. Also known as mystic chord.
He also claimed to be a synesthete and composed with colors. His "Prometheus-Poem of Fire" has only recently been played because the colorful lights needed were impossible to do in his own time.

https://youtu.be/V3B7uQ5K0IU
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Polyhymnia »

Insanus wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:51 pm Also worth noting is Alexander Scriabin. Dude was a great crazy russian pianist in the late 1800's, very into theosophy. He created this strange chord he called "the chord of pleroma" that supposedly revealed transcendental truths immediately. Also known as mystic chord.
He also claimed to be a synesthete and composed with colors. His "Prometheus-Poem of Fire" has only recently been played because the colorful lights needed were impossible to do in his own time.

https://youtu.be/V3B7uQ5K0IU
I've never heard of Scriabin. Thank you for the link! I love that this came to fruition. For me it really drives home the point that there's this beautiful thread that is woven throughout time that can be picked up by others.

As for Reinkaos I had avoided it for years because one of my closest friends always had less than kind things to say about it. I think he was mostly talking about the composition of the songs. This past year and some I've really gotten into it, and I think it's a beautifully occult album. I particularly like listening to it when empowering my divine feminine.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Smaragd
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Smaragd »

There’s a synthesizer named after Scriabin: ”ANS”, which uses scratch plates, on which one draws an image. The plates are then put through the synthesizer, which shines light through the scratches on the plates and puts out tones accordingly. Coil went to Russia to play the machine and some of their scratch plates remind me of the map to the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks.
Image
Image
More plate images can be seen here by clicking the cover image: https://www.discogs.com/Coil-ANS/master/464830

The tracks are mostly ambient and droney. And when it comes to drone and Coil, they had this idea of stopping time with music with their other drone album ’Coil Presents Time Machines’. I’ve interpreted it to be a deep listening meditation where ones track of linear time is supposed to be drowned in the drone and the tonal qualitites. There is this kind of manipulation going on on alot of Coils ideas on occult music; one more example being the reproduction of Austion Osman Spares idea of sidereal portraits turned in to sidereal sound. The sidereal portraits were mostly painted in pubs and there’s this witchy vertigo kind of effect when the models are pictured in a slightly skewed way. Coil managed this in the world of sound by all sorts of spatial effects and phasing tricks. Never the less the manipulation doesn’t feel as forced as they could, meaning the ideas work more on a poetic level hinting of the hidden faculties of a humanbeing if followed willingly.

Some of the sidereal portraits from AOS:
Image
Image
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
Kavi
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Kavi »

Was it Eduard Artemiev (composer who made music to Tarkovsky's films) who used this ANS also in some of his music?
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Smaragd
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Smaragd »

Kavi wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 8:06 pm Was it Eduard Artemiev (composer who made music to Tarkovsky's films) who used this ANS also in some of his music?
Foggy memories I've read something like this, yes. Weirdly I don't have almost any recollection of music in Tarkovskys films, only exception being the Solaris retro-futuristic highway scene in the beginning of the film with a synth going in the background, if my memory serves me right even in this detail.
Kavi wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 4:47 pm I thought I wrote about "Voice of the Silence" and meaning of silence but it seems I didn't.
Many musics emphasize the meaning of silence or pause.
Miles Davis, "the icon of cool" played his solos in restricted manner and gave space of silence in the midst of his trumpet.
This idea of omnipresence of silence is in sufi influenced music also present.
Yesterday I read about aahat naad and anahat naad. First one is about physical sounds, the sounds what can be heard and acoustics study them. The latter is metaphysical or spiritual sounds one does not hear. But yogi could hear them during the practice.

Does Blavatsky's work reflect this theme of silence in music too? At least she starts in book with nightingale, bamboo flute and other instruments.
Nightingale is famous for its voice and is usually seen as a influence for singers.
How it is possible for person or occultist to approach this "voice" in different musics?

EDIT:
P. S. If I have understood correctly and guessed things these 5 different levels and sounds which are written in Voice of the Silence reflects the Hindu deities?
I can't say for sure what different people mean with the silence and I've not yet read The Voice of Silence, only bits here and there. The silences and pauses you talked about brought Arvo Pärts music vividly in to my mind. It's similar to the idea of light coming out of darkness, the way Pärts music comes out of the silence and withdraws back again. The metaphor in 'My Heart in the Highland' seems to play well with this thought. The way the darkness and light sort of lean on each other seems to be the key atleast when we observe this in actual music. It doesn't have to be about minimalism, for example groovy funk music definetly plays with the contrast in a joyful manner. To me it almost feels like I've failed in the making of melodies and songs if the relationship of the notes and silences have not found sort of a natural or "definite" way with each other, which happens to me often as I try to organize and strucure the large palette I have on my hands.

I wonder if the practice of hearing spiritual sounds involve actual sounds or are the separation of ahaat naad and anahat naad only demonstrative? To me it seems easier to hear the voice of silence if there is almost no sensory stimulus other than the pain one goes through.

Another Pärt masterpiece emerging from the silence to recover from the power of funk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA79jI9cCBE
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
Kavi
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Kavi »

Smaragd wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 9:25 pm
Kavi wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 8:06 pm Was it Eduard Artemiev (composer who made music to Tarkovsky's films) who used this ANS also in some of his music?
Foggy memories I've read something like this, yes. Weirdly I don't have almost any recollection of music in Tarkovskys films, only exception being the Solaris retro-futuristic highway scene in the beginning of the film with a synth going in the background, if my memory serves me right even in this detail.
Kavi wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 4:47 pm I thought I wrote about "Voice of the Silence" and meaning of silence but it seems I didn't.
Many musics emphasize the meaning of silence or pause.
Miles Davis, "the icon of cool" played his solos in restricted manner and gave space of silence in the midst of his trumpet.
This idea of omnipresence of silence is in sufi influenced music also present.
Yesterday I read about aahat naad and anahat naad. First one is about physical sounds, the sounds what can be heard and acoustics study them. The latter is metaphysical or spiritual sounds one does not hear. But yogi could hear them during the practice.

Does Blavatsky's work reflect this theme of silence in music too? At least she starts in book with nightingale, bamboo flute and other instruments.
Nightingale is famous for its voice and is usually seen as a influence for singers.
How it is possible for person or occultist to approach this "voice" in different musics?

EDIT:
P. S. If I have understood correctly and guessed things these 5 different levels and sounds which are written in Voice of the Silence reflects the Hindu deities?
I can't say for sure what different people mean with the silence and I've not yet read The Voice of Silence, only bits here and there. The silences and pauses you talked about brought Arvo Pärts music vividly in to my mind. It's similar to the idea of light coming out of darkness, the way Pärts music comes out of the silence and withdraws back again. The metaphor in 'My Heart in the Highland' seems to play well with this thought. The way the darkness and light sort of lean on each other seems to be the key atleast when we observe this in actual music. It doesn't have to be about minimalism, for example groovy funk music definetly plays with the contrast in a joyful manner. To me it almost feels like I've failed in the making of melodies and songs if the relationship of the notes and silences have not found sort of a natural or "definite" way with each other, which happens to me often as I try to organize and strucure the large palette I have on my hands.

I wonder if the practice of hearing spiritual sounds involve actual sounds or are the separation of ahaat naad and anahat naad only demonstrative? To me it seems easier to hear the voice of silence if there is almost no sensory stimulus other than the pain one goes through.

Another Pärt masterpiece emerging from the silence to recover from the power of funk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA79jI9cCBE
About darkness and light came another association of Väinämöinen's "syntysanat" and "Logos"... How the whole book of Genesis starts.
Maybe recitating "OM" is this method?
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Smaragd
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Re: Occult Themes in Different Music Genres

Post by Smaragd »

Kavi wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 9:53 pm About darkness and light came another association of Väinämöinen's "syntysanat" and "Logos"... How the whole book of Genesis starts.
Maybe recitating "OM" is this method?
Sounds highly likely. There’s some personal trouble for me to find the silence from the richness and brilliance of the Logos, but there’s some sort of calmness to it that I can relate to the voice of silence in the way I personally perceive it, which is more about the Mother than the Son. I guess this tells me how I still tend to see the Son in more Luciferian way, rather than actual embodied emphasis on Christ or the androgyne Avalokitesvara or the Guanyin where the same bodhisattva as a Mother is underlined (or maybe this is not about time and development, but tells about how the Lucifers fall is about the embodied experience). Hope this makes some sense to you.

When talking about these monumental archs of silence and a voice, it brings me back to the black metal topic. For me one of the most intriguing ideas in the genre has been the wholeness ”necrosound” brings to it. The idea that from the production to playing style and riffs and melodies creates a methaphor of one whole idea – as if a singular primordial ray of light emerging from the darkness. This I perceive in the simple yet powerful records of early Burzum, Darkthrone and Beherit. I guess there’s a vein meant for each of us to suck from in music; for me mixing melodic metal to black metal in the way Dissection does, moves the vision further in to the culture of today rather than being at the source. But, again this might be just my own interpretation. What I mean by culture of today is that I can not anymore listen to melodic (death) metal or music clearly influenced by it, without hearing egoistic showmanship in those type of melodies. In that area I don’t hear the silence between the notes anymore; its as if notes were just placed there half randomly. The images they summon up for me is muscles and guitars, which is in one way a satanic image of otherness to me, but it doesn’t feel too fruitful as a thing of the past, when I myself appreciated more of the technical capabilitites of playing the guitar. Yet there’s some exceptions, that may reveal I’m not quite hitting the nail with these notions; Emperor has some more melodic stuff which summons up much more romantic and even primordial images for me, especially so with the combination of lyrics. Guess I have some problem or coloured vision of the Swedish approach, or its about incorporating melodies in to the riffs themselves and sticking in the ”singular” vision.

I have actually alot of creativity problems with this dualism when working with other than black metal music, as sticking to too much a singular idea often confines good ideas away leaving a music piece somewhat bare and lacking life, while writing riffs the idea drives me for the veins of gold.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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