This incredible album was unlike pretty much anything else out there at the time and this still holds true. An electronic album, it was awash with a phenomenal mix of song and spoken word samples as well as influences from world music and spirituality.
But the underlying sense of the entire album is one of paradox. There are references to enlightenment and higher thoughts and beliefs while simultaneously referencing the horrors we perpetrate on each other. It was C.G. Jung who said, "The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end."
It speaks to this exact paradox of life with great highs and great lows, that we are spiritual beings having a temporary physical experience. But that realization does not mean that one is exempt from physical reality and whatever suffering that may bring. It is a complicated psychological juxtaposition, one that requires care and attention. And it seems to be particularly timely now which is perhaps why the album flashed through my mind recently. We are certainly living in a paradoxical world with so much attention brought to the inequities and torture so many must endure at the hands of those who are either willfully oblivious or filled with malice. But at the same time, we see so much hope among people who believe in the best of humankind, people who know that things can get better, and are willing to work toward that goal. It is hard to get through a day sometimes, seeing and feeling this overwhelming moment in history.
With that in mind, here are some select tracks from "Flow, river of my soul" by Single Gun Theory.
The opening track, "Transmission" acts as a kind of prologue with the following vocal sample setting up a motif for the reset of the album:
"I give you this for your consideration. The most important factor in any metaphysical exercise is the release of belief systems, boundaries, and fears. All limitations are self-imposed."
"Fall" is a gorgeous track that begins with the quote, "Energy never dies, it just changes form." We also hear a sample from Robert Fripp's legendary track "Exposure" which in turn sampled a talk by author and mystic J.G. Bennett saying "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering," as well as Rod Serling from his television series "The Twilight Zone."
"Energy never dies, it just changes form."
"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering."
The sea calls me to the end of the pier
The sky is clear
So is the ending
The termination
In this moment of realization
I had a vision of a very calming place
Where we fall like lovers into embrace
We fall like mist on mountains
Sensibilities lost
Like meteors from heaven
A stone in water
I had a vision of a very calming place
Where we fall like lovers into embrace
"Energy never dies, it just changes form."
"The time is now."
"I'm going to count from 1 to 3 and when I count the number 3, your feet will be lifted off the ground and you will be pulled by that silver white cord.
1, 2, 3."
I had a vision of a very calming place
Where we fall like lovers into embrace
"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering."
"Energy never dies."
"The time is now."
This next song "The Sea of Core Experience" begins with another great quote:
"I dedicate my life to the mystic law of cause and effect with the vibration in my voice."
"I dedicate my life to the mystic law of cause and effect with the vibration in my voice."
Here above the clouds
My porous body floats
Transcending my thoughts
To essence
Flow, the river of my soul
To the sea of core experience
A thousand million hands are joined
In embrace here
Wind is rushing past my face
And streaming through me
I am rarefied
And abstract
I will come to you
And kiss you in a dream
The still of night
Roaring through me
"Decimated" is where things start to take a turn. It contains a recording of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, recalling what went through his head as he witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945. Air raid sirens can be heard on this track.
A chemical haze falling around me
It's a bright sunset on this day
So decimated
"I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita: 'Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.'"
"Phenomena" plays like the soundtrack to the film "Poltergeist" with a sample of a paranormal investigator narrating some film footage of an alleged metaphysical incident.
The song "Metaphysical" is another supreme juxtaposition with words of rapture occupying the same space as predictions of war and the words of an American military strategist recalling the conditions on the day of the bombing of Hiroshima.
I can feel the rapture of spiritual love
Thank you forces of good
Thank you positivity
Thank you joy
Thank you alive
"As a result of my study in markets and economics I applied...I applied my predictive techniques to the subject of war. I formulated a US war clock. The probabilities are 78% that the US will be involved in a major military confrontation between 1988 and 1992."
"The day was clear..."
Thank you god
Metaphysical love
"The day was clear when we dropped that bomb..."
Thank you god
Metaphysical love
"The Point Beyond Which Something Will Happen" contains a reading of the words of a Hiroshima survivor describing his surroundings ten minutes before the blast.
"You are about to experience it in its reality. In this moment, know yourself, and abide in that state."
I lie down in a river of love
Go to the edge and fall
Plunge to the deep and hold my breath
Braced against the oncoming
I lie down in a river of blood
Go to the edge and die a thousand times
Look to the viscous barrier
I might end, I might heal this night
At the point beyond which something will happen
At the point beyond which something will occur
"The morning was fine. I saw a red dragonfly land on the wall in front of me."
"Thetan" is an elegy, an ode to a departed loved one. Grief is the price we pay for love, another aspect of being here in a body, in this physical reality. The opening sample here comes from the 1991 film "Whore" starring Theresa Russell.
"I must be some use to somebody. I mean, there must be a reason for me, right?"
"1. Consider the probable reality that all time is simultaneous."
Like fallen autumn leaves lying on the ground
I hate to think it's over
It's just that you were so young
And didn't seem to have a chance to make it good
The skies are grey with the loss of you
My heart sighs
It's in the way that I feel
It's in the way that I breathe
It's in the way that I see for you
It's in the way I believe
You are my reprieve
I can't accept
It's over
Like fallen autumn leaves
A morbid wind through barren trees
I hate to think, I hate to think
You were so young
"2. You are the universal consciousness.
3. The pendulum must swim both ways before it is brought to rest in the middle.
4. All limitations are self-imposed.
5. The mind has every potential and all knowledge"
Like fallen autumn leaves lying on the ground
I hate to think it's over
"Consider the probable reality that all time is simultaneous.
You are the universal consciousness, at ease as your consciousness drifts more deeply into the state of all that is."
And if love is a tide
Then it's taking me down to the depths of despair
The album closes with the track "Still Closest to My Heart," the epilogue to the collection's prologue. It is a recording of a translation of the words of Pope John XXIII (1881 – 1963): "My day has ended. My final thought is again for those closest to my heart, multiplied and diffused throughout the world."
http://sgt.com.au/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Gun_Theory
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