THE LOUNGE
Welcome to my lounge—a virtual space where I offer my work curated within an evolving project. It provides a glimpse into my process, and gives the music more context and thematic resonance. There's a work-in-progress aspect, in that I gradually add things, but might also alter things, swap things around, bring in sub-themes, or take things out as I shape the project.
At some point, I will decide that it's done. Then I'll release the music as an album on streaming sites and start a new project, with a new theme.
Exist with uncertainty
This is my first Lewis Harrison project. It's all about musically processing the insoluble problem of how most of existence is unknowable—how we human beings evolved to function and perceive in limited ways. Even dogs can hear frequencies we can't. Physics suggests that there may be many more dimensions. Our sense of what is, or indeed our agreed hallucination of it, is something constructed by our limited senses and mental abilities.
Music seems to communicate from deeper wells of intelligence than reflective thoughts, deeper reservoirs of feeling than reactive emotions. It can approach even the most paradoxical of life's conundrums with a kind of fearless examination and bring relief.
Leaning into you
This piece describes a particular feeling... When you find someone who really gets you with all your quirks and foibles, that’s precious beyond anything. Some of us might have felt rejected or ignored even by those whose job it is to protect us. And we all carry something of that vulnerability.
If we have the extreme good fortune to find a rhythm with another human being that flows with ours, when the harmonies settle naturally, then it’s so good to lean into that love, to feel that acceptance and let it exist, supporting us, without analysis or question—just wonder.
The poem below, points to the place that the music inhabits and expresses as pure feeling.
You weren’t created by me, obviously
As I’m not nature—only a small part of this great dance
And the steps I know have often felt at odds
With those on my left and right
So when you appeared in front of me
And moved in
Ways that I already knew
Even if I’d never seen anything like you
Before in my life
So that that our dance was not forced
Or rehearsed or contrived to look right
It just was—such unfamiliar familiarity
And in stillness, even in the dark
I see you and am seen
And can allow myself to lean
Into you
The piano flows in very natural-sounding waves of 7-beats to a bar. An irregularity that doesn't jar. The cajon has a delicate skip. Overall the feeling is a kind of wonder that this is even possible. The music tells the details...
Let it come
Thinking about the future would cause me great anxiety growing up. The world felt very big and scary. I can only imagine how big and scary it must feel for people growing up in today's world. Never has there been a more precarious feeling about the future that's coming.
We try to predict the future, to control it, to ensure that we will be able to survive. Ultimately, we won't. And that can seem like such a dark inevitability. But I've often come across the idea that we only experience what we can bear. If it is truly unbearable, then we'll slip into unconsciousness.
Trying to make everything comfortable and secure can actually be a powerful cause of anxiety. The ego's search for comfort is a bottomless pit of suffering—it can make us like that princess with that pea. Instead, if we let go of control, we discover that we can ride the waves of life as they ripple and flow ever onwards.
In that spirit, perhaps we can allow the future to arrive naturally—as if we had any choice in the matter. And with courage and compassion, whatever happens, we can ride the waves of life without fear.
The vocal and the lyrics tell offer a kind of bald reassurance. Perhaps there's a thrill in acceptance, in throwing ouselves upong the mercy of inevitable, flowing time...
The piano has a certain cold, hypnotic vibe but the groove, held by the cajon, generates a story and lyricism and warmth come into the message, offering solace.