Black Hole Zion: November 2019

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Musically Guided Short Meditations


We are doing a series of short and musically guided meditations. This one is targeted towards relaxation and focus while making use of binaural beats. I wrote the music in Pro Tools and created a custom visualization for this using Adobe After Effects. This was originally played live with some explanation from me. The version you are seeing and hearing is just the music and visualizations.



Additionally, here is the livestream where I provided some context and background information. https://www.facebook.com/blackholezion/videos/558412614936115/


We will be doing more of these, so if any of you have questions or requests, feel free to reach out to us.

Mark

Friday, November 8, 2019

Trapped in the Center of an Unstable Loop

"I'm only happy when I am inside of you" doesn't really mean all you think it does. We set aside some time to practice in our friend, Jackie's, studio.  He's a lighting designer and we wanted to get another rehearsal in with our new keyboard played, Stan.  It seemed like a perfect opportunity to practice together and get some video footage.  We didn't really know what to expect, but it ended up turning out nicely.  It was a really cool and disorienting experience.  The strobes and other lights in our face were way more intense than at a typical show when you have a bit of distance between you and the lights.  This was tight and up close.  I think the intensity of all that came through in the performance. You get wound up doing something like that even without a large group of people to play for. 

We ended up doing maybe 3 takes of the song as a band with a couple of cameras, then another take where I used a handheld to get footage of everyone without me in the shot.  I did all the editing, and it was a bit of a challenge to get all the stuff that was lit for a live performance to play well on camera.  This is also the first video we've done with our new lineup, which I am so happy about.

I quote the lyric from the last line of the chorus, but I don't really explain it.  I kind of like things that way, but I realize some of the stuff I say is out there for some.  What I will say for right now is that one of the things I am happy to be inside of is that unstable loop.  That repeating pattern that is quite irregular.  Like a lot of songs on that album, it's kind of tough to talk about too much.  My friend, Steve, has asked why I don't explain a lot of the lyrics.  I plan to finally do some of that soon.  For now, here is the video: