For the last five years, I’ve been interleaving mental health and multimedia, art and academia, to speak about the mind. It's a special kind of paradox, since the mind is so much more than words, and this is why we have art and music to help it be seen and heard. To celebrate Tide me over’s five year anniversary (and my birthday) I am releasing EWA: Energy with Agency, my third solo release and first full-length instrumental album.
EWA: Energy with Agency serves to symbolise the psyche’s deeper sense of Self, a non-linguistic creature, or Id, that forms the wealth of our everyday experience, yet it remains unconscious in its ever-persistent appearance. Find a way to get beyond the language in which you’re ensnared and you will meet a being much greater than words can share.
“When you observe the world, you see people; you see houses; you see the sky; you see tangible objects. But when you observe yourself within, you see moving images, a world of images generally known as fantasies.”
- Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 22.
EWA is a derivative of Eve, an English name drawn from the Latin Eva, sprung from the Hebrew word, ‘chava’, which means life itself. All beings are Energy with Agency, life imbued with motive and meaning over eons on earth. As feeling and thinking beings, humans have a special relationship to our own agency, since we remain a mystery unto ourselves even in the very act of living. Devoting any time to uncovering our inner psyche gives rise to a being that stretches far beyond the scope of rationality.
“Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.”
- Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 33.
EWA: Energy with Agency (Instrumental) is unique because it is performed exclusively on a Novation Launchpad with no sequencing or automation. Two separate sample sessions are interleaved into a stunning set of sounds, with magic made in how they're all inextricably bound. The live synthesis of these fragments into a set of songs serves as a metaphor for the mind and its temporal bonds as I play in the pocket of my own delay. The end result is an unbelievable audio-visual display.
EWA has a 40 minute run-time, including two separate songs: Energy (20 minutes) and Agency (20 minutes). They are supported by a dynamic visual Rorschach which shifts in shape for the album's duration, a swirling hypnotic projection made for enticing non-linguistic communication.
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EWA is written, recorded, performed and produced by Werner Breedt in Pretoria, South Africa.
Mixing and mastering by Herman Breedt in Cape Town, South Africa.
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EWA: Energy with Agency (Instrumental) - 40:20
Energy: 20:10 - Agency: 20:10