Repeat slowly for the duration of each track: “Nothing… nothing… nothing… nothing… nothing… “.

Nothing Mantra Is Love is 49 minutes worth of anxiety-inducing/reducing meditative sounds built from LP run out grooves, sampled cello mellotron harmonic smears, melodic improvisations, and immersion in reverb.

The LP run out grooves are a pulse to focus on and, in effect, form the “beat” of each track. The cello mellotron harmonic smears were constructed using chance to randomly select and combine notes from predetermined pitch sets. This “harmonic” base was then responded to with improvisations on, in chronological order: keyboard (piano), dobro, clarinet (with 8vb effect), and synth (actually winds mellotron with distortion, et cetera). These improvisations are in a style that is imitative of Middle Eastern taksims and Indian alaps.

Several key compositional elements of Nothing Mantra Is Love successively diminish as the album progresses. Specifically, this means that each track is denser in “harmony”, longer in duration, and quicker in tempo than the one that follows it. Track 1 has a duration of 15:25, a pitch set of 25, and a tempo of 45 bpm, whereas track 4 has a duration of 9:07, a pitch set of 7, and a tempo of 33bpm (pitch set applies only to the cello mellotron track, not the melodic improvisation). The overall effect over the course of the album is of music that is quite claustrophobic and intense in the first track but very gradually moves to music that is a little bit less intense and more open by the final track, perhaps producing a positive effect on the listener.

Aside from the taksims and alaps mentioned earlier, there are three other works that were a direct influence here. The overall “suspended” feeling of Nothing Mantra Is Love chimes well with an album that has soothed my mind on many nights: Beyond The Event Horizon (2009) by French “dark ambient” solo act Thibaud Thaunay aka Collapsar (not to be confused with US bass-less math-rock trio, Collapsar). Beyond The Event Horizon conceptually tells the story of passing into a black hole with noise and drone music and, for some reason or other, has brought me some comfort when I needed it. Similarly, it is hoped that Nothing Mantra Is Love has an assuaging effect on its listeners. The two other works are Metamorphosen (1945) by Richard Strauss and Dreaming River (1999) by Anders Hillborg (from 11:10 to 16:30 of the Dreaming River recording on the 2011 CD specifically). My ears hear an enchantingly deep and muddled polyphony when I listen to these pieces and it was that that I tried to recreate, albeit with an aleatoric method, when composing the cello mellotron part.

“Nothing… nothing… nothing… nothing… nothing… “.