Tag: electronica

A Short History of Light

The Inflatable Hippies just released their newest album, A Short History of Light. Mellow electronica. I’ve belonged to the Inflatable Hippies for years. Can’t remember exactly how long.

I recommend belonging to a band if you don’t already. It’s kind of the musical equivalent of carrying snow chains in your car. Better to have them than not. You never know when it is going to snow.

Please encourage your friends, your Aunt Marge, other relatives, family-members, neighbors, bridge club, former associates in the mafia you once worked for, the local chapter of the Audubon Society, etc., to have a listen. Available on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc.

The Inflatable Hippies are already hard at work on their next album, which is tentatively titled A Short History of Shadow. Point, counter-point, of course.

The album after that one will be largely inspired by Tolkien in order to counteract the pernicious effects of Amazon’s bizarrely deficient Rings of Power series. A whole lot of deprogramming will need to happen because of that series. Feel free to start that brave effort by handing out copies of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, Ursula K. LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea stories, Robin McKinley’s Blue Sword, Jim Butcher’s Aeronaut’s Windlass, George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin stories, and, of course, three humble little books: The Hawk and His Boy, The Shadow at the Gate, and The Wicked Day.

All of these stories fit into the history of light. In different configurations, angles, points of view, sub-categories, spectra. Just as do certain music, sculptures, paintings, architecture, the oak tree, giraffes, lemurs, Neptune, dahlias, gophers (sadly so), sunrises and sunsets. And a whole lot of other stuff, plus all the grains of sand on the every seashore on every landmass on planet Earth.

Inflatable Hippies Music

Writing music is one of my all-time loves. Probably even more so than writing prose. Both mediums answer the creative question, but there’s something almost magical about the existence of music; it contains both meaning and an elusive quality of being. Anyway, my current musical project is a non-existent group called the Inflatable Hippies. I’ve been doing mostly electronica in that guise. The latest tune is called Once Upon A Time. I cut together a series of clips to articulate the fascination of creation and our minute place in the overall narrative of all that is. No singing, only some spoken voice, courtesy of my youngest and me.

I often wonder if we’ll ever reach the stars. Definitely not in my lifetime, but perhaps in generations to come? The history of our own planet has been one of exploration and expansion, and I don’t think that quality has been lost in the human race. Once the technology is there, I’m sure exploration and expansion will continue. It’ll be at great cost to life, just like it was during the ages of the sea explorers, the colonial period, and the westward expansion of the United States, but mankind tends to be up for that sort of thing, despite the prevalence of couch potatoes.

Nightlights the electronica album

I haven’t been creating much of anything these days due to the business of life. However, I have managed to carve out a little time for writing and recording some music. In years gone by, I recorded quite a few albums: folk albums by myself, as well as with an old friend of mine (those were some of the first I ever did), as well as some projects with a rock band in grad school and during my time working in Chicago.

This new album, recorded by my Inflatable Hippies entity, is a departure for me. It’s strictly instrumental and wanders somewhere into the electronica genre, specifically in the chill-out sub-genre. I’m not entirely certain that’s the right term, but I think it is correct. If it isn’t, then let’s just invent it right now.

I don’t consider myself even worthy to muck out the stables for composers like Bach and Beethoven, but everyone on earth–past, present and future–shares a similar trait with those geniuses, and that is the ability to take what already is, whether that be pieces of wood or stone or vegetables or sounds, and then rearrange those into different structures that, because of that rearrangement, have the potential or possibility of acquiring additional beauty. Or merely additional interest.

So, have at it, with whatever items of the universe you find pleasure in rearranging. With me, these days, I like rearranging sounds. The next thing on my to-be-rearranged list are the ingredients for an eggplant involtini recipe. It looks like it will be amazing. Or merely interesting (hopefully not).

Nightlights. Available on Amazon, iTunes, CDBaby, and for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.