In the Summer of 2018, events led me to re-read and study the Tibetan Book of the Dead in a merging of words-on-a-page with real life experience. This is the Dream Between, the interval between death and life ... the prismatic deconstruction and re-construction of consciousness.

Dream Between is a poetic reflection on this time.

Additional album notes (December 8, 2018):

Hello friends, I'm reflecting on my album releases for 2018 and noticing how they've evolved (not in a good or bad way necessarily) both technically and personally. There's a recognizable journey that ends this year with my most current release, Dream Between.

I'd like to share my thoughts on this with you, if you're interested. I always appreciate it when artists open up and share insights on the personal experience behind the music. That's my intent here...

As I see it, Dream Between is my gentlest, least aggressive album so far. I borrow the term *aggression* from the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in his book True Perception. When I first read the book (maybe 6 years ago?) it made significant impact on my relationship with art, and bit by bit, my own neuroses and trips were brought to light. It was difficult to appreciate at first, because we live in such a fast paced, aggressive world to begin with.

The notion of aggression here implies that some kind of ego manipulation is involved. That, as an artist, I'm trying to communicate something *to* you... a specific point is trying to be made, hence the aggression. You could say the artist is laying down a kind of personal trip on the listener. This was difficult for me to see at first, but as I continued to perform music and study these teachings, more continued to be revealed.

Every album I've written since that time has progressively shed more and more of that intentionality I speak of, making space for a natural, non-sticky, uplifted experience.

The production techniques I use reflect this too... there are so many components of the instrument interacting with itself, also live inputs, various looping methods and generative techniques. These differ significantly from traditional performance and compositional methods. The result is that many of these songs are as much a surprise and delight to me as anyone else. I provide the vibrations and a container for the music to take place and the environment naturally communicates back with me... It's a dance between the artist and this complex system, if you will. If you listen with this in mind, you might hear what I'm talking about.

If this sounds interesting to you, I invite you to take a deep listen to Dream Between with headphones and appreciate the goodness and safety of this sound. I'm not going to fill your brain with neurotic patterns and deliberate messages with this sound. I promise it is safe to let go ... and just be, for 42 mins.

May these sounds bring you freedom and peace. With love,
ali

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