The Theories are essays designed as creative and philosophical tools, for people to add their own ideas to and use in positive ways.

I’m looking for a scholarship or academia role which will enable me to write more of these theories via collective academic knowledge. There have been a lot of hits on this page but I need your feedback, as of 03/02/2024 I’ve not received any correspondence regarding this paper. Only when others come to me can these ideas widen and gain more traction if everybody is involved. For there is so much untapped and invaluable knowledge out there in be included, because ultimately this essay has no end…

After some backwards and forwards thinking where I have wanted to charge for access to this work (taken it offline) and then changed my mind a few times (allowed access again), I’ve finally decided this essay should always be freely available. This will be an exception to the subscription only model regarding the other theories I’m writing. This is due to its original intention to encourage people to make art, which ethically and morally overrides any monetary compensation to me in the grand scheme of things. All other essays will be behind a paywall in 2024, this is currently being set up. However, if you find this theory useful I do encourage you to donate to my PayPal, which will allow me to fund writing/research time to expand this paper out into a book.

THE FEEDBACK LOOP THEORY

The Feedback Loop Theory is an essay delving into the meaning of electronic music as an emotional energetic reverb through time. This essay was formed while I was working at Fabric and I noticed that at certain points during a set, the audience and DJ locked together to form what I call a Feedback Loop. The key that fits the lock and opens the door to infinite creations. This means that this particular moment never dies, as it forms creative sparks within the attendees that witness it. The Feedback Loop theory will be published on this website first and will also feature in Super Sharp Shooter. Publishing date: 01.11.2022. This essay is designed as an open source essay for others to add their own thoughts and theories to it after publication.

Please email sarah@sarahginn.co.uk with any of your ideas from reading this essay

Feedback Loop Chapters:

1.     Introduction – Tracks: Turn The Page/The Streets - Walkie Talkie Live/DJ Shadow

2.     What is a Feedback Loop? – Track: Follow Me/Steve Spacek (Skeptical Remix)

3.     DJ Set Length & The Feedback Loop – Length of Set = Permanence of Time via Memory – Tracks: The Wheel/James Holden - Freefall/Pearson Sound

4.     Feedback Loops & Time Wormhole Lassos – Music Freezing & Recalling Time via Memory – Track: Atlas/Bicep & Smalltown Boy/Bronski Beat

5.     Soul Shards (Origin) and Action (The Consequence) & the Feedback Loop – Music Stretching & Expanding Time via Inspiration - Track: Action/Scuba

6.     Emotional Availability & the Feedback Loop – Music Hyper Realising Time via Emotion - Mix: Space Cadet Series/DRS and Luke LSB

7.     Artist Death & the Feedback Loop – Finite Time Forming Creative Supernova’s – Track: Warmer/Trevino

8.     Sampling and the Feedback Loop – Music Exploding Time – Track: Amen, Brother/The Winston’s

9. Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity & The Feedback Loop - Incremental Creative Amplification over Time - Track: Flower/Soul Dhamma (King Britt’s Underwater Garden Dub) - Post Chapter April 2023

10.    Club Spaces & The Feedback Loop – Music Splitting Time (Quantum Physics) – Track: Winged/Overmono

11. Stages & The Feedback Loop – Stages as Vibrational Mirrors (String Theory) – Time Syncing – Track: One Love/The Prodigy

12. The All/Enlightenment/Quantum Field – ‘The SMALL’/String Theory –‘The BIG’ & The Feedback Loop (Music changing inspiration phases over time) Tracks: Changes - Mala/Mind Against - Gravity/Ganzfeld - Objekt/Solar Detroit - Maceo Plex/Heaven & Earth Part 2 - Paul Woolford - Post Chapter January 2024

13. The Feedback Loop & The Night (The Night Time Amplifying Feedback Loops) - Track: Midnight Request Line/Skream - Post Chapter April 2024

14. Individualism VS Collectivism & The Feedback Loop (The Ego VS The Heart) – Track: The KLF/What Time Is Love?

15. Intention VS Attention & The Feedback Loop – Music Creating a Circle of Time – Album: Still Slipping/Joy Orbison

16.  Record Labels & The Feedback Loop – 29 Year Loop of Creative Maturity (the Saturn Return) - Track: Energy (extended mix)/A Guy Called Gerald

17. Music & The Stars (The Feedback Loop as Galactic Chemical Evolution) - Tracks: Look at Stars/SBTRKT & Sampha - Emo CPU/Special Request - Post Chapter Dec 2024

18.  Law of Assumption & The Feedback Loop (Creating Feedback Loops via Positive Assumption/Intention) - Track: You Can Do It/Caribou

19.  The Feedback Loop & Letting Go (The Paradox Of Doing Less to Get More) - Track: So Lonely (Satl Remix)/dBridge - Post Chapter April 2024

20. Conclusion - Track: Pearls Girl/Underworld & Time Becomes/Orbital

1. Introduction - Tracks: Turn The Page/The Streets & Walkie Talkie Live/DJ Shadow

As I’m sitting here writing I’m listening to The Streets, and I’m struck by how a piece of music that is over 20 years old sounds so visceral and timeless. How can this come to be? What is it about music that bends time, freezes time and echoes in time infinitely? 

Over the past few years, I’ve been thinking about a concept, a theory regarding music and its relation to time, energy and human connection. The Feedback Loop. The germ of this idea came to me while I was working at Fabric, my home of ten years. Sometimes, when a DJ plays a set, it creates a buzzing energy loop that transcends the possibility of music into something more profound. There is a synergy between the crowd and the performer. It then creates an emotion that can’t be replicated or repeated where the energy builds and builds. Like the audio feedback loop where sound goes from a mic to a speaker and creates a high-pitched scream, this Feedback Loop relates to electric human emotion building into a crescendo.

‘When you hear something you know, I wanna know, I want to to hear it while I’m up here, because that’s what I feed on alright? I need to know’

DJ Shadow addressing the audience during Walkie Talkie - In Tune & On Time Live album 2001

But it is really a snapshot in time or something more? Or what Cartier Bresson calls a ‘decisive moment’ when we talk about photography. Where the conditions mean a gifted DJ anticipates the moment by surrendering to the Feedback Loop. Rather than capturing the moment with the shutter, the moment is created? What if this moment echoes through time? When I thought more deeply about this, I wrote the following essay, to demonstrate the importance of the Feedback Loop, and why they and music, are truly magic. 

Turn the page....

2. What is a Feedback Loop? Track: Follow Me (Skeptical Remix)/Steve Spacek

‘A feedback loop is a system where some portion or all of the output produced by the system returns as input, effecting the succeeding processes of that system in some way’

Feedback Loop Definition – Laura Fitzgibbons – www.techtarget.com

Feedback Loops occur across our lives, they affect our biology, nature, business practices or psychology, to name a few examples. They are positive or negative and are used to regulate the equilibrium of a system. Below is the positive Feedback Loop of blood clotting. Notice the cascade effect, like the cascade of creative actions.

‘Another example is the process of blood clotting. The loop is initiated when injured tissue releases signal chemicals that activate platelets in the blood. An activated platelet releases chemicals to activate more platelets, causing a rapid cascade and the formation of a blood clot’

Wikipedia Positive Feedback Loop Example

‘If you get the first row into it, it transfers onto the 2nd and the 3rd row and then you’ve got them’

Ed Rush referring to cascade crowd reactions while DJing

In this essay I’ll be referring to how Feedback Loops within music (electronic specifically) make it a magic entity that effects time via its energy. So, you could say that this is generally about positive loops. Positive loops in excess can make a system unstable, which is why Feedback Loop moments are so rare. But this kind of loop intensifies and drives the growth of a system, and if music is a system, this process enables it to expand and flourish.

 System (n)

1610’s -  ‘the whole creation, the universe’

from the Late Latin systema -  ‘an arrangement, system’

from Greek systema -  ‘organized whole, a whole compound of parts’

from the stem of synistanai -  ‘to place together, organize, form in order’

from syn – ‘together’

from root of histanai -  ‘cause to stand’

from PIE root *sta -  ‘to stand, make or be firm’

Etymology Dictionary – etmonline.com

I’ll start with the first place I thought of this theory that I have touched on in the introduction above, for I have watched and heard many sets in my career, and I noticed something. That at certain points everything would come together in a perfect storm. That moment was charged with energy, from the crowd feeding back into the DJ and visa-versa, which created a loop that amplified that moment. I as a photographer, an observer by default, am lucky enough to be able to stop and take this all in. In fact, I watched out for these Feedback Loops, as they were when I shot my best images. I’m a left handed shooter, which means I shoot through my left eye and I can’t see anything outside of that, so I literally had to FEEL that moment coming. As mentioned, I didn’t hear or see a lot of them, but when I talked to various DJ’s, producers, singers, sound engineers, fans etc about this, they all instinctively knew what this moment was. They also all agreed it was a special occurrence, that depended on the circumstances of each element of the rave.

It’s like that scene in Tenet where the Protagonist has inverted bullets explained to him by a female scientist. She says, ‘Don’t try to understand it, feel it’. These moments are the ones we feel. The moments where the hairs on our body stand on end, where the actual atmosphere crackles. It’s like a key that perfectly fits a lock, that opened a portal to the following concepts I’ll set out in the subsequent chapters.

Like Tenet (made by Christopher Nolan, who’s playing with the concept of how we view time, has a huge influence on this essay), I’m going to try and quantify this moment, but also still retain the mystery of the feeling. You don’t have to truly understand or break down what is set out in the essay, the most important thing is identifying when those feelings come to you, so you can harness them for your own creative pursuits. They may be the same as what I’m laying out here, or completely different circumstances. There is no right or wrong with how Feedback Loops come to you within music.

3. DJ Set Length & The Feedback Loop – Length of Set = Permanence of Time via Memory- Track: The Wheel/James Holden & Freefall/Pearson Sound

DJ sets, the fingerprints of their creators, made to make people dance, is where I formulated the Feedback Loop theory. But it’s the length that’s important here, the journey. What if we gave DJs the space the experiment with their skills? What if drum & bass DJs were given 4-hour sets? What would they play, how would the ambience change? Sometimes we need space to create meaning, rather than jamming all our ideas into something at once. But you can only work with what you have, and D&B DJ’s often only have an hour.  Or as I like to call it, the Japanese love motel set. The quickie. Now there is a time and place for a quickie, maybe a festival, but not all the time. So, with that length set, the framework for space isn’t there. I was always impressed about how well the post dubstep world worked in this way, where dubstep collided with techno and the length of the sets was just there to play with. A stellar example of a track with such ‘space’ in this kind of genre is Freefall by the infinitely talented Pearson Sound, which hasn’t left my playlist since it’s release. Can we have post D&B in this way? Do D&B DJ’s have to cross genres to get those long sets? Is that why so many D&B DJ’s flit out of the genre further along into their career and often experiment with techno and house sounds?

In techno and house sets the length of time allows the build, it allows the journey. Under the right conditions it makes a synergy between the crowd and the DJ. Time stops but it doesn’t, it exists in a perpetual state of motion, that is then frozen as a Feedback Loop in the memories of those that witnessed and heard the set. I’ve remembered some of those sets ten years or more down the line, they have inspired me for that long and continue to. I mean imagine me, 14 or so years ago at Sonar, lying on my back having a few cocktails in my own world. But James Holden is playing and I’m listening but not listening if that makes sense. But I realise something, James is building his set and ½ hour in a kick has not been dropped, the same 45 mins later. Something clicks in the atmosphere and people start screaming. But this isn’t drugs, this is the middle of a hot day in Barcelona near Las Ramblas, in 2007 at 2pm in the afternoon. 50 mins in and the kick drops, finally, and the Feedback Loop has been created. I can remember this over a decade later, which leads me to the below analogy.

Longer sets, more time, therefore makes the Feedback Loops of those sets more likely to set or ‘bed in’ the memories of the attendees. That’s not to say Feedback Loops are not created in shorter sets (see post note below) but they have more chance of being created in longer ones.

Post note Nov 2023: As said above, Feedback Loop moments are more likely to bed in with longer sets but to add another personal story, I recently remembered a Duke Dumont set at Creamfields in 2019, prob around 3pm in the afternoon. He opened with his track Redlight Greenlight. And it was literally JUST the horns in that track that created a Feedback Loop moment for me. The sound engineering was so on point at the time, and it was a hot sunny day, that even just that small snippet of sound created a moment I have not forgotten.

The inspirational resonant is more likely to be permanent with a journey led 2-4 hour DJ set due to the ‘habit’ of inspiration being formed, like a repeating musical affirmation in the theory of Law of Attraction. There is enough time for an energy to build to power the loop under those conditions.

‘If you repeat a thought, or say a word over and over again, not once, not twice, but dozens, and hundreds, and thousands of times, do you have an idea of the creative power of that? A thought or a word expressed, expressed and expressed becomes just that - expressed. That is, pushed out. It becomes outwardly realised. It becomes your physical reality.’

Conversation With God - Neale Donald Walsh

4. Feedback Loops & Time Wormhole Lassos – Music Freezing & Recalling Time via Memory - Track: Atlas/Bicep & Smalltown Boy/Bronski Beat

If the length of the DJ set can make a memory ‘bed in’ via the energy of a Feedback Loop, music can also remind us of people and places, specific times and feelings, and like smell, it’s a dart through a wormhole back in time. This can be last week, or many years previously.

 ‘A wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge or Einstein–Rosen wormhole) is a speculative structure linking disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations’

Wikipedia Definition

I was searching through new music recently and one of my friends commented to me ‘You’re finding music to remind you of this period, so when you listen to it in the future it will teleport you back’. 

It occurred to me that we attach songs to so many things and music is like a post it, or an index card to memories that we can refer to. And those can be of anything. It creates an emotional Feedback Loop from the past to the future by which we relive those occasions. Unlike the Feedback Loop DJ set moment that I mentioned previously, the length of the piece of music is inconsequential in this case. The emotional charge from the club moment is instead replaced with the emotional charge from a day-to-day life experience or a specific person.

In discovering music at a certain time in our lives, in a way, we are making a musical anchor we can lasso like a cowboy and capture what we experienced in the past to retrieve further down the line. And we drag that memory through a wormhole to the present day when we listen to the track. Erol Alkan recently referenced this when talking about how he feels listening to old records, whilst preparing to produce Duran Duran’s new LP. He referred to those early EP’s as ‘Old friends’.

These can be intentional by searching for music or purely by accident. The song you heard on the radio when your first child was born (for reference my dad, a radio engineer, had Sara by Fleetwood Mac played when I popped into the world), the track you heard sung by a group of people at the pub last Saturday when you were drunk, the song you cried to when you had a breakup. The most recent one that truly reminds me of a specific point in time is Atlas by Bicep, which was released at the start of the COVID 19 lockdown. I still see empty ghostly streets when I hear it and I don’t think I can ever shake that specific visual memory from my mind.

Once, I was working a day job and I stayed late, and the cleaning lady was listening to a track on the radio, and she was crying. When I asked her why she said it was her dad’s favourite song and that she missed him. It wasn’t really nostalgia, or reminiscing, that seems to be a wider period of indiscriminate experiences -  ‘well the 90’s was crazy etc’. It was an individual emotional link to her father, a direct dart hitting one target back in the past, captured in a Feedback Loop wormhole. When hearing that song on the radio she had lassoed back those individual feelings and memories with immense clarity.

In a real-world example, rather than my hypothesis, you can see this with people who suffer from dementia. In that when familiar music from their youth is played to them, their symptoms are alleviated temporarily. Their cognitive functions improve to the point that they can remember whole dances, words and memories they associate with that music. A very recent and easily viewable demonstration of this is Gen Z kids asking their parents to dance to Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat, starting a viral social media trend of videoing their moves. Every-time I watch one of those posts I see their parents regain their exuberant teens and 20s zest. Seen with the wild, joyful and free movement of their bodies, like it never left them, through the power of a single song. And it NEVER ceases to bring a smile to my face after every single view, of the many films available online in May 2024 and beyond.

It really does seem that solid anchor that music creates to lock in memories seems to be a very powerful. So powerful that it can overcome physical illness with regards to the brain structure, and even resets superficially older bodies back to their prime physical peak. So, in this sense, music freezes and recalls time.

5. Soul Shards (Origin) and Action (The Consequence) & The Feedback Loop –Music Stretching & Expanding Time via Inspiration - Track: Action/Scuba

I’ve been reading a book called I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter and in the earlier chapters It refers the importance of photographs and music, even though they are marks on the page that at first glance don’t mean anything.

 ‘The marks on those sheets of paper are no less than soul-shards, scattered remnants of the shattered soul of Fredderic Chopin, each of those strange geometry of notes has the unique power to bring back to life, inside our brains, some tiny fragment of the external experiences of another human being. His sufferings, his joys, his deepest passions and tensions – and we thereby know, at least in part, what it was like to be a human being, and many people feel intense love for him’

 I Am A Strange Loop – Douglas Hofstadter

It’s best to read this chapter by Hofstadter in its entirety to get his full meaning and this is an excellent book, but it will bend your brain like a pretzel, in a good way of course. Sometimes your brain must twist to see things from another point of view.

So, in following on from Hofstadter’s theory, what is an MP3 or WAV? What is a photo? In this digital world are they just purely 0’s and 1’s in a unique order? But those 0’s and 1’s are like marks on paper that have created meaning to many people. In essence what you creatively express never dies, it just inspires more art onwards into infinity. Your work is your soul shard, the pieces of you that are left behind, and those shards also inspire action in those that have experienced your work. Or in short, a creative reverb throughout time. Feedback Loop’s do not just exist in the live/DJ set arena, they exist in all forms of musical expression. They exist in all forms of art.

For instance, think about this, as a sound engineer/producer/songwriter/performer, what happens when you create a reverb loop (Feedback Loop) like when you record with a space echo? What happens to the sound, what is added to the loop when it layers and repeats? A good example of this is how Seal’s vocals take on an incredible tone and feeling while endlessly repeated in Kiss from a Rose. Or Kirsty Hawkshaw’s vocals on Opus 3’s A Fine Day, sampled to perfection on Orbital’s Halcyon. A more recent example is the addictive quality of Caribou duplicating the same lyric in a large amount of his musical output. If this special resonance is created with sound, can it not form a reproducing inspirational principle through time that has otherworldly qualities too?

How does that reverberate and what is that repetition, it is creative, it is emotional, is it a technical expertise? Do you know that one of your songs creates an echo throughout time when it’s attached to an experience, that one of your fans goes through in their life? Have you thought about the action those fans take after hearing your music? And the Feedback Loops of creation you start by putting your music out into the world?

The same goes for live shows that you perform, and the DJ sets you play. When I write this, I think of Scuba’s track Action, as it seems to be the music equivalent of this thought. So, in this sense, music stretches and expands time via the inspiration/emotional/teaching seeds it plants. In a way creativity is an eternal flame, it is never extinguished. The sparks from creative endeavours just keep lighting more fires.

Arguably I could say my photography does then same, but it’s not as potent as music, it’s not as potent as the emotion contained in a song. It is however a perfect foil to music, the extra depth. I take a lot of shots of crowds now, which enables me to see this in real time, by the reaction to music on people’s faces. The pictorial Feedback Loops.

In leaving behind our soul shards within music, time stretches and expands by allowing the listener to be inspired to form action, and at the same time as experiencing the intricacies of your life. A double flash of magic.

6. Emotional Availability & The Feedback Loop – Music Hyper Realising Time via Emotion - Mix: Space Cadet Series/DRS & Luke LSB

The other day after a lovely night out dancing, I was pondering on why do I dance and why I connect with music so much? It struck me that it was because it was the one place I was in touch with my true self. If your music contains your soul shards, the intricacies of your life, then that music is hyper realised via your emotions and experiences contained within it.

“When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.” 

Paulo Coelho

I’m hyper independent and if I care to admit it here, emotionally unavailable. This isn’t something easy to sit with, because the full bounty of life and love has in ways alluded me due to this unavailability and guardedness. We all become emotionally unavailable at certain times of our lives, due to bereavement, heartbreak, illness etc. But overriding emotional unavailability such as what I have been experiencing is an issue, it stops me from feeling intimacy. Maybe this essay is my vulnerability and the start of tearing that all down? Why does this essay have to crack open my own shortcomings? I mean this is uncomfortable for me! But there you have it, sometimes you’ve got to show your own soft underbelly in this way, so others feel less apprehensive about bearing their own.

But then I thought about the Feedback Loop in relation to this, and if you are emotionally unavailable. Can you make a Feedback Loop that’s authentic? Can you hit it if you can’t feel the intimacy and connection from your audience when you perform? I don’t think you can. You need to have the capacity to feel intimacy to create such conditions. But what if we GAIN intimacy because of our actions within those conditions? What if this is how the loop is created? If we don’t emotionally connect in real life, does it all come out at once when we express our art? Are my images as crazy as they are due to all my emotions coming out at once when I shoot? Is music this visceral because it releases a hyper flow of emotions that have been trapped inside of us? Is this truly why Feedback Loops are created and why they are so powerful?

Maybe we as artists use our art, such as DJing, to connect to our emotions and that is the way we express them? So, we might be emotionally unavailable in certain parts of our lives, but we tap into those emotions when we DJ, when we dance, when we design stages, when we write bars to spit as an MC, when we take photos, when we run labels, or write press releases? Maybe that’s why music is a lifestyle, we need it to be healthy? It’s an emotional outlet as well as a creative one.

Post note 24.08.2023

Emotion when broken down to it’s fundamental meaning stems from the Latin word Movere, which means to move. So if the word emotion actually means the act of energy itself (a moving ‘thing’) then emotion actually means energy in motion (it also stems from Exmovere, which means ‘move out’ of a stirring of something inside of us). Therefore our emotions around music are pretty important.

Let’s take it to another real-world example. I could see this during the pandemic, DJ’s along with everyone else in the music industry, we suffered, emotionally. Not just from the sheer horror of that time, but our creative expression of connecting via music in the traditional sense was cut off. They couldn’t play, I couldn’t shoot, promotors couldn’t book, set builders couldn’t build, people couldn’t dance. We were very sad, all of us. We all questioned our place in the world, it was such a difficult period. Do we all have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in one form or another from that time? Yes, we do.

‘Art creates a profound connection between the artist and the audience. And through that connection, both of them can heal.’

Rick Rubin

It's why as a photographer of music every now and again I do what I call a ‘return to the source’. I find a party, I don’t take my camera, I get ‘inebriated’ sometimes (although that’s not a prerequisite) and just dance the night away, often on my own in a solo rave kind of affair. I find it so important to remember and most importantly feel, why I do this. Last Glastonbury I practically sprinted down to IICON to rave to Pariah and Pangaea, after my last booth stint on Arcadia, taking photos of Camelphat & Patrick Topping; I lost a good 4 hours of my life in music. Not to mention my eyeballs, as I placed myself, maybe wrongly, in front of the new RGB coloured strobes at the front, which are stronger than the sun. Rather like that guy you always see in a club with his head in the speaker (EVERYONE knows that guy), but as I’m a photographer I did that in the visual sense. But afterwards I felt great, like I had danced out all my pent-up emotions like a factory reset. That feeling is the opposite of sad, its contentment and joy. I must admit though, I almost went blind.

All artists should be celebrated for putting their vulnerability out there, as their own creations are a by-product of that. In fact, creativity does not come without vulnerability. That rich flow state we all try to hit when making our art where we just…play, is our vulnerability. Where we are not tied by any rules or self-consciousness. Where we just do and express our emotions. DRS’s Space Cadet series comes to me as I write this, for Del’s words are so much him expressing his openness in its purest form. Which is why we relate with him so well.

Vulnerability (adj)

1600 - Late Latin - ‘To wound’ ‘To maim’ ‘To strike’

www.etymonline.com

Vulnerability is our passion projects, the art we create that we really believe in. It’s where we are authentically ourselves.  Whatever form that art entails. It takes bravery to be this open. It is that openness that creates Feedback Loops to inspire more people down the line to express themselves. Why is it brave? Because vulnerability is seen as weakness. Our vulnerability is not considered something we should express. But if we are closed off from expressing it, then we can never truly connect with others on a deeper level. We can never truly be real in our output.

‘Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. To create is to make something that’s never existed before’

Brene Brown

These thoughts are a rich vein to mine and certainly cannot be expressed and researched fully in a couple of paragraphs, but it’s something to contemplate here. If we are to bring this back to the concept of time, musical Feedback Loops are hyper-realised time. That period is somewhat richer, more potent due to emotional vulnerability contained within them. Think about how you feel when you create something in that natural flow state, time does strange things, hours can seem like minutes, days seems like hours etc.

7. Artist Death & The Feedback Loop – Finite Time Forming Creative Supernova’s - Track: Warmer/Trevino

So, let’s say an artist is a star out in the galaxy. What happens when that star goes supernova before it collapses in on itself and dies? What kind of Feedback Loop is created? Let’s look at what a supernova is:

‘A supernova is the biggest explosion that humans have ever seen. Each blast is the extremely bright, super-powerful explosion of a star’

Nasa Definition

If all of us are stars, there is a supernova moment at the end of the artists life. That is if their death is expected, via illness or old age. An example of this would be the emotive work of Johnny Cash in his final days. His track Hurt is the musical equivalent of a Supernova. Where his creativity had reached its brightest and most powerful level, focused through the lens of his impending death. The same with David Bowie’s Black Star album, arguably his most personal work. Now I’m not being morbid with the discussion of death, as we have mentioned in previous chapters your creations are your soul shards, left in this physical earth after you die. And like taxes (mega corporations are immortal like vampires, as they avoid taxes, but that’s another story), you can’t escape death. So, the comforting fact of the matter is, you never really die. You move, into another realm, and tiny fragments of you are left behind in the physical realm. That is your legacy.

But if you have limited time left on earth, and you know the end is near, your creativity often can go supernova. It’s as if the passing of time concentrates your purpose. Far too often musicians end up with an early untimely passing. But often, those who die young made short sharp careers of supernova creativity. It’s almost as if their energy was so intense, it had to collapse in on itself. Many of our strongest talents have left us early, leaving gaping painful space in our lives. But their creativity, it’s explosive in its effect, causing a massive Feedback Loop. And as I’m writing this, I’m listening Warmer by Trevino, I feel cause for celebration, as Marcus’s talent was supernova. Although he is not with us in the tangible world, his soul shards remain, they are precious to us and more punchy and brighter than ever before. They help to fill the void he’s left behind by reminding us of him.

It doesn’t have to be music either. My own grandfather was a sculptor in his spare time, and although I appreciated his art while he was alive, it seems so much more meaningful to me after he passed. It’s like his creations have filled up the hole in my heart he left behind, they have expanded like a supernova to fill the gaping void of grief. That expansion forms a personal Feedback Loop, that inspires my own work onwards through time, as I loved him, and incorporating his artistic character seems natural, comforting and cathartic to me. Instead of his star forming a black hole of never-ending grief over his passing, his creations have negated that outcome. You don’t have to be an artist to leave these supernova effects either. We are all remembered by those who love us by our actions, rather than just our artistic creations. I’ve taken on my mother’s no bullshit Romanian attitude, and my dad’s engineering analytical mind for example. On further reflection my photography has military processes within it such as HDR and Infrared that have naturally slipped in, probably because my father is also part of the military. This isn’t just genetic, it’s their personality/talent supernova soul shards, that will echo down the generation to me.

In relation to time, finite time in the physical realm causes explosions of creativity that create supernova Feedback Loops. This can be through the state of impending death or through their talent being so potent early on in their lives, taken from us so unexpectantly. That expanding supernova effect makes us hug those soul shards tighter, like a soothing balm for our grief. It negates the black hole of our loss through the dazzling creations they leave behind, that are full of life and glittering light in the face of death.  

8. Sampling & The Feedback Loop – Music Exploding Time (The Big Bang Sample) - Track: Amen, Brother/The Winstons

So, what’s the most famous sample you know? OK, so I work in drum and bass and yes, that sample is the Amen break.

How can one small sample of a drum break have such a huge effect on popular music? The creators, The Winston’s, received no royalties and tragically died homeless and destitute. But the origins of this break are literally the building blocks of drum and bass. The Amen break is the definition of the perfect super powered Feedback Loop, thousands upon thousands of tracks are built around this break. It has spawned whole genres, and those genres are growing every day. AKA the Atomic Feedback Loop. You could say when Grooverider and Fabio sped this break up at Rage, they released its energy, they split the samples atom and its sonic potential was released.

It’s also a good example that a creative endeavour, that is seemingly small, insignificant and a B Side, means that even if you don’t achieve monetary or critical acclaim within music, something you create could be the next Amen break. You don’t know how your creations will affect the wider world, and if we think of the Amen break as a skipping stone across the ocean, it has literally never stopped skipping, and the ripples in the water from that break have never stopped expanding. An Atomic Feedback Loop sample is like the universe itself; it continues to expand long after its creation. Which means the Amen break is the big bang of samples.

When we look at time in relation to this break, it has created millions of actions, split time in thousands of ways and expanded time around the world by being part of a simultaneous musical solar system, played at many raves, many radio stations and in millions of homes. The energy expended on dancing to this break is uncalculatable. Maybe harnessing this energy could solve our current crisis - kinetic energy of footsteps is used to power train stations in Japan after all. Feedback Loops don’t have to be number one hits, huge live shows or best-selling albums, they can be one 12 bar break. Maybe you’ll never receive any monetary compensation or acclaim, like the Winston’s, but then that’s the wrong reason for making music, isn’t it? Creating atomic powered Feedback Loops is in reach of everyone. Which means, you should just make that music sitting inside you right now and get it out there. Who knows what someone could do with it and how far it could travel, and for how long?

‘My work is not to make people love my art – My only job is to create it vulnerably and share it generously

Anon

Post Note 07.02.2023 - After more thought I’ve realised that whole songs, like the sample mentioned above, expand like the universe from their date of release. This is via a songs influence. It’s influence being through preserving memories in the past and projecting inspiration ideas into the future. These two influence directions moving forward and backwards in time happen simultaneously, and this range of gets wider the longer the song is out in the world. Therefore music, as a medium, expands into infinity in both directions through linear time. Time can only move forward due to entropy, but music seems to bypass entropy and also magically moves backwards. It time travels.

‘I first discovered this song about 5 years ago. It reminded me of my father instantly when I heard it and I just started balling my eyes out cuz he’s passed. My dad made music and he was big on riveting baselines, so this song definitely clicked for me. This song gives me supremely nostalgic feeling, and also a sad feeling and a feeling of inspiration at the same time. Def one of my favourite songs of all time.’

@jahdi2646 on YouTube referring to New for U by Andres

‘Songs are like ships, they have their own particular voyages and destinations…Once they’ve been launched there is no turning back. You just have to follow the journey’

Annie Lennox

9. Einsteins Theory Of Relativity & The Feedback Loop (Incremental Creative Amplification over Time) - Track: Flower (King Britt Rework)/Soul Dhamma - Post chapter April 2023

Now if a single sample can create music big bang’s large enough to form entire genres, this slides in well to that most famous of equations from Einstein’s work, E = MC2. Now I only got a B in science and a mere C in maths so stay with me here, and this concept is confusing to explain to you the reader, without getting my typing in a knot, but I’ll do my best.

Before this theory came along scientists viewed energy as wholly separate to matter (a real object we can see, touch, etc). The fundamental principles of E = MC2 is that energy (E) is equal to the amount of mass or matter (M) that is multiplied by the speed of light squared. These are big old numbers, and quite frankly they scare me as I’m not a maths person. But what it actually means is that a small amount of mass can produce a WHOLE lot of energy, and both mass and energy are interchangeable and the same thing essentially.

So lets make a new equation, that considers that a Creative Music Matter fits perfectly into this equation as well (such as a show, a record, a tangible ‘thing’ in the real world), let’s shorten it to CM. Now as mentioned before, the size of the mass/matter could be as small as one 12 bar break, like the Amen break.

Now what comes out of the Creative Music Matter (CM)? Well that would be another kind of energy, inspirational energy which is the main theme of this essay and how it is amplified. So lets rejig the formula and refer to this Inspirational Energy as IE. CM is then put out into the world as a creative endeavour and a thing made of matter..

This is the Theory Of Relativity in Music:

Inspirational Energy (IE) is equal to Creative Music Matter (CM) that is multiplied by the speed of light squared. This also brings a WHOLE new meaning to a ‘flash’ of inspiration.

IE = CMC2

‘It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception’

Albert Einstein

‘Inspiration (which is divine guidance) is the most important thing in life’

Florence Scovel Shinn

Now I can’t tangibly measure how much Inspirational Energy (IE) is in a piece of music or performance. Plus any physicists out there that want to pick apart my equation rejig, please do your expertise is needed. All I really know from writing down my hypothesis on the Amen Break, is that IE from that example is massively bigger in size than the original Creative Music Matter (CM) origin. What I also know is inspirational Energy (IE) echoes down the line and creativity flip flops between matter and energy. In that one person is inspired and they for instance build a live rig and perform a show (CM), that then gets turned into IE again. But subsequently that is multiplied as many people will be watching the show, and by law of averages more people are inspired experiencing it than the amount of people running the production. So that’s the basic way IE is amplified/increased from CM. The first stage.

This is where it gets interesting. I said that creative energy flip flops from energy to matter, like all things in life. But with every change of state from CM to IE and back again the effects of the original CM are multiplied into lots of IE, much like the huge speed of light numbers from Einsteins original theory. For example, the people who are carrying the IE from the performance above, then turn that IE into CM themselves, which then creates more IE in even more people who experience the CM from those inspired people. The effect of the origin CM incrementally increases over time, as the IE is passed through many people who change matter to energy and back again via their own creations/inspirations. Funnily enough this year I went to Boomtown, a festival in the UK. One of its stages was called Origin, an example of this theory that seems so perfect for this chapter. Because that stage is the origin of so many future creative possibilities that extend out from the audience and are multiplied over time. Hopefully you’ll get this idea in the meandering way I’ve explained it with these examples.

If we slip back into time, time basically allows music to be a direct correlation to Einsteins Theory Of Relativity and the passing of creative energy in life. To demonstrate this in a musical sense the track is I’m choosing is Flower by Soul Dhamma, the King Britt rework. The vocal layering and multiplication in this track seems to sit well with the above writing. Plus its an ABSOLUTE tune.

‘Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it inspiration but what they really mean is fuel’

Hunter S Thompson

‘Drum and bass is science’

Dub Phizix - Just One Thing Podcast Interview 2022

10. Club Spaces & The Feedback Loop – Music Splitting Time (Quantum Physics) - Track: Winged/Overmono

Clubs, my home, never felt more at home than in a club. But the spaces clubs inhabit need a mention within this theory. I remember several years ago I was training to be a surveyor at Brighton and Hove Council. I was talking to one of the older pre-retirement surveyors about a club on West Street in Brighton, his name was Dave if I remember correctly. It was still a club then, but he started to reminisce about his youth as a teddy boy in the 50’s. He frequented the very same space; it was a ballroom at that point. The wave of nostalgic emotion on his face when he told me about the many nights he had spent there enchanted me. Clubs are also Feedback Loops. They split into many possibilities of experience that also span generations. This is also known as Quantum Physics in the Many-worlds interpretation.

The many worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the universal wave function is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realised in some ‘world’ or universe’

Wikipedia Many-worlds Quantum Physics Definition

If we think of the many venues we play in, those spaces had a long and varied life before we danced in them. Fabric was a Victorian meat store originally. Printworks was a printing press for the Daily Mail and The Telegraph. The Troxy was cinema and bingo hall. Village Underground stored trains, its green room was also a brothel. The layout and original features left in these spaces make their existence live on through time, by also inspiring new attendees. Most 90’s raves were held around the M25, interestingly also a huge loop. I was talking to J.O.S.H.U.A about this and his take was that energy is stored in a space as well, so after a club night there is a residual charge left in the space, and maybe that charge builds up? DJ Mantra also touched upon this in her recent Radio 1 residency, the energy of a club is personal to it. Each of her shows she concentrated on showing the individual vibe of the place with her track selection.

I for one have been fascinated by club spaces, how they are adapted from their original purpose. Sometimes they are also multifunctional. Club spaces through their reappropriating of usage create Feedback Loops through time, the echoes of many different human experiences and emotions etched into their walls. They also somehow keep this potency every time they are used as dance spaces, so older clubs have a more pronounced loop. For instance, Pikes in Ibiza may have a stronger charge, due to its long history than a newer space. Is this also why Glastonbury is so special? With the location of the lay lines it sits on? Are clubs like churches where the souls of people worshiping live on?  Some even were churches, such as the Trinity Centre in Bristol which is a mere two-minute walk from where I live. When I think of a track to represent this, I go to Winged by Overmono, a juggernaut of drums with organ like breakdowns. The hymn of club church.

‘If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.’

 Nickolas Tesla

Sometimes I think how many people have met and fallen in love in clubs, how many babies have been born due to them, how many moments made there are stored in people’s minds, like the surveyor I referred to earlier. It does make me think how big and vast music is outside the spaces we experience it. When we talk about time again, Feedback Loops of clubs are like parallel variables of time, where infinite possibilities stretch out from them from their many usages over the years, coupled with the generations of people that attended them.

11. Stages & The Feedback Loop - Stages as Vibrational Mirrors (String Theory) –Time Syncing - Track: One Love/The Prodigy

What is a stage? My theory is stages are vibrational mirrors to oneself. Or an amplifying mirror stage. In spirituality there is a consensus that everything is a vibration. This pulls into basic string theory in science. In that we are all made of the same material, matter, but the only difference between that material is how it vibrates. Now string theory is way more complicated than that, as it’s touted as the answer to everything. I can’t tell you how much my brain throbbed looking into the complexities of string theory, that subject is DEEP. But the fundamental ideas are as so.

‘String theory proposes that the fundamental constitutes of the universe are one-dimensional ‘strings’ rather than point like particles. What we perceive as particles are actually vibrations in loops of string, each with its own characteristic frequency’

String Theory  - John H Schwarz (California Insistute Of Technology) – Symmetry Magazine 2007

If we are all vibrating according to string theory, then developments in stage production over the last ten years have given birth to vibrating stages such as Arcadia. These stages add elements such as fire and lasers, acrobats and CO2. 250 people work on Arcadia, that’s a lot of collective creative energy. That’s a lot of strings vibrating at different frequencies.

So, if fire vibrates at a certain frequency, and scrap metal also vibrates at another frequency, and a DJ plays to create another kind of frequency, and the stage designers/lighting techs/sound engineers and the audience vibrate at another frequency, it pays to remember that the only difference between these different kinds of matter is how they vibrate. That we are all fundamentally made of the same thing. In the experience of the collective energy of these stages during a set, we start to all vibrate at the SAME frequency. In that alchemy of science crossed with spirituality, the energy of all these vibrations starts to fall in sync with one another and then the energy becomes amplified. Thus, creating a Feedback Loop. What people put into Arcadia they receive back tenfold. And through the purification of fire and music, something we have experienced together since the dawn of time, we are reborn and inspired onwards into the future.

‘Scientists are now measuring this collective experience at concerts. They have found that when we gather in front of live performers in large groups, there is a brain synchrony in the delta range, that is related to both the increased enjoyment of the experience (the exhilaration) but also the affiliation with those at the show (the oneness).’

Darin Mcfyayen - www.qz.com - Neuroscience Shows Listening To Music Has The Same Effect As Meditation

‘Synchronisation between the participants’ brain activity and the rhythmic beat of the music occurred at all three tempos, but was most pronounced at 1.65 Hz, which is also when the participants reported feeling the most unity’

Electronic music appears to alter our state of consciousness - Conor Feehly - New Scientist - Feb 2024

The phoenix best represents the role of fire as a symbol of rebirth. At first, the mythical phoenix dies by spontaneous combustion. Following that, he bursts into flames, disintegrating into ashes. Finally, a new phoenix is born from the ashes to live its life again. Similarly, when a fire burns through a forest, the old growth in the forest burns away. This action allows space for the new forest to emerge from beneath

Chris Hunt, The Symbolism Of Fire

12. The All/Enlightenment/Quantum Field – ‘The SMALL’/String Theory –‘The BIG’ & The Feedback Loop (Music changing inspiration phases over time)  - Tracks: Changes- Mala/Mind Against/Gravity - Ganzfeld/Objekt - Solar Detroit /Maceo Plex/Paul Woolford - Heaven & Earth Part 2 - Post Chapter Jan 2024

Following on from the above chapter of the power of vibrations, the more I find out about meditation the more I compare it to a music Feedback Loop moment. At that point the audience and DJ exist in the same brain vibration, the highest one. The highest frequency where you get goosebumps, the state of bliss. Ecstasy. The moment where you are purely IN THE moment. You ALL know that bit, where you are not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow? But just feel the connectedness between everyone and everything? In years past I worked with a dubstep label called Deep Medi and its only now I truly understand the entire ethos of the label that Mala and Steph Clarke built, with its tagline being ‘Meditate On Bassweight’. (Fantastic label that, and the originators of the genre dubstep, that was born out of Croydon in the UK via DMZ and Apple Records).

I also discussed this very essay with Rob Cracknell, a promoter in the UK out on a beach in Croatia last year, regarding the meditation connection. Rob, a drum and bass promoter is heavily into dirge metal as a fan, and he compared those type of gigs to a ‘hypnotic’ state very similar to meditation.

Post Note Experiment 14/02/2024

As this essay is a collection of observations and ideas, I’ve always wanted to meditate behind an act while they were playing to see if my concentrated ‘mental’ energy in this state has any effect on their set, or how they feel themselves. It seems like an outlandish experiment but relates to transmuting my emotions and feelings into a focus like beam of positive energy. I’ve only just started meditating and it’s HARD right now because my focus skills have been shot to bits by the everyday bombardment of ‘information’ of these present times. I’ll probably have to practice this myself before I attempt it at a gig, otherwise the set might go wonky. Transmute as a word by definition means ‘to change or alter in form, appearance or nature, and especially to a higher form’. So this kind of approach would be extremely interesting to consider, and exciting in a live DJ set performance or stage show setting.

In fact, both music and meditation create the same reaction in your skin, the goosebumps, that signify this feeling. It effects the galvanic skin response, and this has been studied in the case below:

 ‘Results show that GSR can be used as a measure of subjective mental states during music appreciation, The effect of music on GSR is compared to that of meditation’

N.N.Sudheesh/K.P Joseph – Science Direct 3rd June 2009

This chapter is hard enough for me break down to even to write it, its also a rather long one. but it contains some ideas that could inspire another whole essay. I mean can you imagine how confusing it was for me to write this? This is the only chapter thats given me pure imposter syndrome, but I’m going to push that away for the time being, and it could be edited over time the more I educate myself about the subjects within. This chapter was an enjoyable but drawn-out battle logistical battle. And I will warn you, I may keep repeating myself to set this idea in my own brain. But in short it relates to Enlightenment/The All and the Unified Field. All these things are the same place, the same thing, but described in different terms and belief systems through Science/Religion and Spirituality/Philosophy. This is the magical knot of music. It is the rabbit hole I have fallen into, and a subject I think about all the time, and ties all these ideas together.

Below is a photo of me in my sherbet flat, where I wrote this entire essay. Looking wide eyed because researching this stuff has been a joy, despite it being rather taxing on the brain front as mentioned above. But it’s kept the childlike fires of my curiosity burning for sure. So let’s break it downnnn into some manageable chunks…

1.     Science - Quantum mechanics (The Small)/Super String Theory (The Big)/Unified Theory (All Science Theories Combined) 

2.     Hermetic - (Spiritual/philosophical ideas of the Greeks and Egyptians)

3.     Religion - By referring to meditation so common with a large number Religions worldwide. Or prayer and religious song would be the same thing. 

Firstly Science.

I was watching a video on David Lynch. I love David Lynch and I also love his hair. I found out recently he is also a man that constantly talks into a megaphone and smokes, while directing, all the time. And how can you not love that fact, its brilliant. As is Naomi Watts impression of Lynch so definitely Google that (Naommmiii, Naomiii). But he did a lecture about something that fascinated me.

A framework created in Quantum Mechanics believes everything comes from nothing. Yes, it’s space, we all come from what we believe is absolutely nothing, the highest and fastest vibration of matter is well, nothing, it’s just pure energy which is in fact NOTHING, or what we BELIEVE is an empty space. It’s unmanifested matter. A ‘plane’ of connected unified energy. Because remember matter and energy are the same thing in science. There is nothing but energy inside an atom at the smallest level. For example photons are light energy. Here is a video of him explaining it, so this relates to things on a subatomic level, ie…the VERY small:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em3XplqnoF4

This is also shown with the scientific proof of quantum foam, in that something can be created from nothing at this tiny level.

‘Thus, at the tiny quantum level, empty space isn’t actually empty. It’s actually a vibrant place, with tiny subatomic particles appearing and disappearing in wanton abandon’

Don Lincoln - Big Think – Hard Science – 16.02.2023

String Theory, mentioned in the previous chapter attempts to explain the same concept when we think of big objects such as whole universes, rather than the very tiny things. This was referenced by John Hagelin in his controversial lecture of the Unified Field and Consciousness. Because spirituality and science have had an uneasy relationship regarding this concept. He describes that space, nothing, that field, is teaming with energy, rather like the scientifically proven Quantum Foam. The vibrations of those elastic super strings (string theory refers to particles as strings) within this empty space make up everything in the universe, they vibrate upwards out of it to form matter, according to their tone of vibration. And we are ALL connected via this ‘field’ which he believes is the same as a universal consciousness. Lynch it seems was very influenced by John in his lecture. At the moment I’m also reading Lynn McTaggart’s book ‘The Field’ and this does an excellent job of deeply researching into scientific evidence that speaks of the same phenomena. With far more understanding and nuance than I could ever convey in one small paragraph. There are some extremely interesting experiments carried out in that should not be discounted.

John’s lecture is here on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPhgDfT4Zpc

Physicists have attempted to prove/explain some of the rules of the universe, and this brought in the theories/experiments of the very small (Quantum) and the very large (String Theory). Both these concepts say everything comes from a connected universal plane of energy in layman’s terms, and they change into different states and elements via their vibrational qualities. There have been many attempts to combine all these theories with classical physics over the years. But those have failed because Quantum Physics does weird things that cannot be explained by Classic Physics, so Unified Theory is work in progress. So much so that Einstein wrote this quote about how utterly odd Quantum Entanglement is…Because when atoms are quantum entangled, it doesn’t matter how far away from each other they are, they will do the same actions simultaneously. WEIRD. Sometimes, this is also known as nonlocality.

Please be aware these are terms/concepts I have personally used/researched to understand this rather than the elegant maths equations, and many years of science learning behind me. So this is more of a basic explanation overview and understanding. And quite frankly it could be completely wrong, but it also equally could be right. Neil deGrass Tyson’s quote below rings particularly true with my learning of science in correlation to my first love of music.

‘Spooky action at a distance…’

Einstein

‘I will never discount things I learned no matter how remote they seemed to whatever was my first love, because it can come up in another time and in another place’

Neil deGrass Tyson - Amber Rose Podcast 2024

So the energy field here is demonstrated by the actions of atoms within Quantum Mechanics via Quantum Entanglement and also the existence of Quantum Foam, plus adding in good old String Theory. Some of this is hard data, measured and analysed under controlled scientific environments. So I consider this the fundamental base of the field. Because you just can’t argue with equations and experiments, and I will not attempt to because that level of maths is frankly terrifying for me. Which doesn’t mean the following concepts of religion and spiritualism are not as equally important as science, but the data here is the ‘bedrock’ as such.

Now Spirituality or Hermetic teachings…

This field is also demonstrated in the Kybalion under the Law of Vibration. The Kybalion is a set of 7 universal laws that originate from the combined knowledge of the Greek god Hermes (God of communication) and the Egyptian god Thoth (the god of writing, wisdom, science and magic, also credited as the inventor of music). Also known as Hermes Trigmegistus as a combo as they were considered equivalents. This is the spiritual/philosophical part. This reference is talking about a wheel or object that is vibrating faster and faster within the Law of Vibration.…

‘When the object reaches a certain rate of vibration it’s molecules disintegrate, and resolve themselves into their original elements or atoms. Then the atoms, following the principles of vibration are separated into the countless corpuscles of which they are composed, and finally, even the corpuscles disappear, and the object may be said to be composed of The Ethereal Substance. Science does not dare follow this illustration further, but the hermetists teach that if the vibrations be continually increased the object would mount up the successive states of manifestation and would in turn manifest the various mental stages, and then on Spiritward, until it would finally re-enter THE ALL, which is absolute spirit’

Chapter 9 – Page 79 – The Kybalion

So, THE ALL is another term for this field of energy.

I’ve also been reading another spiritual text surrounding auras. An essay entitled Aura by Edgar Cayce, one of the founders of the modern New Age movement. Cayce talked about vibrations also, but more in relation to colour. His hypothesis was that auras are generally produced by the person themselves, their thoughts, feelings, actions influence its shade. But sometimes outside influences can also effect auras. His tale below seems to me very much like inspiration being detected on someones aura, which is white light. Could this be the colour of THE ALL? The highest vibration of colour when it comes to light rather than sound? Is that why it’s falling onto his shoulder? Signifying it came from some ‘Field’?

‘Sometimes outside forces bring about a change. I once met a man in whose aura I saw a shaft of light coming downwards over his left shoulder. In it was some white, a great deal of green, a great deal of red with blue mixed in it. I read this as a sign that this man was receiving information inspirationally, which he was using for constructive purposes. I wondered if he was a writer, for it struck me that this would be the proper aura for such work. I asked him, and he told me that although he had been a writer, he was now engaged in lecturing and teaching, still giving information for the help of others.’

Page 16 - Auras - Edgar Cayce

On a more terrifyingly geeky offshoot of the above I’ve found a place that makes Aura cameras and YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW MUCH I WANT ONE. But the images it produces are incredibly beautiful even if you don’t particularly ‘believe’ in the reading of auras. Cayce also mentions in his essay that colours have corresponding notes. I do believe colour, with its vibrational properties, like music, is an important part of the spiritual concept of ‘the field’. I used to study graphic design prior to my work as a photographer, graphic design is a true alchemy of how colours vibrate differently when placed next to one another. Colour is also mentioned in the previously referenced Law of Vibration chapter within The Kybalion. Both light and sound travel in waves after all.

‘Red is the colour of the planet Mars, and corresponds to do, the first note in the musical scale’

Page 12 - Auras - Edgar Cayce

www.aura.net

Aura Camera Link

Lastly Religion…

Lynch compared this field to the highest state of enlightenment via meditation, which is also nothing and everything, the highest, you’ve guessed it…vibration. So very similar to spiritual hermetic rules of the universe. Are we all following here? Me included, my brain is hurting.

David Lynch practises Transcendental Meditation. Now a quick disclaimer on this, I’m not into any one person being an overriding guru with all the answers, Maharishi included. That’s a bit cult like. It’s important to remember that blindly following one belief system can allow you to be open to abuse, so taking strands from each one that I’ve mentioned in this chapter is a more critically thinking/healthy option.

In fact idolatry, to idolise a man in the replace of god, so apt when I’m talking about the music industry, cults and extreme arms of religion/spirituality is considered sinful across many religions. There is way too much idolatry within the music industry in my opinion. Enlightenment as a term is much better as it pertains to a religious ‘field’, which is the connectedness of us all, rather than one person. So it’s plural rather than singular. However, there have been a LOT of arguments between religions about idolatry, which is obviously WAY too complex to go onto here. So, in this case I’ll go with the route of general meditation, so common across all forms of religion in different forms and for many millennia. Meditation is what you make of it and what you take from it. It is a mental ‘stillness’, a connection between us all and this hypnotic state can also be reached through prayer and song as well. This is the religion and faith part strand of this. 

The energy field in this part is accessed through faith and enlightenment from a religious practice, where we are all connected and have a belief system of god, the almighty, of something bigger than us etc. Seems very similar to THE ALL as mentioned above.

The Theory of it all….

So, my theory is we are all connected via this field (because it’s the same thing they are referring to across these wildly differing belief systems) in a Feedback Loop music moment. Magical how Science/Religion/Spirituality/Philosophy are joined up there. But it also clearly explains why we LOVE music right? It’s like a shortcut to enlightenment and the connection between us (religion) It’s a shortcut to a never-ending energy field we know as nothing/space (science). It’s the shortcut to the ‘The All’ or the spiritual plane (spirituality/philosophy). They are THE SAME place in my book. The way all these belief systems describe this ‘field’ leads me to this conclusion. Seems like they all have an identical postcode. If I was was to compare this to my postcode in central Bristol, they all come from BS2. Approx the same place and same space.

‘Three objects of the Theosophical Society:

1. To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour.

2. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science.

3. To investigate the the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.

Wikipedia definition - Please note in further chapters I will go into my Theosophical schooling

In fact one of my favourite tunes of ALL time, ‘Ganzfeld’ by Objekt, actually means ‘whole field’ in German, and somehow by design through such arbitrary things as track titles, I keep coming back to this field idea/concept. Ganzfeld relates to cutting out all sensory stimulation to access the field mentally, as you must ignore all distractions to access it. This happens to me when I shoot, I literally am deaf/blind to all other stimuli around me. This is so apparent that despite being in an extremely loud environment such as a club, I just wouldn’t hear the music in this ‘doing’ state. I would then have to make a proper choice to ‘down tools’ to allow me to listen to the sets I’m taking images of. But somehow in that hyper focused state, quick moving idea ‘sparks’ happen while I’m taking photos ‘on the fly’ and come to me naturally when it came to my craft. It’s as if that mode I’m in allows access to the field instantly.

The percussive trance like sets of techno, is an example that flits naturally into my brain when I think of this. That state of music building thus into an upward movement to the ‘oneness’ of all the threads above. As I’m typing this chapter out, I have on Mind Against by Gravity playing, with its slow and hypnotic build as a solid example of this kind of loop. Reading the Youtube comments below this track actually demonstrates that it does indeed make people feel this oneness.

‘This track came on after I had no reception. Driving down through Glen Sheil in the Scottish Highlands, on the shores of Loch Sheil passing Eillen Donnan Castle, this track kicks into life on the stereo on the van on a crystal clear black night. The stars I felt I could reach out and touch….I stopped halfway up the glen with the van door wide open in the pitch black and the stars were playing along. The Milky Way just there in all its beauty and splendour. I was blessed to experience this….xx’

@gmckayak - Youtube

‘Hearing this when I run into the mountain, my body goes into automatic mechanical motion and my brain synchronises with nature and the sun, draining from thoughts’

@Gerasimosmetripolous7232 - YouTube

I like to call these tracks ‘Big Room’. In that they come alive in vast spaces and venues. They make sense there. Certain artists themselves such as Maceo Plex, have this sonic blueprint as their identity. Another of my ‘lifetime’ tracks by Paul Woolford, ‘Heaven & Earth Part 2’ also captures this all encompassing feeling. That expansiveness of sound that swirls upwards and upwards, building and building, expanding and vibrating universally ever higher and higher. I witnessed this last summer during a Luke LSB set, he was playing on stage right next to a beach, sun going down. And when I mean right next to a beach, I’ll picture the stage below…how BEAUTIFUL. You can literally hang your toes into the sea while sitting on the dance floor if you wanted to.

Luke is a drum and bass DJ, but at that point he went as I like to call it, ‘Detroit’. His set veered into more techno territory, creating that upwards groove so perfect for that place and time, like he was literally connecting into his nature surroundings. Or on a more commercial side, the higher notes of the chord progressions at the end of pop songs such as ‘Pure Shores’ by All Saints or ‘Chorus’ by Erasure do the same mental ‘lifting’ but on a much smaller radio friendly bite size scale.

So, After a gig or show or DJ set like this that you experience, you have a high, because at that Feedback Loop point during the performance you are connected to this magic field that Science/Spirituality/Religion/Philosophy talk about. Pure quantum foam energy. The All. Enlightenment.

My idea is after that high or connection to this oneness you start to ‘come down’. Those thoughts, ideas, insights that fly around your mind as you come down start to slow down, or cool down, they change phase. Like atoms they start to form something, as atoms slow down, they take on different states. First gas, then liquid, then solid. When you are connected to that oneness you become inspired via the connected energy field. Your inspiration comes from that field. And this also does explain why people have a genius moment of inspiration, but they aren’t sure where it came from objectively. That’s because the field is not objective, it is THE ALL. It deals with energy, speed and space rather than matter.

   1.    Slowly that inspiration cools over time from an ethereal place where you might just think about it  - GAS STATE

   2.    Then it becomes let’s say a liquid, where you might sketch out some more detailed ideas - LIQUID STATE

3.    Then as it slows down more and more eventually you make something that becomes a tangible thing that is visible in the real world - MATTER STATE

Music with this energy amplifying property heats/speeds you up in an upwards trajectory into a state of bliss and after you cool/slow down/come down, out pops a thing that the Feedback Loop moment inspired you to make. That happens over time after a show. Now this could be anything, I certainly don’t make music myself, it’s my FUEL. My ‘power up’ mechanism. And out of that I write, I take photos, I do some interior design. Basically I just create.

Personally, when I write I tend to get flashes of inspiration late at night between the witching hours of 10pm to 1am, so much so I keep my phone beside me because if I don’t ‘catch’ those thoughts as they appear from ‘The All’ I can guarantee I’m bound to forget them, as they are ethereal and transient at this time. On another random thought as I’m lying in bed editing this at 12.30am I realised cats are most active around this time too, so it may effect animals as well. I had some kittens once and they used to go CRAZY around that time. That sleepy state between wakefulness and sleep is the same brain state as meditation where one can access the unconscious mind. It’s the same state as the Feedback Loop moment you experience within a musical performance at the highest point.

Let’s tie this all up with time. As neatly into a bow as possible. Time in fact cools or slows down moments of bliss from Feedback Loop experiences in music. Or thoughts from your subconscious mind via sleep or meditation. Or musical vibrations accessing ‘The All” in hermetic teachings. And this forms the birth of your creative endeavours. And how MAGICAL and exciting is that? It explains why people get inspired because at these points they are not thinking about the past, or the future, but are in the moment. That inspiration just strikes them. Being in the moment is the connection between us all. That is our highest vibrational state. That is the source of all inspiration. That is pure energy (Science) That is the ‘The All’ (Spiritualism), That is enlightenment (Religion). 

‘Our brain is just a receiver. There is a core in the universe where we get our inspiration, strength and wisdom. I haven´t penetrated through the secrets of this core, I just KNOW it exists"

Nicolas Tessla

13. The Feedback Loop & The Night (The Night Time Amplifying Feedback Loops) - Track: Midnight Request Line/Skream - Post Chapter April 2024

Last night I was awake thinking, as I tend to think quite deeply about this paper at that time, as mentioned in the previous chapter. I also have a 17th Century beam in my bedroom because my flat is just really old, it was originally a market building to house horses, on their route from London to Bristol in years gone by. Henceforth it has a bit of a death watch beetle problem, so every March to mid April I hear the clicking of the mating call of these beetles, and that is LOUD. Kinda amazes me how loud they are for something so tiny. Anyway, bit of a tangent I’m going down there. I wondered, while hearing this knocking, that electronic music seems to be enjoyed at night, more so than most other music. Nightclubs are called nightclubs. Even in the day many dance music events are held in tents or venues, where it is artificially dark. How does the Feedback Loop moment slot into this? What is is about…THE NIGHT. Because we needn’t be afraid of the dark. The dark I feel needs a rebrand in our collective consciousness, it has a bit of a bad rap. This chapter I will admit, does need to be fleshed out. It’s kind of small and of child size right now, but I’m putting it online as a ‘note’ part of this essay that I will return to with more insights as they come to me. I’ve found I can’t really ‘force’ whole substantial chapters sometimes, but I still want to put these little ideas out there. Let’s call this a demo chapter for the time being. But I guess here are the ‘stems’ of it.

Nighttime it seems has a lot of spiritual significance. But my theory is the night, or the dark amplifies the feeling effects of music. It makes Feedback Loops more punchy. It makes them more pronounced. In Hinduism it is taught that practicing yoga/meditation some hours before dawn makes that spiritual practice more significant. Also know as Brahmamuhuta. Experiencing dance music as referenced before, can be seen as a medative state. Hindus believe that positive energies can be accessed at the darkest part of the night. Although they understand that it’s also a time negative energies can visit you, such as ghosts and demons. It’s actually a beautiful time too, a crisp and still period to take advantage of easy access to the spirit world.

‘Brahmamuhurta (Sanskrit: ब्रह्ममुहूर्त, lit. 'time of Brahma') is a 48-minute period (muhurta) that begins one hour and 36 minutes before sunrise, and ends 48 minutes before sunrise. It is traditionally the penultimate phase or muhurta of the night, and is considered an auspicious time for all practices of yoga and most appropriate for meditation, worship or any other religious practice. Spiritual activities performed early in the morning are said to have a greater effect than in any other part of the day’

Wikipedia Definition

In common folk law the Witching Hour, between the hours of 3am and 4am mean the line between the spirit world and reality world is a lot thinner. The negative side of this, where demonic influences come in and drown out what Hinduism talks about, tends to be within western Christianity only. Which is true statistically proven in some ways, many crimes tend to be committed at midnight to 2am. Proportionally this happens more than any other time of the day according to police records.

In folklore, the witching hour or devil's hour is a time of night that is associated with supernatural events, whereby witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and be at their most powerful. Definitions vary, and include the hour immediately after midnight, and the time between 3:00 am and 4:00 am. The term now has a widespread colloquial and idiomatic usage that is associated with human physiology and behaviour to more superstitious phenomena such as luck’

Wikipedia Definition

‘According to lore and myth, the witching hour is when ghosts, demons, and demons are most active. Because of this, the witching hour is said to be when most supernatural events occur. This increase in activity is said to occur because, during this time, the separation between the living and dead disappears or becomes warped, meaning the living can more easily feel the presence of the dead, and the dead can interfere with the living’

https://naturalform.com/blogs/wellness/the-witching-hour

But if I’m referencing THE ALL, or ‘The Field’ in the previous chapter, that is reached through a Feedback Loop moment in music, it would make a lot of sense that those loops happen in the middle of the night. It’s easier according to many spiritual traditions that the reality and spirit world almost collide at that time. If Feedback Loop moments are more punchy at this time, they can definitely sucker punch through reality into THE ALL. Or what we know as absolute spirit, therefore access to inspiration is a lot easier, and creating those inspirational ‘power’ loops through DJ sets is also more common at midnight to 4am. You might open a portal to demons like they do in movie Ghostbusters, but what if you thought the opposite and saw it as a portal to creative magic? Like witchcraft but INVERTED? Apparently according to a Google search that is science and logic. OK let’s come to that bit later…

‘During the day I’m able to be practical, but during the night, I’m able to do the next level creative stuff’

Inside Info discussing the role of the night in his creative process

In Dutch the Hour of the Wolf means is a time where the dream world meets the reality world and anything is possible. Fitting in with the more Hinduism take on this time. My theory is that Feedback Loops in music pretty much create that flow state, so this Dutch term sits well to describe it. The Hour of the Wolf also occurs between the hours of 3am to 4am. I’ve yet to find a hard and fast reference for this term, only colloquial comments on discussions about this time online. So any Dutch people out there, let me know if this is correct, Dankjewel.

Science wise, sadly, many gravely ill patients in hospitals pass on between 3am and 4am. So statistically many souls are released back to THE ALL at this time too, more than in the daylight hours. The night is alive AND dead at the same time. Like Quantum Foam mentioned in the previous chapter, it teems with energy but also energy vanishes as well, demonstrated by this spiritual back and forth movement. This paradox is also touched on by the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment referenced below. As Quantum Mechanics is mentioned in the previous chapter, this experiment seems quite apt too.

‘In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead, while it is unobserved in a closed box, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. This thought experiment was devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935[1] in a discussion with Albert Einstein[2] to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics’

Wikipedia Definition

It seems energy which I observe in everything now, has a lot of movement between the ‘vessels’ of the spirit world and the reality world at the hours of 3am to 4am. And depending on how you OBSERVE this time, because in Quantum Mechanics its about the observer effect. If you DECIDE by observing if this time at night is a good or bad time from my understanding, the results from your actions at night will reflect that. Although it is worth noting that this observer effect, is still being debated in this field of study. Maybe actually science and witchcraft are the same thing when it comes to the night? It’s clear I really need to sit down and talk to a lot of quantum physicists in depth about this as I’m still confused and also not confused, by the observer effect they talk about. But for now the overall agreement let’s say, is just the act of observing the atom changes the measurements and wave functions of them and this affects the outcome of reality.

‘A notable example of the observer effect occurs in quantum mechanics, as demonstrated by the double-slit experiment. Physicists have found that observation of quantum phenomena by a detector or an instrument can change the measured results of this experiment. Despite the "observer effect" in the double-slit experiment being caused by the presence of an electronic detector, the experiment's results have been interpreted by some to suggest that a conscious mind can directly affect reality.’

Wikipedia Definition

When I worked at fabric I would often notice this midnight to 4am time was the most lively, it was a good set time to have, not too late and not too early. So my observations of this time lead me to believe it’s a positive and vital one. Most people who were drunk had left, but it was still early enough for those true music fans, rather than those on a random night out, to not be too tired to dance. The club was always full at 3am, it was its busiest point. At that time it had an ethereal quality with the output of music across all of its three rooms. It was the hypnotic ‘marching’ time of the night. The collective energy of music being experienced by just over 1000 people in unison, made the inspirational power of Feedback Loops travel between the real world and spirit world with ease, increasing their effect.

Let’s look at the time again, mainly the night time. The dark, oh THE DARK. Feedback loops are more potent, more likely to happen under the dead of night. Due to the thinness between the reality and spirit world. Or more likely to happen if you ‘observe’ the night as a more creatively fertile time, and use it’s inky magic powers to your advantage.

14. Individualism Vs Collectivism & The Feedback Loop (The Ego Contracting Creative Energy VS The Heart Expanding It) - Track: What Time Is Love?/The KLF

The music industry in my opinion is a zero-sum game. So, let’s do a bit of game theory:

‘If you refer to a situation as a zero-sum game, you mean that if one person gains an advantage from it, someone else involved must suffer an equivalent disadvantage’

Collins Dictionary Definition

In the last ten years with the advent of social media we have seen many advances, the pushing of acts who may not have broken through in the old A&R order of the music industry. That was undoubtably a very good outcome at first. But have we now gone too far the other way? Why are the number of followers of an act on social media platforms the most important thing above what they create? What does this mean for our industry and how we plug into the audience?

‘Right now for me too much exposure given to DJ’s is based on social media. It is not anymore the music which counts, the talent of the producer or DJ. If a DJ has a lot of clicks or followers, the promotors books him/her regardless of the talent. Some DJ’s got famous because of their appearance on social media and not because of their real connection with music, which I think is very sad’

 Monika Kruse (DJ, Producer and label owner) – Faze Mag - 2022

Note the word connection in Monika’s quote. My theory is music is a collective empathy led experience, but the industry now encourages an individualistic one for an artist to survive. How can we inspire when we work in this dichotomy and confusing reality of a zero-sum game? Why are artists not compensated for their work fairly? Is this merely a popularity contest as she stated above?  Why is what we create now ‘content’? Like all games of this nature, it’s not a fun one to play. If I could make a comparison to board games, Pictionary is much more fun to play, that is a GREAT game, its playful, joyful and childlike. The music industry is designed currently like Risk, a game of strategic conquest. Or even worse, Snakes and Ladders. Land on the snake and down to the bottom of the board you go.

We need to put out an ideal of a mutually beneficial game to the audience, like Pictionary. We need to demonstrate music as a more collective and fun echoing experience through time. So, if Pictionary and Charades are about playing, laughter, creativity and connecting with others than that’s the game model we need to aim for in the industry. To inspire those in the generations below us to take the music industry back to a more inclusive and fair entity. Rather than encouraging a game of Risk. I mean have you ever enjoyed a game of Risk? It’s so dull. I mean it’s the most boring game in the universe, right? Nothing will kill a vibe at a dinner party like a game of Risk.

‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’

 Matthew 18:3 - Bible

Can we as those who work in the music industry make a difference? What can we do to lead by example? I’m struck by Haai’s quote in Mixmag recently, where she talks about this collectiveness:

‘I love playing to anyone that loves music, but there’s something about playing music to people you can see yourself in, and vice-versa, that is so magic’

Note her words ‘Play’, you play a set, this is the connection to becoming children again. You don’t play at the audience; you play with them. When you play a back-to-back with another artist, they are your playmate in the sonic sandpit of music at that point in time. And as I write this, I see Mella Dee in my mind dancing round his studio absorbed into the pure joy of making music, for he is playing in more ways than one. In the same vein, Overmono, who are mentioned earlier in this essay are also half brothers. Likewise, I can’t help but think they are also playing, but instead of with toys in their younger years, they have just transferred it to the studio. Following on from that, their sibling musical chemistry is undeniable.

‘If that kid curiosity never goes away, and you become a grown up kid, that’s a scientist’

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Amber Rose Podcast 2024

A long time ago The KLF subverted the music industry by their own anarchy. The Manual on how to have a number one, the burning of a million pounds (that made more than a million when they toured a video of the act). But what if you could subvert the industry for the force of good rather than point out its absurdity via anarchy? I guess if the KLF were a board game they would have no rules and wouldn’t even be a game. They would be a dodecahedron made out of jelly. What they did created waves in the industry by highlighting the many things wrong with it, but it didn’t offer any solutions.

I do not personally know the answer to this conundrum, but maybe you the reader does? What would you do to override the zero-sum game? How can we make the industry change to expand its creativity and influence by increased collectiveness? This is something that needs to be debated by the hivemind, rather than one person. Because if I ask this question, there is more chance of it being solved.

And when these ideas come from the hivemind, if you are at the level in the industry to push forward these concepts, you have a real chance to make a change. Of course, change generally comes from the grass roots, but what if it came from the top down, what if the hardcore establishment of the music industry took on these inclusive ideals when they arrive? Don’t you think change would come quicker? For that is strength in numbers.

‘Collectivism is the principle or practice of prioritizing group cohesion over individual pursuits. On the other hand, individualism is a value or political view which focuses on human independence and freedom’

Differences Between Collectivism & Individualism – Gene Brown – www.differencebetween.net

The intention you put out into the world is like a butterfly effect. Negative intention is passed down the line like generational trauma (hurt people hurt people), but positive intention encourages and amplifies creativity and collectivism that overrides a zero-sum game. When it comes to time, I realised that ego contracts creativity and time, but the heart expands it. It seems the work produced from the heart has a more pronounced creative reverb via its connection to people, its collectiveness.

‘Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighbouring brains, and, thanks to global communication, in far distant foreign brains’

I Am A Strange Loop – Douglas Hofstadter

‘The hearts energy is said to reach about three feet outside of the physical body and can be detected in another person sitting nearby via an ECG (electro-cardiogram). Can you bring mind to someone who, without even speaking a word, makes you feel light just be being in their presence? Have you ever been told, ‘you have such a positive energy about you?’ The potential of how far a heart’s electromagnetic energy field can reach continues to be studied as technology plays catch up.’

Jessica L Morales - The Heart’s Electromagnetic Field Is Your Superpower - Psychology Today

15. Intention Vs Attention & The Feedback Loop – Music Creating a Circle Of Time - Track: Runnerz/Joy Orbison

‘Attention activates the energy field, and intention activates the information field, which causes transformation’

Deepak Chopra

When looking at the Feedback Loop we need to question why we put music out into the world, when we DJ and produce? Why we take photos and show them in a gallery? As mentioned above music is hyper realised through expressing our emotions, through vulnerability. That is a positive loop, it has a virtuous intention.

What is our Intention? Are we just doing it for attention? Is it a positive intention ripple or a negative attention whirlpool? Does it reverb out or suck back in? For example, in my realm of creativity am I taking photos of a rave, because I want the attention of shooting a killer shot of a massive DJ and the empty validation that gives me? Or do I just want to capture the intricacies of the rave in a holistic way? Basically, your intention matters. It really does.

‘The acronym of ego is Edging God Out’

Melanie Tonia Evans

Did you know that when water is frozen, the crystals it creates reflect any kind of energy put into it? Dr Masaru Emoto carried out a series of experiments that showed positive intentions aimed at water made the crystal structures more symmetrical and beautiful.

‘Dr. Masaru Emoto put Water as a Living Consciousness on the map for the scientific world. He showed us how water is an energy capable of more than we ever imagined. The power human thoughts, sounds and intentions has to strengthen and disempower is one of the greatest discoveries of our time.

His work has us question, if water is affected by the words, intentions, and energies, what about human beings, who are made of mostly water? If we transform the water and thoughts we are made of, what else is possible?’

www.thewellnessenterpise.com/emoto/

In the music industry, it’s an industry to make money, is attention now more important than an artist’s intention? Rather than what inspires people to create and feel? What is the altruistic component?

It’s empathy, it’s feelings. It’s an artist’s soul. People sense empathy, feeling and soul, then music with this positive intention sells and that element creates symmetrical and beautiful structures in us. The soul shards are at the forefront and are evident. But taking a risk with showing those soul shards is the hardest part, as mentioned in previous chapters, its fearless to put your whole self out there. When I listen to Joy Orbison’s recent album here with the voice notes of his family, I realise that is why it was so good to listen to, it was personal. His intention was to just…explore, create and play.

Would a big record label see this as something that could make money? I would doubt it, they want another Hyph Mngo, tried and tested. But then when Hyph Mngo came out on Hotflush, it was radically different to what came before. But the reaction to Joy’s latest record proved this point, that although it might not be considered, let’s say, commercially viable from an attention point of view, its intention came from exactly the right place.

Post Note August 2024: Now I could say that Joy’s album was his finest work so far, but that would be a bit dicey as he’s released such classics as ‘Sicko Cell’ and just in the last 6 months come out with ‘Flight FM’, a track of such mammoth ‘I made it just to play around’ intentions, which he quickly bashed out on the way to play a festival, it’s completely owned the summer at every rave. Because correct intention. You can feel it.

This magic combination creates a Feedback Loop within art. It creates music you can sing to, music you can dance to, music that gives you the feels. You can tell they have made that music with feeling/empathy/soul and a authentic and pure intention, as opposed to an ego attention. It is music that is made to connect, because it comes from the place that we as humans collectively experience. Our vulnerability.

My most recent experience of this was only last month, during Loxy and Ink’s set at Virus. So much soul with the sonic chemistry between those two. How can they bend drum and bass in such unique ways? In a way chemistry between artists is like romantic chemistry, it cannot be predicted. Like love it just ‘happens’, it cannot be forced. Like magnets they are attracted to each other through the positive intentions of their very spirits.

Or another even more recent experience with Calyx and Teebee at Printworks. Two artists who are brothers from other mothers, who may at times work on their own separate careers, but every time I see them play together, I admire how they telepathically communicate with one another, to create a conjuring moment during their set.

I had a lot of thoughts about my intentions to make my own forthcoming photo book, why did I want to do it? A lot of people said to me that I should do as an advert for my work, to push my career bigger. But I realised that’s attention rather than intention. That’s not a good ethos to put out into the world. The purpose must be positive, it must be clear. As its impact will be in the future, and I must honour that. What do we all owe the future?

When I first started music photography in 2006, there was really no end game to be a music photographer, it wasn’t even a job. I just liked music, I wanted to learn more about it, and I wanted to capture it. Back then the only intention was to create a comprehensive body of work that was as experimental as the music that I shot. So now I’ve come full circle, back to my original idea, which is sincere in its innocence. But instead of just showing my work, I want to put this essay in too, which is more of an honest motive to me. If the photos where the process, this piece of writing is the result. It was also written for myself to personally reconcile the experiences I have collected in this industry.

How can I turn some of those devastating situations into a positive intention? Like the 9 year career blacklisting and an enduring smear campaign I received in 2015, from a DJ I worked with, implemented by his ex-partner. An ex who also happens to be a powerful female senior agent still working today, in a tale identical to the covert operations of Harvey Weinstein in the film industry. Or the current music photography scene, full of gatekeeping male dominated photography teams, that have prevented me working entirely for the last 5 years at least. So entirely detrimental to shooting music as a collective and universal creative practice, where the talent is the most important thing. Both of those kinds of situations come from the ego; full of attention, insecurity & greed, reeking of entitlement and selfishness. So, the intention is off, it smells funny, like a stale sweaty locker room, and this is detrimental to all of us. It weakens the inclusive power of creativity and art.

‘You have to be prepared for the names they will call you compared to your male counterparts. And also males that you work with write for and inspire - Stealing your stuff, ‘bits’ and obsessions’

Courtney Love

“Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop.”

Ziad K.Abdelnour

‘I tell young artists all the time - There is room for all extraordinary creatures. Just do you. Keep your eyes fixed on the track. Think like a racehorse. And don’t forget, the horse running at your side is your ally not your enemy’

Shirley Manson - Garbage

Ah, I know what I will do, I’ll switch mediums, start writing and create something with the right intention. Something that is useful to us all who have had similar experiences, something affirmative, something different, with a unique kind of fizz. I develop a positive print from a pressurised negative place. In a way those situations are truly gifts, as much as I fought against them for years. As much as they made me walk away so many times, I always returned an improved version of myself with new ideas to match.

‘Satan cannot create anything, that includes blessings for his people’

Katt Williams referring to his blacklisting in Hollywood

‘Spirituality holds us accountable for our choices’

Jaguar Wright

‘Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage’

Anais Nin

What is made under all that intense heat and pressure? Diamonds are, big shiny carets of positive ideals, which I wear proudly on my hand like a huge engagement ring that gleams in the sunlight. Why I have been shunted out of large areas of the industry? Because I have more to offer, and those restrictive places designed to isolate me, are not meant for me. So, in a way that’s protection I must celebrate. I’ll let those setbacks flow around me like water. I’ll flip and reverse it from dark to light. I’ll turn those forces designed to destroy me into a good intention, into something beautiful, inspiring and useful. Because ultimately, they no longer have any power in my world anymore. That internal paradigm I now create and inhabit always takes care of me and such situations are of no concern. I’ll just take the lessons learned, as a invaluable tool to becoming more skilled at what I do. For without those experiences, I would not have written this piece. I must therefore bless those who caused them. This then returns me to my original and positive intention and purpose.

‘What if the worst thing that happened to you was the best thing that happened to you’?’

Dr Joe Dispenza - Becoming Supernatural

‘But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you and persecute you.

Good-will produces a great aura around one who sends it and no weapon that is formed against him shall prosper. In other words, love and good-will destroys the enemies within one’s self, therefore one has no enemies on the external’

Florence Scovel Shinn

Keep this in mind when you come across your own wars, because everyone in this industry does. Sometimes the greatest blockages send you the most incredible capability if you look at them from another proactive vantage point. By the way, the view is great up here. I mean honestly, it’s better than the top of The Shard.

“It is easy to love your friend, but sometimes the hardest lesson to learn is to love your enemy.”

 Sun Tzu – The Art Of War

I see this also with artists who came up with me over the last decade. As they have matured, I can see that the way they create music has come back around full circle. The way that Eva Lazarus’s journey into motherhood has enriched her output in so many ways. How Workforce’s purposeful action in the shedding of the ego has made his solo work fly. In a way their innocent positive earlier intentions must be confused and diluted by the harshness, dog eat dog and PRESSURE of the music industry. The truth is, the realness and spirit of an artist’s work becomes stronger as they collect more experiences in their life, the good and the bad (especially the bad). They become braver and more open. Like heating up and dipping steel multiple times into water to refine it and change its properties, their blades become sharper. They give less flying f’s. You can only improve as time continues if you create with the right intention, coupled with your hard-won wisdom. The more of your soul you bare, the more you hit the play child-like flow state, the stronger the reaction to your music will be and the chance of hitting Feedback Loops is higher.

When we think of this in relation to time, time is circular, that all artists go through in their life with regards to intention for their art.

16. Record Labels & the Feedback Loop – 29 Year Loop of Creative Maturity (the Saturn Return) - Track: Energy (Extended Mix)/A Guy Called Gerald

If time is circular with the maturity of an artist, then this also can apply to record labels. Record labels are formed in response to the influence (often in teenage years) of older record labels. Each label forms inspirational loops that make a younger artist set up their own label and so on and so forth. In a way all labels are connected. If we think of them like atoms, they also often repel each other to, this creates the energy of the scene. For instance, how many labels were set up due to Ram, Hospital, Virus, Metalheadz and Good Looking? How has the tension between those labels ignited a scene? Record labels are also astrology/planet feedback loops. The theory of the Saturn Return plays into this:

‘in horoscopic astrology, a Saturn Return is an astrological transit that occurs when the planet Saturn returns to the same ecliptic longitude that it occupied at the moment of a person's birth. While the planet may not first reach the exact location until the person is 29 or 30 years old, the influence of the Saturn return is considered to start in the person's late twenties, notably the age of 27’

 Psychologically, the first Saturn return is seen as the time of reaching full adulthood, and being faced, perhaps for the first time, with adult challenges and responsibilities’

Wikipedia Definition

From my observations a large amount of record labels are launched by artists during the period of their personal Saturn return. Of course, there are exceptions (James Lavelle set up Mo Wax age 17). But so many producers seem to launch labels around this time I think there is some theory in the timing of a record labels birth. Like its by design of nature/science and spirituality at the same time.

It’s also interesting to me though on a personal level, that I resonate strongly with Hermetism, which is a combination of beliefs that stem from the combined Greek and Egyptian gods of Thoth and Hermes. After looking into Hermes with more detail, he rules the constellations of Gemini and Virgo. Gemini and Virgos planet is Mercury and Hermes/Thoth’s planet is also…Mercury.

Even my own schooling references a particular similarity to this hermetic way of thinking, and has deeply galvanised the ideas within this paper, maybe subconsciously. Further personal research into St Christopher’s School in Letchworth UK (a progressive school based on Theosophy) which as an army child, always residing in different countries, I attended from age 10 to 16, shows a strong leaning towards this belief system. Which is news to me as I always thought it was Quaker. Theosophy is considered part of western esotericism along with Hermetism. Although some of its core texts could be considered rather extreme and indeed controversial, it’s fundamental ideas like hermetic principles, is learning about the world through the combined lens ‘plain’ of spirituality/philosophy, religion and science. And that all things are equal regardless of sex, creed, caste etc. This movement heavily influenced the founders of this school, who based the establishment on an essay called ‘Education As Service’ by one of Theosophy’s main figures, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Astrology was also an important part of Theosophy too, and was referred to by Helena Blavatsky, the core founder of this movement, in much of her writing.

This school had a ‘whole person’ approach to teaching children, where good diet (our school was vegetarian, we grew our own food), equality/mutual respect between student and teacher (we had no uniform and teachers were addressed by their first name) and the importance of community (we all had jobs within the school to carry out, such as laying the tables for lunch etc) were just as important as what we were taught in lessons. Competition over grades between pupils was discouraged, and exam results kept private. Students were encouraged in whatever subject they naturally excelled in and that confidence then ‘bled out’ into other areas. And while I’m writing this I realise quite how utterly utopian in its ideals this place was in the early 90s. How lucky I could be taught in a way that made me respect all things in this universe equally. To consider all points of view and possibilities in the world on the same level of importance, to make it a better and fairer place. I wish with all my heart children of the future could learn in such a fertile zone. Without any prejudices from overriding political or religious dogma forced on us, we even made up the school rules. We were as children, expected to openly debate on how the school was run (and sometimes changing those rules by a majority vote). What’s also fascinating in hindsight, is that my father and I picked this school as we felt it had a good ‘energy’. It seems it’s influence all these years later continues to dominate me, which it explains why this essay has such varied subjects and viewpoints. And also why nothing is off limits to consider in this paper…My dad liked to call it, the ‘hippie school’. I did use to practice yoga and meditation lessons on a Saturday morning though, due to the Indian influence in theosophy, so maybe he had a point.

My own star sign is also Gemini, being born on the 19th June 1980, with heavy accents of Virgo pertaining to other planets placements, and somehow I think that may be by design also. To add to that, Thoth is often depicted with a baboons head, a form of monkey, and my Chinese year of birth is the metal monkey. And yes another reference to Mercury, being an element of metal. Thoth is also the god of the sciences and the arts, such as music, which I have referenced heavily. So, in a way, I think my writing of this essay, and the major iconography/influences contained within it is designed/mapped out by my own personal birth planetary placements and schooling, like what I’m talking about here. It does seem to me that this essay as a creative endeavour, rather like a record label, was always meant to be written in this way, and at this particular point in time.

For those who think astrology should be dismissed a spiritual fancy, maybe the prediction of future outcomes could be. But the strength of the cosmos in our lives on earth is essential. The earth is controlled by planets and stars. The tide is controlled by the moon, we gain energy from the sun. Is it out of the realms of possibility that other planets orbits can affect such things as the timing of launching creative endeavours, such as record labels?

When it comes to time, setting up a record labels is a marker of maturity in an artist’s life. A Feedback Loop project from a specific coming of age.

17. Music & The Stars (The Feedback Loop as the Galactical Chemical Evolution) - Tracks: Look at Stars/SBTRKT & Sampha & Emo CPU/Special Request

The more I wrote this essay the more I realise that I’m just trying to work out cosmic knots between what could be seen as disparate subjects through my own curiosity, but those subjects are connected through music. And following on from astrology mentioned in the previous chapter I got thinking about the universe, and mainly stars. Which I could make a quip about the infamous Simply Red album of the same name, which I might add, sold MILLIONS, just like there are millions of stars in the universe. But a lot of music on our planet, is influenced by stars and the cosmos. Why is that? Which brings me to this….

The other day on YouTube I came across Dr Brian Cox, one of our great physics minds and he had such a wonderful fact of our existence that it sent me on a trail of deep thought again about music, and the true question of why as a medium its inherently part of us? Because it seems to be the starting point of this music = cosmos influence. He said we are all stars and he meant it in a literal sense. He was also in a successful band too as a keyboard player, D:Ream to be exact. Which is CRAZY when you think about it, or maybe NOT. The way he eloquently speaks with great clarity about his great passion/study of space echoes his musical sensibility, like they are tightly intertwined. Hence, I come back to the term, the cosmic knot, the celestial bow etc etc…

 ‘The ingredients in our bodies were assembled from long dead stars, over billions of years’.

 Dr Brian Cox – Joe Rogan Podcast 2024

I even see this in my own images, like when audiences lift their phones or lighters and create mini universes within the crowds during moments of a set. Where each person is their own star at that moment in time photographically. And this specifically seems to only happen at an emotional or energy charged point too. This fact was also referenced by Carl Sagan, one of our great planetary scientists and communicators.

‘The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are the way for the universe to know itself’

 Carl Sagan

What do you mean we are all stars you say? And weirdly enough I’m writing this at 4.40am within hour when most are asleep, and the stars are visible. And it’s so fitting that when I told my own mother I was up at this hour writing, she regaled to me it was the last super moon of the year that night, which is not a mere coincidence in my book. The cosmos has an colossal effect on us, that we are only just understanding. It obviously affected me in some strange mystical way, because I wrote 500 words of this chapter in a mere 20 minutes. Which I find, when I write this quickly it seems to be me slotting into that flow state, sandwiched between the earth and the sky. Like me and my ideas are floating between the two planes of existence, reality and spirit.

Many years ago, when I was a child living in Cyprus I used to marvel at the stars. So clear and bright outside our house overlooking the sea near Nicosia. As I stood in the slightly wooded area where all the shrub land was sparse, and the same height as my four-year-old self, It’s one of my first human memories. And maybe that life experience was designed that way. For in writing this chapter I’ve transported back to the amazement of that time, and I can imagine the Big Dipper, and Orion’s belt, so sharp and defined to my younger eyes because there is hardly any light pollution in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. And our eyes as children are drenched in the new, the unexplored thirst and the ‘why’ for everything we see around us. That state is something I try to cultivate daily. STARS, how awe inspiring that they are the same thing as me?

Ok let’s get to the science bit…explained in my rudimentary way, rather than the musical and knowledgeable sing song of Dr Brian Cox. He just has the best accent doesn’t he? Anyway…

So, a long long time ago when the universe was formed from the Big Bang, and stars were made from hydrogen, helium and a tiny bit of lithium. Stars are formed from these elements, and as they get older, they die, and form heavier elements such as carbon etc. which then explodes during a supernova and forms a ‘glitter soup’ as I like to call it. Tiny bits of shattered stars bursting out into space, all mixed together. And out of that shiny iridescent flare, which when I imagine it seems so visually breath-taking, I get quite emotional, came more galaxies and planets and then…us. We are all born from stardust. The building blocks of our bodies are made from it. Which makes us all millions of years old, it also makes us pure energy. Matter is the same as energy as we know, all those heavier more solid elements originally came from the fast-moving boiling hot gas furnaces of hydrogen and helium suns. The ultimate energy, but just in a slower, harder and older form.

As I’m tapping this out, I’m listening to Special Requests Emo CPU track, from his Portals series right now…It is a track that sounds new and millions of years old at the same time, like sonic stardust. The artwork to this record reflects that too, it’s an illustration of an aged futuristic portal; part Stargate, part renaissance painting. Sometimes, I often think of Paul as an intergalactic voyager rather than a straight up producer or DJ, because he seems to flit in-between many styles and labels and names musically. Like he wants to taste and embody the whole musical universe all at once, by enthusiastically & excitedly visiting each and every planet in the music ‘solar system’ over his career…And I know this is a bit of a tangent here, so let’s move on…Well I don’t know if I can regarding the soundtrack to this chapter because his output BANGS. So Special Request day it is on my stereo, the new and the old, the fast and the slow of Paul’s creations….and the incredible energy contained within them…

So, after researching I found out the process in which stars are born and die, plus regenerate in this way is called the Galactic Chemical Evolution. Which would make the coolest band name don’t you think? How does the Galactic Chemical Evolution work then? Is it really as cool as it sounds? YES IT IS.

When stars die and lose their mass, all the elements that had been generated inside are swept out into space. Then the next generation of stars form from those elements, burn and are again swept out.

'This constant reprocessing of everything is called galactic chemical evolution,' Ashley says. 'Every element was made in a star and if you combine those elements in different ways you can make species of gas, minerals, and bigger things like asteroids, and from asteroids you can start making planets and then you start to make water and other ingredients required for life and then, eventually, us.'

Dr Ashley King

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-we-really-made-of-stardust.html

And this process I’ve realised…Is also how I believe music works as a system with the Feedback Loop moment. And that music is again just another kind of system, that beautifully echoes the elegant solar systems of our very existence. So it could be called, the Galactic Creative Evolution…and you wouldn’t even have to change the acronym. How neat is that!

Let’s expand on this, each time a Feedback Loop happens in music it’s like a mini-inspirational supernova, and explosion of a star (the artist), spilling its musical elements and inspirations out into space (the audience). For a moment the artist is the sun, and the audience the surrounding galaxy. And we each are all suns and galaxies & planets throughout our lives, mimicking the Galactic Chemical Evolution of the universe. The cyclic rebirth and death of creative energy. Perpetual motion, just like how the universe regenerates itself. And as we believe the universe is constantly expanding, my theory of The Feedback Loop process expanding creative energy is an exact match. So here is some more detail on that…

We metaphorically swop and change those positions of star/galaxy/planet through our own creations. We don’t wholly die at that point like a star, but our creativity is expelled with the same kind of force and aftereffects. As we have many periods of creativity and then rest in our lives, where we take in inspiration for periods of time (from other people’s supernova moments), then we create & become like a sun, and have our own little mini supernovas expulsions and so on and so forth. This happens with many mediums and many periods of time within our time on earth…So we even act like stars, because we are made of the same thing. And this is a profound realisation to me, that we still embody the ‘code’ of the universe we are made of. This links back again to spirituality with the universe laws of the Kabylion which I will reference here at some point. Because I’ve not finalised this chapter yet, because well…I only wrote the idea of it a week ago.

Indeed, on the other side of the coin, it can also be said that there are people that are actual black holes, sucking in others light and destroying it. Which is in all galaxies in the solar system, every galaxy has one. It’s almost as if these soul suckers are a necessity for creative life.  I mean I hate a human black hole such as a narcissist/sociopath as the next neurotypical person. But maybe I should reframe their existence by comparing their role in the universe as an inherent natural part of the system? Seems like a good healthy point of view. It hurts, but also heals me to reconcile the dark forces in my life as something I need, rather than being a victim of them. Maybe viewing them in this cosmic way neutralizes the pain they cause; it transmutes their energy into something powerful. They attempt to destroy but actually they create….which undoubtedly is a ‘home goal’ to a black holes ultimate mission, but it really does work that way in my opinion…

These black holes viewed from a different viewpoint, teach you how to manipulate your own energy to reach your highest creative level, to ultimately escape from their immense dark gravity and influence. I often think of what has happened to me after I’ve had a brush with a death star person or situation? I’ve mentioned it before in previous chapters…they do in the end seem to make my light BRIGHTER because I’ve had to fold and turn in on myself to escape them, or focus my creative force into another direction. And I suppose the remit of the film Star Wars with the inherent message of ‘May the force be with you’ in the fight against good and evil is the filmic ethos of this creative process. And I guess this chapter is one of those glistening moments for me, for it came after another experience just like that. And at the end of it, I should again be thankful for such experiences.

‘A force is not a power you have. It’s not about lifting rocks. It’s the energy between all things, a tension, a balance, that binds the universe together’

Luke Skywalker

‘Gratitude is the law of increase, and complaining is the law of decrease’

Florence Scovil Shinn

Now some time later, I’m out the ‘other side’ of those rather large voids, and have disengaged from their light dimming gravity, I no longer feel their effects on my energy or lustre. So yeah, I’m very thankful for personal stardust on that one, you really are magic and made of pure light, to still create something intentionally ethereal out of that dim gravitational pull. My energy just turned in on itself, and formed solid creations out of the void. Creative real world products such as music or writing or visual arts are just in my eyes…solidified light. And creativity is a direct opposite to the destroying black hole darkness.

‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’

Sir Issac Newton

‘Music is the harmonization of opposites: The conciliation of warring elements’

Pythagoras

While I’m further pondering on this music is space and time theory, the irony is not lost on me that music artists are referred to as ‘stars’? Bright pinpricks of light that shine like polished metal due to their intense artistic energy. And, if we are all stardust and energy and matter AT THE SAME TIME, but in just different phase stages of that cyclical process, then we are also all connected, and everyone is everything, everywhere all at once. STARDUST. Just so…Shiny.

It seems the universe is at its core is the same cyclical pattern/systems relating to energy at tiny and large proportions, which constantly vibrate and change to take on different forms of energy, all the way from gas to solid.

‘Change is the only constant in life’

Heraclitus

And so is music. Feedback Loop moments in music echo the universes patterns/systems in so many ways. They are effectively the same process as Galactic Chemical Evolution, but in music endeavour form. Now I just keep seeing repeating PATTERNS. Now I CANNOT UNSEE THEM. And they are EVERYWHERE and the SAME. And this is pure alchemy to me, it’s like I’ve been gifted a way of looking that enables me to crack the ‘DNA’ of creativity and pass on those ideas to others to expand on. Music does indeed = The Universe. Which is why the major record label Universal Music, is called just that.

Patterns of course are inherently mathematical, just like how we understand the universe via maths (argggggh maths, the scary subject I just do not understand). So for now, I’m just going to leave a note here on Pythagorus ‘Music of the Spheres’ theory, that music he believes is also the study of numbers, and the actual solar system itself makes its own symphonies by the movements of the planets. But only our soul can hear this symphony, it’s not actually audible in real life being as space is a vacuum. This of course also backs up my cosmos = music theory. But it’s another rabbit hole I need to do research on before I really lock it down within my ideas. Because alas, I’m not a musician, I do not understand keys and octaves, but they have a place here that I must expand on, like the how the universe does.

My theory ideas, like music and the cosmos are also constantly expanding. Sometimes, that happens so quickly and ideas come at me like warp speed, that are outside of my current knowledge. So my brain has to play ‘catch up’ by learning subjects foreign to my present remit, which is evident in the way I publish this essay. For a lot of it is written/edited online in real time, that I then transcribe and research into my master Word document copy later on. This then solidifies and adds credence the ideas that echo and bounce out of my mind. I also have a humility about the subjects I cover, as there are many experts in these realms who are much more knowledgeable than me. So I hope in time rather than working on this essay solo, they join me with their own ideas and theories to add to it. To make it even more SOLID.

A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design,[1] or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner.

Any of the senses may directly observe patterns. Conversely, abstract patterns in science, mathematics, or language may be observable only by analysis. Direct observation in practice means seeing visual patterns, which are widespread in nature and in art. Visual patterns in nature are often chaotic, rarely exactly repeating, and often involve fractals. Natural patterns include spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tilings, cracks, and those created by symmetries of rotation and reflection. Patterns have an underlying mathematical structure;[2]: 6  indeed, mathematics can be seen as the search for regularities, and the output of any function is a mathematical pattern. Similarly in the sciences, theories explain and predict regularities in the world.

Wikipedia Definition of Pattern

To put this into practice in our daily lives, if think of ourselves as balls of stardust energy and in creating something, whether that be a stellar career, a loving family etc, the only thing that we should be doing in the system of the cosmos and music, which follows the very same cycle, is to pass on that energy with the best possible intentions, like I’m attempting with my writing here.

‘Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people’

Eleanor Roosevelt

We are here to create and that’s it. Doesn’t matter in what way either, if we pass it on in the most positive way, that comes from our souls purpose. Because that’s the nature of stardust, what we are all made from. Which is why the night sky is so breath-taking and full of fascination, for it connects us all by the very thing we are made of. Stardust.

Lastly let’s bring this all back to time again…

Because I am a literal star and physics says so. So that means you are too. Remember that your light is powerful and strong because of that. And time wise, its ETERNAL, it can never be destroyed. When I wake up tomorrow and look at the sun, our star, I’ll put some music on and revel in the fact that I’m bright and alive. Because that star is my sister and everything on earth is also the same thing as me, having the same experiences as me, and that process is a never-ending pattern, cyclical and eternal. Your creativity within music is also eternal, it’s energy, just like stardust, and it works in exactly the same way.

‘Life is like music for its own sake, we are living in the eternal now, and when we are listening to music, we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to the expanded present’

Alan Watts

18. Law of Assumption & the Feedback Loop (Creating Feedback Loops via Positive Assumption & Intention) - Track: You Can Do It/Caribou

Law of Assumption forms part of the new thought teachings by Neville Goddard, that everything you experience in your reality are your thoughts pushed out. This is like Law of Attraction, where positive thoughts, create more positive thoughts. The good thing about Law of Assumption is that it’s a lot easier to grasp than Law of Attraction, a lot less time consuming and very straight ahead indeed. If you decide on the future outcome and fully believe in it, then it’s going to happen. In other words, unwavering blind faith. Like ordering some fancy sushi at a restaurant, you put the order in, you know it’s coming, and that’s all you do. No need for further thought and ‘Will I be able to eat the YUMMY sushi? What if the chef fell off his bike on the way into work? What if the waiter hates me and decided NO sushi for me today?’. It is done.

“Dare to believe in the reality of your assumption and watch the world play its part relative to its fulfilment.” 

Neville Goddard

I’ve talked previously about the child like flow state that creates a Feedback Loop moment in music, this is when you slot into the right mind state to create such a moment or tap into one that’s being formed. However, what if you could create Feedback Loop moments via Law of Assumption?

For instance, I find the best shoots I do are when I do not worry about the outcome. I know I’m a good photographer, so I assume the job will go well regardless. I more than anything enjoy the process, the flow state. If I think anything prior, I say in my head, ‘this is fun and this is easy’. Much like how skateboarders visualise the complex tricks they will land in their daydreams, before they attempt them. So effectively channel your inner Tony Hawk.

‘My mind is powerful, and whatever I can see in my mind, I can make happen’

Damon Dash

Now we are usually taught to worry, usually taught to over prepare, over think and stress out about our jobs or our creative output, often caring too much about what others think of us. But in this case ASSUME does not make an ASS out of U and ME. Assuming the best dictates the outcome AS the best. Imagine by letting go of control and expectation, or how we could be judged, things turn out exactly the way we wanted them to, or better? The minute I stopped overthinking; my work improved immensely. A loose plan is more flexible, moving away from that rigidity allows space for the flow state.

At first thinking this way is strange. Our world is designed to fill our minds with negative thoughts and news. We are subjected to those from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, we hold a portal to them in our hands a lot of the time via our smart phones, AKA the doom box. We are taught to always assume worst case scenario as our primary thought, so we are prepared if it does occur. But this is like carrying an open umbrella around in case it rains, and can you imagine a world where everyone is carrying around an open umbrella 24/7? NIGHTMARE. So don’t think about it for the love of God! That might harden that assumption into reality if all of you do it.

‘If you are not on guard, you can be persuaded by the television, press or the radio, to change your concept of self, and unwittingly move into an undesired state’

Neville Goddard

An alternative, optimistic and fantastical Law of Assumption way of thinking seems well, a bit like magical thinking. It sounds unrealistic, not grounded in reality etc. Our current world does not support daydreaming or visionary thinking in such positive ways. We are especially told this as we grow older, that tuning into our imagination and getting excited about incredible possibilities the world can offer, is a waste of time.

But think about this, the best nights out you’ve had, they’ve been the ones that happened on a whim, that weren’t planned, with no expectations, you just wanted to go out and have a laugh. The best shoots I do are ones where I plan, but I don’t overdo it, I make a free ‘this is going to be GREAT’ timeline and go with that, knowing the outcome will be just fine. Or if you are a DJ or an MC, the best sets are those where you let loose and play what you like, deciding sometimes at the last minute what to mix into the next track, for the fun of it. Or you freestyle some bars out of thin air, bouncing lyrics off the atmosphere or the audience reaction. That is Law of Assumption creating the flow state of Feedback Loops.

Let’s bring time into this, when you assume you’ll have a good time you will, as positive assumption/intention via this law creates your reality experience via your imagination. Which means anything you dream of is possible to manifest in the real world.  

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited to all we know or understand. While imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be known to understand’

Albert Einstein

Post Note 02.12.2022: After some thought. I’ve realised that Law of Assumption is actually like another Nolan film, Inception. I love that film, might watch it again. If Inception was about planting ideas artificially Into your subconscious through your dreams, Law of Assumption is a way of intentionally implanting ideas within your own subconscious, so, you’re incepting yourself in effect. What really matters here is not yr logical mind, which deals with facts. But your subconscious mind, that deals with feelings. If you can implant a desire as a ‘done’ in a feeling sense within your subconscious dream mind through changing your thoughts intentionally, then that will reflect as a hardened assumption in your material world and logical mind.

Neville Goddard did this with State Akin To Sleep. Where you imagine how you would feel if all your desires where here RIGHT NOW and existed in your present reality. You do this as you drift off to sleep, embodying the FEELING of your ideal self. Imagining a scene in your mind that represents the state of that wish fulfilled. Like the film Inception he believed that sleep, the door to the subconscious was the key to changing your assumptions into the state of the wish fulfilled, and therefore that gets hardened into reality. The key is, to be happy with the wish fulfilled in your imagination alone, for that is the true reality rather than your current outward circumstances. So you must FEEL from the end of already having it, and not worry about the way your desire may or may not come to you.

If you crack this then it really doesn’t need to happen in reality, your subconscious mind has already done it. I tend to get to this point while writing/planning projects, if I saturate my mind enough about how I’m going to do something creative, by imagining it, writing down ideas, sometimes I get to the feeling of ‘having it’ already, which is remarkably strange and my desire for it lessons. But thats actually my mind being completely impressed in a way by a ‘future memory’ within my imagination.

‘If you are possessed of fear, do not waste time ‘killing out’’ fear, but instead cultivate the quality of courage and the fear will dissipate’

The Kybalion - The Three Initiates

“Never play to the gallery… never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society… i think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people’s expectations.”

 David Bowie - 1997 Inspirations Interview

18. The Feedback Loop & Letting Go (The Paradox Of Trying Less to Get More) - Track: So Lonely (Satl Remix)/dBridge - Post Chapter April 2024

This morning I was in the shower and I had a flash thought…What if I don’t have any desire to take photos of music anymore? How would that feel? Following on from the chapter above about the Law of Assumption, is assumption really just a positive detachment? Once we have assumed, we have faith in our desires so much we have already done them, via the ‘future memory’ practice of imagining them? I’ve realised then that Feedback Loops in music, they occur when we LET GO. You can’t go into a set or sit in the studio trying to make a Feedback Loop moment, trying to force things. They occur when there is NO CONTROL. The flow state to get them is LETTING GO. It is the surrender of having no outcome or expectations. Living in the moment, is detachment, it is letting go. No worries OK?

I made the decision late last year to let go of the outcome of my music photography career. The reason being, it has been a struggle of diminishing returns for an extremely long time. To the point of the frustration of trying to force things to gain any work at all is making me physically ill. Since this realisation I’ve had to think of healthy and productive ways to fix this. I’ve tried a number of ways to do less to…ease stress. Long Covid really was a wake up call on that one, but ended up being a blessing in disguise. It forced me to LET GO of anything else outside regaining my health. Feeling good was my primary aim. During that recovery period in late 2021 I regained my flow state, as the rough drafts of this essay were conceived at that point. I didn’t even mean to start writing, but I felt the need to just put pen to paper as a creative process, rather than predicting any result. In a way writing this essay over this time has saved me, it allowed me to express my love for the healing properties of music, without being constrained by the oppressive powers that be within the industry. It allowed me to LET GO and also BE FREE. Which is probably why I continue to write it now into all eternity, through others input beyond my lifetime.

In the approx two years since then, I’ve upped my physical fitness. But my mental stress increased and I’ve realised it does tie strongly with my music photography work. High states of cortisol in the body affect creativity I’ve found, because how can you create when you are in survival mode? It’s also a HEAVY energy to carry, keeping me from being light-footed in life. Therefore I currently need to shine my focus at something else thats a lot more positive and well…FLOWEY. If we come back to energy, my energy is stuck if I try to push too hard with FORCE. As energy literally flows, where your focus goes, sometimes what’s best for you is redirect it, or to DO LESS. Or just nothing at all. Forggettt about it. Become lighter. This is also known as the Taoist concept Wu-Wei.

‘In the Taoist structure of the universe, humans are meant to accept and yield to the Tao and only do things that are natural and in keeping with the Tao. This is the concept of wu-wei, which translates as “non-action,” but really means to go with the true nature of the world and not strive too hard for desires’

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/chinese-religions-and-philosophies/

It’s as if the universe sees me pushing, across any area of my life, that’s a signal to my subconscious mind that I’m clinging on, refusing to let it go, so I’m rewarded with continually worse circumstances. Also, another example, if I constantly worry about money it signals a lack, so surprise surprise, I’m rewarded with more of the same. So, from now on, those subjects are assumed to be done for me in the best possible outcome in my mind. Again, NO WORRIES. Faith it seems, means you can let go of control and expectations. PHEW. I love that. Been a saviour literally that thought, for the last six months. F*ck it, has become more of an action to me over this period. I’m just Wu-Weing all over the place.

‘Let go or be dragged’ - Zen Proverb

‘Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose’

Yoda

This was a scary thing to me at first, this surrender. But I’m not releasing the desire to do it. My assumption currently, in the now, is I must release the NEED for it. Because it’s running away from me, because I want to control HOW and WHEN it happens. It’s funny because the moment I made that decision, to LET GO, I exhaled and have now the feeling of relief. I’m BEING rather than doing, I’ve realised that throughout my whole life, control and maximum effort in my outer world has been taught to me as a way to achieve great things. That has come from many areas. Capitalism and society as a whole, that hustle culture of work harder, faster. But it definitely does not work in creatively minded activities. From here on in, I’m going to do less to get more. I just need to let go of the struggle and go with the flow of life rather than vigorously swim against it. I need to just TRUST. Why is it so hard to do that? Ah because I’ve been taught to go faster rather than trust harder. This brings me to what is known as the ‘Backwards Law’ as demonstrated by Mark Manson…I would try and put a neat little quote here by Manson but I’ll just link you to the whole article because its great:

https://markmanson.net/the-backwards-law

I’ll also quote a quote inside this article as it seems to really epitomise it:

‘Aldous Huxley once wrote, “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and results come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity.’

Keeping in with this water theme of drown proofing, that Mark references, I suppose my personal example of this less is more is my daily swimming practice. I didn’t swim for my body, there was no expectation on that. I swam for my mind, that is all. In taking out the needy expectation that it will make me this toned entity, I have paradoxically arrived at that very point. My sister however, put a whole lot more effort into it, swimming much quicker than I. But the important thing is, she worked harder for the same result, so diminishing returns? I might also add I sent her hours of dBridge mixes and well, apparently dBridge is the JAM to go swimming to. Maybe she just doesn’t care so much on the returns because she just likes dBridge so much now? I mean really, if you don’t like at least some of dBridge’s output do you even like music?

Joseph Murphy, in his book The Power Of The Subconscious Mind also refers to this paradox at the end of the How To Get The Results You Want chapter:

1/Mental Coercion or too much effort shows anxiety or fear, which block your answer. Easy does it. 2/When your mind is relaxed and you accept an idea, your subconscious goes to work to excecute it. 6/Imagination is your most powerful faculty. Imagine what is lovely and of good report. You are what you imagine yourself to be.

Or another classic example of this is when you really want a partner, and you are looking and desperately searching out there on dating sites nobody is around. But the minute you have acceptance of maybe never finding someone, that perfect person turns up as if by magic. Because people in love don’t look for love, do they? Or importantly people who have self love, don’t look for love. They let their desire for it go. They don’t need it. They validate themselves by being love already.

‘Love is the state of Being. Your love is not outside, it is deep within you. You cannot lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.’

Eckhart Tolle

I have now personally got to this point, I’m just going to be love..sounds odd doesn’t it. A recent unsuccessful foray into this area, where I had been vulnerable with my feelings to someone really special over the last few months, has crushed me. It really hurts writing that. What I need to think is, reality means nothing. My emotions towards him are real to me in my heart/mind and I know he feels it too. Why push for external validation on what I already know to be true? Time to CHILL. OK I’m gonna be honest, I have NOT been chill, I’ve been the exact opposite. I’ve been angry, frustrated, mad and upset at him and sadly, we aren’t currently talking. I have cried a lot of needless tears over this man, making him important when I’m the most important person in my life, and you know that’s the wrong was to go about it. The one and only thing I need to do is release control, so time to think loving thoughts about that person and let them go. Because they really are lovely, I do REALLY want them. But after some thoughts I don’t need them, I’d be just as happy without them. Soooo let’s not stress?

Inspired action is what Neville Goddard is also suggested in this situation. Your actions to achieve the goal you want must be natural and not forced, they must come from a state of a relaxed person that already has it. In this case knowing what you wanted in a partner and maybe taking yourself to different environments was the intuitive inspired action, just to meet new people. Those little cumulative actions don’t scream anxious control, they are more relaxed, faith and feeling based. Want over need. Interpersonal love over codependent love. In the ‘state’ of love rather than looking for love. That’s the kind of love I desire.

So when it comes to love, I have faith that I’m fine just the way I am. So now I’m gonna LET GO and let god sort that out for me. But, I am very glad I met him because it taught me how to feel again. As mentioned in earlier chapters I’ve been emotionally unavailable, so it served a positive purpose in that respect. He opened my heart in that intuition flow state way that was blocked for so long, and you know what? It feels good to just to FEEL. I really had forgotten how wonderful it was to have feelings for someone that I couldn’t logically explain, that just happened. In my scientific brain feelings don’t make sense, they defy what I am used to. I try to stifle, control and direct them. But thats not what emotions are, they exist just to experience. In the end, even if we never meet again, I’m so thankful for him and that process of opening my heart. Emotions of even of great sadness from lessons such as this I’ve found, feel good to express. It’s really all about your perspective on these meetings, after you let go.

So, I rewrote this part of the chapter a million times, because it was cathartic for me to say these things, in the feeling state. Because those emotions he cracked open are always available inside of me. I won’t ever lose them, no matter what happens. Even when I let go. And I must have faith in my work and value despite all painful external obstacles against me, I won’t ever lose my talent or worth due to them. Those things are always available to express while I have a paper/pen and camera. Even when I let go.

I’m sure when it comes to creating Feedback Loops in music, doing less in this flow state way, it leads to more. Rather like how Stock, Aitken and Waterman, wrote their number one hits in ten minutes. I’m sure ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ by Kylie Minogue came into the world that way. Often the bit of music you have no attachment to, that was just silly idea you made quickly with little effort, has the most energetic resonance. I’m certain they didn’t need a number one hit from that session, so let go of that outcome. I know they wanted it, but it wasn’t at the forefront of their minds while they mucked around, probably laughing while singing the stupidly simple hook, of that incredibly catchy song. Just feeling the emotions of making music with no other aim but to experience joy. It’s like spending hours in the studio perfecting one bar or snare, or forcing music due to deadlines etc because you need it to work, in the end overcooks your ideas and they sound dead and hollow. So you didn’t let go, and let your intuition and emotions guide you. In my medium, if I’m left to a flow state when I’m shooting and my clients just tell me to ‘do my thing’ I have fun experimenting and come up with a ton of great work. However, when people give me set shot lists at events, I create hardly any useable photos. I’m being too controlled and I get distracted by their needy energy. I forget to rely on those things that keep me in the moment. The mindfulness of making something and how happy it makes me.

I also heard recently that the wildly prolific Tom Ford, he of those incredible fragrances, makeup and many beautiful clothes had three baths a day. So he’s obviously taking time to relax, do LESS, to achieve more in the long run. He doesn’t need to think up lots of perfume names such as ‘Fucking Fabulous’ in the bath. But he wanted to have some space to think through random ideas, while feeling the warmth of the water he was bathing in. Flow over control. But then again, if I had all the access to Tom Ford fragrances, I would DEFINITELY be taking three baths a day. Because those fragrances are OTHERWORLDLY. Just a note, Black Orchid is my favourite.

When it comes to time, ironically more time spent on wilful efforts and overthinking to achieve your desires may be counterproductive. More time going within, doing less and only carrying out intuition feeling based action and thought, is much more successful. Which is why this will be my last chapter of this essay for the time being. To spend more wilful effort on it will now produce diminishing returns. In fact by not really saying to myself I NEED to add to this theory, paradoxically I’ve managed to write two new chapters. I had fun with it, and worked through some intense emotions. So I’ve done my inspired actions for now, time to stop. Less is more as more effort in this instance leads to less. RELAX. I’m off to have a bath…

19. Conclusion - Track: Pearls Girl/Underworld & Time Becomes/Orbital

In a normal essay I might end this up with a neat little conclusion that ties all the ideas above together. But the point is there is no conclusion, as everything you do, such as this piece of writing, echoes down the line. Rather like aiming for perfection, you’ll never reach the final destination. Seems a bit lazy of me to end it this way, and I was stuck writing this part for ages, even my Manic Pixie Dream Girl energy couldn’t crack it. However, in the end I came to this as the ultimate point for my ideas to stop, the ending/non-ending.

I’m sitting here listening to the thundering techno of ‘Pearls Girl’ by Underworld as I’m hammering this out rather aggressively on my keyboard. This is a track I’ve been transfixed with since I was 16 years old. It still makes feels within me, more than 25 years later. The energy in it is still active and kinetic, because I like dancing to this round my living room, and the power from that track is expressed out through my steps. When some 16-year-old today finds it on YouTube, or in their parents record collection, it will still have that latency. If it exists and inspires someone, it carries on. Much like how DJ Shadow sampled long lost 7 inches to make entire albums, he released the vitality of those samples again, and the joy people get from those records, be it emotions, dancing or inspiration is just another form of the energy. In science energy is never created or destroyed, it just moves into another vessel. And thus, the cycle continues. The same happens in music via the magic of Feedback Loops.

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another.”

 Albert Einstein

‘Music is energy. A mood. Atmosphere. Feeling.

Kurt Cobain

The above chapters are just my own personal observations on the power of electronic music and music in general in our lives. How its own Feedback Loops are so magic that it can affect the one constant. The passing of time. The real conclusion to fit with the ethos of what I’ve written is this essay should be open source, which means anyone, and everyone can add their input and own personal energy back into the system. Because nobody’s ideas are more important than anyone else’s, and everyone’s input is as equally valuable as my own. This essay is also a Feedback Loop, it has no end. My one wish from this piece of writing is these ideas inspire others, to add their own take on it, and that these concepts are magnified and amplified through others. As this writing exists and you are reading it right now, it has that ability. Like a gun finger salute at a rave, it could be a starting pistol to an expanding idea flow that can reach outwards into infinity and beyond it.

Let’s go back to the movie Tenet, because maybe you don’t need to necessarily understand all these notions but plug into the feelings that come out of them. Because I still don’t understand Tenet, and I’ve watched it three times so far, but I get the essence and the vibe of it. This essay is a tool for you to refer to, when it all gets too much to bear, so your creativity is not crushed by the many negative forces that work against it. Because the reality is, those forces AKA ‘the machine’ fear it. And sometimes those forces are inside us, and now is the time to break free from them.

‘Fear is misdirected energy and must be redirected, or transmuted into Faith’

Florence Scovel Shinn

Music is the constant link between spirituality, science, religion and the human experience and one of the most powerful endeavours we can create. Like many things in life, it has its own positive Feedback Loop systems, and those loops are magic in the real world. Go out or stay in, make art, your own imagination is more powerful than you can ever envision. For it echoes for all infinitude down the line in so many bewitching, fascinating and mind-bending ways that this essay has only just touched on. In putting back this innovative energy into the system, it can become amplified like an audio Feedback Loop. Which makes the arts one of the most dynamic and positive forces in the world, that can not only effect time, but expands the whole universe creatively, like a cascading domino effect.

‘Distance doesn’t exist, in fact, and neither does time. Vibrations from love or music can be felt everywhere at all times’

Yoko Ono

‘Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything’

Plato

‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’

Clarke’s Three Laws – Wikipedia Definition

This essay is dedicated to everyone I have come across in this ‘industry’ over the last 15 years, but to me lets rename it a Playground. It has broken me down and lifted me up in so many ways and been so undeniably hard and truly amazing at the same time. But in a way that cyclical shattering has enriched my soul, rebuilding me a thousand times stronger than before. With rebuilding and reinvention comes redemption. It has given me a platform to reach my true purpose, my authentic self, and for that I am truly thankful. Because this is what I owe the future.

If this essay resonated with you, then you can donate a cup of coffee to my PayPal (sarah@sarahginn.co.uk) for £4.00

I don’t believe this should be behind a paywall or a subscription service as I feel this is an essay that should be available as a tool for creatives everywhere, to see how their art affects the wider world and why that is so important

I drank a LOT of coffee writing this so more quality caffeine is appreciated, so I can produce more of this kind of work :-)