Marriage

Some of my recent mixes have pushed a little more progressive…even trancey…and the wife wasn’t feelin’ it. So I was inspired by this lovely spring weather to put together an organic house mix that the wife can get behind. It gets a little more deep and minimal in the middle…but I tried to resist the temptation to take it progressive. For me, this set has a ton of tracks that are tough not to like…house music fan or not. Enjoy!

Download the mix now.

1. Ananda Project featuring Gaelle Addison - Cascades of Colour (Wamdue Black Mix) [King Street Sounds]
2. Miguel Migs - The Night [Naked Music]
3. Straight Radiohed - DJ WHO vs. Radiohead [White]
4. Hardrive/Masters at Work - Deep Inside [UMM]
5. Lovetronic - You are Love (Si Brad’s Payback Vocal) [Naked Music]
6. Andy Caldwell featuring Omega - I Can’t Wait [OM]
7. Miguel Migs - Surrender [Naked Music]
8. Bart B More - Finally featuring Oliver Twist (Original Mix) [Tiger]
9. Andreas Heiszenberger - Perfect Moment [Brut!]
10. Hardrive 2000/Masters at Work featuring Lynae - Never Forget (When You Touch Me) [Strictly Rhythm]
11. Naked Music NYC - If I Fall (Miguel Mig’s Deluxe Soul Dub) [OM]
12. Blue Six - Pure (Original) [Naked Music]
13. Kaskade - Sweet Love [OM}
14. Naked Music NYC - It's Love (Wamdue Dream Dub) [OM]
15. Aphex Twin - Xtal [Apollo]

This was originally posted as a note my Facebook…inspired by a meme brought to my attention by Al Yukna.  It was alot of fun…and thought that it deserved archiving here as well.

I’m putting them in order of “when I first discovered them” because “life context” is important.

01) Michael Jackson - Thriller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(album)
The coolest thing that a third grader had ever heard. It was ubiquitous.

02) Prince - Purple Rain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_rain
Manuel Sampedro’s sister took him and I to see it at the Strand Theater in Dundalk…and we were only eleven (that shit was rated R). I was physically moved (pun intended) by Apollonia…and Prince’s music. Later, I discovered how truly remarkable a musician he is.

03) Licensed to Ill - Beastie Boys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensed_To_Ill
Eighth grade - the combination of beats, the three different voices, and the sexual innuendo were enough to keep that tape in my knock-off Walkman at all times.

04) Follow the Leader - Eric B. and Rakim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_the_Leader_(Eric_B._and_Rakim_album)
Freshman year. Ryan Heidel. Learning to wrestle. Black Russell hoodie. Sup. THIS is hip-hop.

05) The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me_Kiss_Me_Kiss_Me
Summer before Sophomore Year. PT Flaggs. Tony Pegas. Black and white-clad lunacy ensures.

06) Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_For_The_Masses
The “Thriller” of its genre. They sold out the frickin’ Rose Bowl and put out a live double album.

07) Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(album)
Got to Calvert Hall. Toned down the black cladness…but still brought the two-step. They didn’t have Pink Floyd in my house growing up. Learned to play guitar in order to play “Wish You Were Here”. Thank fucking God for that song. I still play my guitar virtually every day.

08) Dave Matthews Band - Remember Two Things
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remember_Two_Things
This would be number one. Without it, I wouldn’t have given a fuck about the internet. Could you imagine me if I would have stayed in graduate school? Oh no. I owe this album everything. I named my frickin’ first born after it. That shit is devotion, man.

09) Sasha + John Digweed - Northern Exposure Vol 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Exposure_2
This album was an escape when I was miserable in graduate school. I would come home, go up in the spare room in Canton, crank this, and dance in my chair while designing and building websites on the side. This album literally made my engagement happen. And we even saw Digweed in Ibiza. Insane.

10) Thievery Corporation - Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_from_the_Thievery_Hi-Fi
Mike B spinning “The Blue One” and “The Red One” provided the soundtrack to my life in the years after college. Adam, Leon, Chip. Music was a part of everything that we did. And it was pretty cool when I walked into Gr8 for the “I’m still in grad school…but I’m looking to get out” interview, this album was playing. It was either fate…or I was seduced by the devil.

11) Cafe Del Mar - Volumen Cinco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafe_del_mar#Volume_5_.28cinco.29
Bought it at a record shop in Ibiza on the recommendation of the dood in the shop. Perfect record for what it is and represents. Madonna named it her favorite album of ‘98. Nik and I share the love for this album. It’s “ours” if you will.

12) Nuyorican Soul - Nuyorican Soul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuyorican_Soul
The world’s best house producers collaborate with the world’s best jazz and latin musicians to create the magnus opus of house music. I am still a firm believer in latin and deep house. That shit is spiritual. Body and Soul in Central Park. That actually happened.

13) John Mayer - Inside Wants Out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Wants_Out
Acoustic guitar has been a constant in my life since “Wish You Were Here”. This dood breathes new life into the instrument. Dave Matthews’ playing gave me a similar reaction…”what the fuck is he playing? i gotta learn that!”

14) Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_in_the_Key_of_Life
Didn’t discover the whole album until I really understood music. It may be one of the best pieces ever written (and performed). Truly a work of musical genius.

15) Doves - The Last Broadcast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Broadcast_(album)
Hadn’t gotten excited about a new band in a long, long time when I heard this. It blew me away. Three doods did this? Sulfur Man, literally, could be my favorite song of all times. That is not a lie.

Hope the descriptions weren’t too self-indulgent…but I really enjoyed doing this.

I just read an interesting but, to me, profoundly flawed article in Scientific American (wow, did I actually say that). The article Never Say Die: Why We Can’t Imagine Death, by Jesse Bering talks about how it is impossible to rationalize inexistance because we can never actually experience inexistance while existant. In other words, when we die, there is nothing. And since we can never experience nothing while we are conscious then we’ve evolved these myths of an afterlife of some sort.

The problems, however, start in the first paragraph where Bering assumes

After all, the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it’s more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn’t it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?

The assertion that the mind is what the brain does is wildly assumptive. I’m not trying to break all flaky, but isn’t it possible that the brain is how the mind does rather that what the mind does? Rick Strassman’s work on DMT, Ervin Laszlo (and others) thinking around the Akashic Field, and others put forth interesting thinking around this.

The bottom line though is that it is borderline irresponsible, in my view, to put forth such an overarching assumption - and that is what it is - in a supposed scientific forum.

Realistically, there is not data to support this…so on either side of the coin, we’re taking about faith.

One might think that based on my blog, that I’m a Godless Secular Humanist. I’m actually not. I just have a broader vision of what God is and my relationship to it. I tend to believe in, based on a hell of alot of observable patterns in nature, that cycles and patterns are one of the most, if not the most, fundamental aspect of the universe. Also, I tend to believe that universe is a closed system…in that ultimately we’re talking about infinity…and doesn’t infinity include everything. Everything to me is a closed system. How can you be outside of infinity? (If someone can educate me, I seriously would like to know. Frreal.)

Thus, if we live in a closed system and the first law of thermodynamics (the law of conservation of energy) is valid…

the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another or transferred from one body to another, but the total amount of energy remains constant (the same)

…then one must conclude that death is not an end per se…but a transition. Where this transition leads is clearly a matter of faith. Hopefully, one day science will allow us to understand this.

The bottom line though is that I have a problem with basic idea of an “end”. By the way, new thinking in quantum gravity asserts that the unierse did not come from stasis (i.e. the big bang)…that it seems more like an oscillation (i.e. the big bounce). That sounds like the cycling of a closed system to me.

There aren’t many things that I am sure of in life…I just don’t think that any person of reasonable intellect can be…but I feel pretty good about this idea of transition and connection in an afterlife. How?

It all goes back to the absolutely most profound experience of my life. It wasn’t at church. It wasn’t on top of a mountain. It wasn’t in a sweat lodge. It was in my bed about 5 years ago.

I was sleeping peacefully when I started dreaming. This dream was unlike anything that I’ve ever experienced. It’s funny, because I don’t remember the details…but I do remember the jist of it…and I do remember my deeply and profoundly visceral reaction to it.

Somehow, I was looking into this house where a woman seemed to be abducted and abused. She looked pretty bleak. It was her birthday. Not sure how, but I saw a cake on the table near her that had “Happy Birthday — Pet Name”. I don’t remember the pet name. And I don’t know how a captive could get a cake. But I do remember that it was what I had called this woman either before my death or in another life. I saw her look at the cake and begin to smile and cry at the same time. Somehow, at the very moment, I KNEW deeply and thoroughly that I was connected to this person. Uh, what?

Again, this isn’t logical…but I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel real.  As real as anything that I’ve ever experienced.  I’m serious.

Anyway, the point is that in that moment, for the first time ever, I felt that I had been “told something”. I had been given some sort of insight that truly leads me to believe that consciousness or life or whatever goes on. That we can be outside of or transcend time.

During this, I think that I was in sleep paralysis yet I was crazy lucid. As lucid as I had ever been. And when I was finally able to open my eyes, I was crying. Not sad crying. But crying. Frickin’ wierd. And all that I could do was reach over, kiss my wife, and hold her hand as she slept. Somehow, I knew that we were connected. More than now. That we’re all connected.

This experience is what drives my leaps of faith.

And its why I became open to ideas of consciousness and spirituality that are outside of the mainstream.

That shit was real son.