Spaceship Earth

"Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011."

Happened to view this alongside the demo version of "Come Down Easy" from Forged Prescriptions...oddly perfect.

Geburah: The Radical Intelligence

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Sungod continues laboring at a slow but sure pace, compiling ever more audio incantations to satisfy an as yet unstated force of collective will. Seven crumbling and decaying magnetic memory spirals hold an estimated five hours of universal sound captured between the summer and winter solstices. Thus far, ten completed pieces occupy an hour's temporal breadth. This concentrated manifestation of creation will serve to generate the interest of wide dispersion to the inhabitants of this communal starship, Earth. In the meantime, we continue our Great Work without lust for result, living only in the glory of the present and letting the unconscious dictate the terms of forward movement.

We shall speak more to the content and how our sound progresses when this mass of vibrations assumes more coherent forms. We hope to have enough workable material for several releases taken from the same body of waves, but it remains difficult to speak concretely before everything nears completion. I can say that it represents our finest and most diverse artistic statements thus far and channels everything we love of the exploratory cosmic music of the last 40 years, whether that be krautrock, minimilism, free/spiritual jazz, droning ambience, Berlin school electronics, or the pan-rhythmic excursions of the African continent.

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The repress of "Laurentide & Cordilleran + Others" on Sonic Meditations will see release within the next couple of months. Details on that as we know more, but for now, check out this nice write up describing the background of the repress and the music itself:

http://www.exposeventy.com/sonicmeditations/releases.html

"Sungod from Austin, Texas have been working hard and consistently since I was introduced to them at SXSW in 2011. Expo '70 shared the same stage that night early on in the showcase week along with Quiet Evenings, Hubble, Woodsman, Toby Aronson, Kevin Shields, Thousand Foot Whale Claw, just to name a few. Unfortunately I arrived to the show just as Sungod were in on the main stage performing, I didn't get to catch much that evening, but Mike of Sungod and I swapped tapes. Some point in the week I busted out their self-released hand packaged cassette release and came to find out that this was a majestic collection of superb drones, crafted well with great tones and the patience to let the instrumentation blend together.

This is a re-release of that great cassette that was traded to me. Sound hints of early Six Organs of Admittance, La Monte Young and obscure new age synth workouts while incorporating free-form playing under those synth textures, building each track with intensity."

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In other release related news, we have completed mixing Sungod's KVRX radio performance from August 2011. This session features extended versions of some new material and serves as the first documentation of the Sungod live band (featuring Alex Hughes on bass/bells and Tyler Taylor on synthesizers and additional guitars). We will post a lot more information as things finalize, but on our end we have only to master the music and finish the layout. It will be released at some point on Jason Sheehy's fledgling Dusty Grass imprint as a limited cassette (check out his great blog Three Miles from Space for a diverse and frequently updated collection of starry jams).

To conclude, Mike and I shall be posting our top ten records of 2011 within the upcoming week. Stay tuned for that and more as we'll be posting some new tracks and lots of information about upcoming releases in the near future. Be well.

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Heaven and Earth are mighty in continuance, because their work is delivered from the lust of result.

Thus also the sage, seeking not any goal, attaineth all things; he doth not interfere in the affairs of his body, and so that body acteth without friction. It is because he meddleth not with personal aims that these come to pass with simplicity.

Chesed: Initiate the Potencies of Construction

Do you feel the mass of positive vibrations emanating from our humble region of space time?

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On Friday the 19th of August, Sungod, S U R V I V E, and Thousand Foot Whale Claw shall sanctify the 29th Street Ballroom with successive electro-sonic rituals. Passage into the ceremonial chambers begins at 9:00 post meridiem and ends with the communal invocation of Pan Pangenitor.

The flow of space-time appears to mean very little in the trance state, but an approximate sequence of events has Thousand Foot Whale Claw performing at 10:00 post meridiem, Sungod at 11:15 post meridiem, and S U R V I V E at 12:30 ante meridiem. Enlightenment comes at the price of 5 bio-survival tickets.

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Following a mere blink of the cosmic eye, KVRX shall convert Sungod into ~3.27 meter electromagnetic waves on the evening of Sunday August 21st. Tune your e/m radiation receiver's frequencey modulation dial to 91.7 million cycles per second, on or near that point in the Earth's rotation we label 10:00 post meridiem. 

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The extremely limited drone-out known as "Laurentide & Cordilleran + Others" and issued by Sungod for SXSW shall reincarnate, again in cassette form, on Expo '70/Justin Wright's Sonic Meditations. The electronic soul still travels the seas of the other shore but could materialise in a form recognizable to human consciousness as soon as September 2011. 100 magneto-plastic cassette cartridges will contain the bounty of this soul's energy.

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To conclude, Sungod continues to write and record the follow up to First Matter. Over 2 hours of unconscious inspiration lie imprinted on strips of ferromagnetic iron oxide waiting on further manipulation and distortion. More to report on that as things progress. Be well!

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The Te is the immortal energy of the Tao, its feminine aspect. Heaven and Earth issued from her Gate; this Gate is the Root of their World-Sycamore. Its operation is of pure Joy and Love, and faileth never.

Binah: The Sanctifying Intelligence

At first glance, it seems a waste to use one of the most divine emanations on an update with no real substance. We continue to face technological obstacles in the form of an 8-track that more resembles a large furnace fueled only by bio-survival tickets. Fortunately, it appears as if it will return to us in a months time. The intervening period has not been idle. The recent Laurentide & Cordilleran release belongs to a larger body of work representing a period of intense creativity and focus in Sungod's musical development. Once again tethered to the often frustrating and subtly cruel cassette 4-track, we've honed and progressed our sound into ever widening and divergent sonic avenues. But the threads are never severed and a potent cosmic melancholy pervades and unites the vibrations. The sound, being both continuous and unbounded, can smoothly approach infinity, never reaching, but always carrying forward. As Binah recieves and gives form to Chokmah, that energizing element of existence, that reality underlying all things whatsoever, so we have received and given shape to the intuitive and purely creative force of the subconscious.

Returning to Earth, this translates to a wealth of new material that we'll put to tape over the course of 2011. Without going into too many details, we have been approached to release something on a label both of us respect and enjoy, so we've been compiling and demoing a batch of compositions and improvisations. We also plan to commence production on a follow up LP to First Matter, which we hope to record during the summer and fall. As before, it will be self recorded. The plan is for a massive 2xLP (if some one is interested in pressing it, of course!)

Heaven and earth proceed without motive, but casually in their order of nature, dealing with all things carelessly, like used talismans. So also the sages deal with their people, not exercising benevolence, but allowing the nature of all to move without friction.

The space between heaven and earth is their breathing apparatus. Exhalation is not exhaustion, but the complement of inhalation, and this equally of that. Speech exhausteth; guard thyself therefore, maintaining the perfect freedom of thy nature.

Chokmah: "Laurentide & Cordilleran + Others" Available for Download

NOTE (08/11/11): As Sonic Meditations plans to rerelease this in the fall of 2011, we have taken down all but one track from the bandcamp. You may continue to download all of First Matter at no cost.

The virtual representation of Laurentide & Cordilleran + Others is available for streaming/download at Sungod's bandcamp. Drop in:
http://ssssssungoddddd.bandcamp.com/album/laurentide-cordilleran-others

FLAC/MP3/whatever you want, files of all artwork included in the download.
Same price as the air you breathe.

The Tao resembleth the Emptiness of Space; to employ it, we must avoid creating ganglia. Oh Tao, how vast art Thou, Abyss of Abysses, thou Holy Secret Father of All Fatherhoods of Things!

Let us make our sharpness blunt; let us loosen our complexes; let us tone down our brightness to the general obscurity. Oh Tao, how still art though, how pure, continuous One beyond Heaven!

This Tao hath no Father, it is beyond all other conceptions, higher than the highest.

Kether: Sungod presents "Laurentide & Cordilleran + Others"

I have been eagerly awaiting posting about Sungod's newest release entitled "Laurentide & Cordilleran + Others". This is a full length cassette featuring about 45 minutes of new music.

Each issue of this release has been hand crafted entirely by the band. The purple cassette comes wrapped in a hand-sewn cloth pouch inside a manilla envelope. A photograph glued to the front serves as the cover. A two sided, color card-stock and construction paper insert is included as is a photograph from the recording sessions of "Oh Baby, I Love you So". To complete the package, we have included an incense stick for proper atmosphere and a wax seal to close it up.

The first pressing of this cassette is earmarked for our two SXSW shows and is limited to about 25 copies. We will have 12 for sale at each show.

I want to give a brief description of the actual content of the release. This represents somewhat of a departure from the sounds contained on our First Matter LP. It still remains indebted to our space and krautrock forefathers, but with less rock and much more space.

A1 - "Honey it Ain't No Crime (To Run Off from Home)"

A poor man's raag for acoustic guitar, harmonium, and contrabass. Wheezing, drunken acoustic drones generate a deep pulse. A cloud of fingerpicked acoustic guitar emerges; sometimes gentle...other times frantic. The three wave sources interweave and dance around one another until the singular moment of samadhi as all become one in the everlasting light.

Braden Balentine: Harmonium

Mike Sharp: Acoustic Guitar

Alex Hughes: Contrabass

A2 - "Laurentide"
A luminous cosmic journey from start to finish. This beautiful slab of electro-drift locates the intersection of electric organ, analog synthesizer, and tremolo guitar and the alchemical marriage of these primal elements approximates the fabled Harmony of the Spheres. Soaring strings combine with lush synth trails as cavernous, pulsating guitar chords move the mind ever closer to total bliss.

Braden Balentine: Synthesizer, Organ
Mike Sharp: Electric Guitar

B1 - "Oh Baby, I Love you So"
The sound of a door slams as you enter the opium den. The faux-eastern sounds of a detuned and abused esraj lull you into an introspective haze. The clanging bells and arcing streaks of bowed metal disrupt the meditation and the mind is forced to wander amidst abstract fields of acoustic disharmony. Thuds, clangs, plucks, terror.

Braden Balentine: Bowed Cymbals, Bells, Tibetan Singing Bowl
Mike Sharp: Esraj
Alex Hughes: Contrabass

B2: - "Cordilleran"
A glacial wall of deep synth and organ ambiance surrounds this piece in a sinister glow. Moody echo guitar and synthesized starlight come and go as the sound seemingly approaches the infinite. As one resigns to float forever amidst this dark sonic river, a terrifying crash of detuning guitars and pounding drums distorts all perception; as if some very ancient energy has returned to initiate the destruction of space and time.

Braden Balentine: Synthesizer, Electric Guitar
Mike Sharp: Organ, Synthesizer, Drums

We will very likely do a second pressing of these in similar quantity after SXSW. We will also be posting this release on our bandcamp in the next week or so for streaming and download.

To reward merit is to stir up emulation; to prize rarities is to encourage robbery; to display desirable things is to excite the disorder of covetousness.

Therefore the sage governeth men by keeping their minds and theirs bodies at rest, contenting the one by emptiness, the other by fulness. He satisfieth their desires, thus fulfilling their wills, and making them frictionless; and he maketh them strong in body, to a similar end.

He delivereth them from the restlessness of knowledge and the cravings of discontent. As to those who have knowledge already, he teacheth them the way of non-action. This being assured, there is no disorder in the world.

Ain Soph Aur: First Matter Artwork

There isn't anything on the net as far as I know that gives a description of the First Matter layout, which we are still rather proud of. Here are some photos. The cover painting was done by our good friend Justin Grove.

All men know that beauty and ugliness are correlatives, as are skill and clumsiness; one implies and suggests the other.

So also existence and non-existence post the one the other; so also is it with ease and difficulty, length and shortness; height and lowness. Also Musick exists through harmony of opposites; time and space depend upon contraposition.

By the use of this method the sage can fulfill his will without action, and utter his word without speech.

All thing arise without diffidence; they grow, and none interferes; they change according to their natural order, without lust of result. The work is accomplished; yet it continueth in its orbit, without goal. This work is done unconsciously; this is why energy is indefatigable.

Ain Soph: Sungod's First Matter

First Matter has been out quite a while now, so we decided to upload it to our bandcamp. You can listen to the entire LP or download it in just about any format possible. Much more coming to this space in the future including Sungod SXSW performances, line-up additions, and information about a new, very limited and lovingly hand made cassette release containing our finest material yet.

http://ssssssungoddddd.bandcamp.com/album/first-matter

Here are two reviews. I believe there are still copies here are there around the net and we have some as well. Most importantly: 

http://www.cyclopeanrecords.com/index.php?/store/shop/

http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2010/09/16/sungodreview/

     Somewhere, at some point in time, somebody gave one of the two members of Austin, Texas, psychedelic newcomers Sungod a copy of Nebula’s To the Center, and it’s a good thing they did. The duo (doesn’t anyone have a bassist anymore?) have taken this heavy, grooving influence and stretched it out as far as it’ll go, abandoning for the most part the aforementioned band’s penchant for catchy choruses in favor of wide-breadth atmospherics on theirCyclopean Records debut, First Matter. The album’s five tracks follow a reverse-parabola structure, starting long, getting shorter in the middle, then longer again at the finish, but there’s more to the flow than nifty toying around with the track list. Sungod worship at a number of altars and their sound — in no small part thanks to liberal guitar layering — is surprisingly full for an act without a full-time bassist.
     Comprised of string-section Balentine and drummer Sharp, Sungod traffic in a heady, open-spaced instrumental heavy psych, marked by guitar passages so lyrical I had to go back and double check there weren’t vocals on them. Nine-minute opener “The Key is No Key” starts with striking feedback and hard-pounding rhythms. Balentine takes this as a basis for layering reverbed guitar explorations, but keeps a solid foundation underneath. Sharp’s playing is strong whether during these freakout jams or the more straightforward intervals from which they’re birthed, and on the acoustic-led “Under the Golem,” the organic ambience of the song is only enhanced by the various bells and chimes present. On the centerpiece title-track (also First Matter’sshortest song at 3:46), the drums go on a half-backwards tape loop Dale Crover spree of intermittent hits punctuating feedback from Balentine, drones and noises of several other shapes and sizes, so you get some sense of diversity in listening to the album in more than just basic sonics.
     “Blanche of Castle” is pastoral psychedelic bliss made even more summery by the almost constant cymbal play. It’s like something Earth might attempt after a really good meal, but somehow less droning and more exploratory than that seminal Seattle outfit’s most recent work. Balentine keeps the guitars on the move, even if they’re peaceful, and the subtle bass-drum hits from Sharpadd a sense of structure, albeit a loose one. Leading into 22-minute closer “Inkailmeva,” it’s a quiet setup for a song that contains all of the above elements with room left over for some extra bombast and even a smoky, late night Hendrix blues jam about 13 minutes in that eventually brings the monolithic piece to its riffy, satisfying conclusion.
     If nothing else, what the track proves is that Sungod, while obviously playing with a focus on spontaneity, are also capable of enacting a plan with a song, and in so doing, to vary their sound even more. First Matter is well within the bounds of modern heavy psych, but the Austin duo work ably in the genre confines to pull of an album that’s still their own. I’d be intrigued to see the layering approach of Balentine and Sharp live — not that it couldn’t be done, it would just require setting up a lot of loops — and if hearing First Matter is what piqued that interest, then the album has done its job.

http://www.shortandsweetnyc.com/2010/10/sungod-first-matter/

     Sungod’s First Matter is loud and heavy psychedelic rock from outer space. These five tracks are mostly gargantuan affairs wherein everything swirls, reverberates or drones.
     Nine-and-a-half minute opener “The Key Is No Key” is as appropriate of an introduction as any with its varying tempos, chugging and effect-laden guitars, and careening drums that send you hurling into black holes and milky ways.
     The next few tracks are a bit more subdued, alternating heavy and light atmospheres, while “Blanche of Castile” resets the mood nicely with its soothing strums and picks, and echoey slide guitars.
     It’s a nice and welcome respite from the chaos, especially since it’s followed by the 22-minute “Inkalimeva,” a track that one-ups the previous four to an nth degree with its chugging build-ups, vamps and explosions. It reaches a climax at just over 12 minutes in, followed by a hushed, sparse midsection that slowly builds back into a big, swirling crescendo.
     The bigness of some of these tracks might be a bit much to get your heard around the first time through, and there isn’t too much in the way of “hooks” to hold onto, but as an exercise in interstellar rock, it works nicely.

The Tao-Path is not the All-Tao. The Name is not the Thing named.

Unmanifested, it is the Secret Father of Heaven and Earth; manifested, it is their Mother.

To Understand this Mystery, one must be fulfilling one's will. If one is not thus free, one will but gain a smattering of it.
The Tao is one, and the Te but a phase thereof. The abyss of this Mystery is the Portal of Serpent-Wonder.

Ain: The Beginning

Herein you will comprehend the mystical ramblings of two conduits of a force unknown.
The current manifestation of this force speaks in tongues of air and longitudinal compression.
There are many bodies in the Light of this Force, but here you shall know the Sungod.
The only law is change: movement, dynamism, electricity, love.
Find your way to the City of Pyramids.

Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.