The call of MOTHERNATURE
Licks down your spine
What does it mean to surrender to the Goddess? Her ecstasy? Her hunger? Her fearsome wildness? Looking at MOTHERNATURE as a feminine being, we see how she gives birth to galaxies, from whose stars we are born, only to consume everything she makes in her own entropic mechanisms of destruction. Even the brightest stars burn out. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
I've always been acutely aware of the temporary nature of the human organism, and my ever-changing position along the story arc of my life. No matter how thriving and full of life an organic being is in any given moment, the bodily form will one day be reclaimed by MOTHERNATURE.
It's true not just of people, but of places. Over the last few years I've become totally engrossed in a YouTube channel called BROS OF DECAY, where a charismatic and reverent blonde Dutchman sneaks into decrepit manors all over Europe (many full of priceless antiques!) uncovering forgotten artifacts and piecing together the stories of the long gone families who once lived and ruled there.
I recorded MOTHERNATURE after watching a particularly inspiring episode featuring a French castle full of priceless art and artifacts that dated back hundreds of years. Tapestries, oil painting, statues, golden mirrors. The mold on the walls had already begun to consume some of these beautiful paintings. It was haunting to realize that it was only a matter of time before all this rich history would be reclaimed, and erased, by the Goddess Herself.
I wanted to capture that feeling! And pay homage to the Goddess. So I recorded MOTHERNATURE. I did my best to invoke her mystery in the music as well as her power and beauty, her saturated colors, her cycle of birth, death and rebirth in the visual film component.
I originally wrote this song for just voice and piano, then later built it out in the studio using Logic x. I started by playing the e-minor arpeggio theme on a keyboard serving as a MIDI controller, keeping the live performance's velocity nuances and variation intact. To preserve the beauty of real piano playing, it is essential not to ever over process the MIDI data. So much of the emotion I convey in my piano playing comes down to the velocity nuances. Although I played this to a click track, another major factor that makes a piano performance artful involves the space between notes and the shifting of tempo over time. Because this is a dance track, I kept the music at a set tempo. But I would be remiss not to point out the fact that doing so does limit expression.
After playing in the piano part, I looped the performance, and tracked layers of vocals over the top of it until I had the whole song laid out. From there I worked in the bass and drums. Finally a synth solo at the end.
I really wanted to capture the essence of MOTHERNATURE's wildness, so I recorded myself making bird calls and animal sounds like squeaks and barks and howls gliding up and down in pitch. I tracked these additional vocals using different compressor and reverb settings than the other vocals to give them their own sense of space and presence.
Once I had the track complete, I knew I wanted to make a visual component that was very stylized and artistic. I wanted to capture the feeling of night in the forest, but with an otherworldly feel, like everything is happening in a dream.
I used the green screen so I could key out the green and drop everything I filmed onto a black background, which I then layered within intermittent time lapses of plants and mushrooms blooming and dying.
To represent the divine feminine identity of mothernature, I exposed the midline of my torso, highlighting the female body in reference to motherhood and sexual reproduction.
The fox, rabbit, koala and werewolf characters came to life after constructing origami masks. I then used highly saturated lighting and diffusion effects to create the wonderful colorful glows around each character.
I tried the werewolf mask on several ways to see what looked best, and wound up using footage from all 3 applications.... mask as hat, mask on face with hair out, and mask on my face with hair hidden. To me this represents various degrees of transformation between the nurturing side of mothernature's spirit and the wildness and fierceness of mothernature's spirit.
I also strove to capture the mystery of the psychedelic experience, as for me personally, it has played a tremendous role in my understanding of the universe and how it works.
lyrics:
Behind the brambles Camera phone in your hand No light from candles now But the castle still stands Doors and windows open But nobody is here no more Clothes and leaves and papers Litter the floor This letter's stamped with 1874 Before the roof falls in It's the final moment To explore
Dustballs dance thru Sunlit halls Mold and slime Creep thru the walls And the castle falls
Call of mothernature Licks down your spine You never know What you're gonna find Mothernature Call of mothernature
Thru worlds you flew Cosmic flight Breathe a new Mirrored light Live, breathe Free free Dance, love Free free Thin like the wind Bend beyond end With my rainbow liquid mind
