Gage and Floyd decamped to a hut by the forest, along with Masako and Thomas, and spent a lot of time away from the light-polluted civilized parts of Stuttgart, internalizing the remoteness of the experience until it was part of their breathing. Laying on your back and peering at the sky above the trees can reveal secrets of the universe. Once it’s dark enough, you can see the background of the stars, the bands of the Milky Way, the unending wonders of the galaxy. Makes you feel small, but in a good way.
Can you hear it?
Navel does, the duo-turned-quartet-this-time-around, as they take turns peering through a telescope and laying on the grass watching shooting stars and satellites. They join their celestial inspiration in spirit and dart across the sky before returning to Earth as smoking embers. Building elemental atmospheres from atoms, Navel hold their collective breath for a long, long time, releasing incrementally the wisdom that they’ve learned on their travels through sound.
And then they spin the telescope, forsaking it for the time being, and focus on their cohort, an intensely human coterie who interpret everything they’ve learned into longform transmissions. Ambient 2 - In Space, then, represents the evolution of the mind into something that can comprehend beyond the boundaries of conscious thought. Acoustic instruments, synthetic instruments, players and tools swirl in a psychedelic reverie. What comes from the stars guides the minds on the ground. All is bliss.
But you can’t do anything like this in the middle of the city, Stuttgart or anywhere else. Location is such a vital element.
(Whispered on the night wind… Cosmic… Winnetou …)
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