Begin Again (Ambient Rain Mix)

"On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say 'Well done. Well done, everyone! We're halfway out of the dark.'" - Kazran Sardick (Doctor Who)

Begin Again (Ambient Rain Mix)

Here we are: lonely, frightened little groups of humanity, huddled together in the darkness contemplating the meaning of it all. We gaze out from beneath this thin blanket of air, at the universe beyond our teaming bubble of life on this planet, and we furiously focus inward. We think of each other, of ourselves, of decorations, and feasts, and gifts and our respective religions and traditions.

Since the dawn of time, back even before humanity was climbing out of the trees and attaining self-awareness, there was the long, cold, scary dark and it came every year, and every living thing everywhere had to deal with it.

So what I'm saying is this: when I look around at this yearly collective freakout of mankind known as the "holiday season", in all it's insanity, I try to remember that it is not insane. 

This behavior is literally built into the blueprint of who I am; of who everyone in the world is. This isn't just how we get by.

Every year, when it's the coldest, and the darkest, we gather together the best parts of who we are, collectively amplify them, and scream out into the universe "we will not be intimidated!", or at the very least: "we will be distracted and make the best of it!"

Yeah, the consumerism and all that. It is a bummer. There are a lot of things in the world that are really very wrong at a fundamental level right now. Like everyone who is paying attention, I am fearful of what is to come in 2012 and beyond, but I'm not going to think about them at this moment. Instead, I'm going to do the distraction thing, but I'm going to chose to be distracted by the good stuff.

In that vein, I bring you this track.

The weeks leading up to Christmas saw an awful lot of rain in the Huntsville area. I often experiment with different recording techniques when it rains. The sound of millions of tiny rain drops creating soft little transients at random angles all around you is really quite a beautiful texture.

The rain sounds on this track were recorded on 12/5/2011 on a cheap little Sony hand held digital recorder like doctors sometimes use to make voice notes. It's not intended for fidelity, but what it does have is one hell of a built in compressor.

I took it down to the swamp at the end of my street during a light rain. Sheltered beneath the canopy around midnight, I just turned it on and left it for about 10 minutes, what it captured was ... well ... what you hear.

This track isn't a great song or anything. Its a few layered chords on a neat synth, some rain, and deep thoughts in the midst of the seasonal darkness.

Happy holidays, everyone!