With the advent of private spaceflight, even though it continues to be just as unlikely for me, I find myself more often (thank you Space Flight X, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and associated media coverage!) wondering what it would be like to get strapped down, blasted into orbit and be given the opportunity to look outward onto our planet. Onto our world. Onto the totality of the area that encompasses most of our interests and experiences as people.
There’s that longing for that temporary sense of freedom that comes when you can take a look at your responsibilties and draining desires from a different perspective. Like, HA HA, look at those people-ants walking around caring about all this STUFF while I’m up here, staring at the heavens and really only giving a damn about not exploding or running out of oxygen. Suckers!
Difficult to articulate but participating in this type of distanced observation or near voyeurism can be incredibly alleviating of worldly stresses. This is why I enjoy watching foreign movies sometimes. It affords the opportunity to laugh off societal norms as you, albeit momentarily, realize that there are OTHER norms. That there are OTHER ways to look at the things that you spend so much energy and heartache giving a shit about (for these reasons, Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie > American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie).
And so, even though I laugh about it and make fun of it, caring about music, smdh, can be incredibly draining. Son, that hook is wak! Son, that beat uses the same drums as…ahhh! So I look forward to perspectives that can catapult me out of all that caring. That can undermine the need for historical perspective by just abolishing the patterns. 16 bars, hooks, muted drums, sped up vocals. Broaden my horizons damnit! Make me forget what a rap song is. And then remind me what it can be.
Orko Eloheim The Sycotik Alien aka Chakra Zulu aka Avi Ben Judah has travelled from the center of hip-hop to and through its black hole connections with Jungle and Drum & Bass and shrooms and on occassion returns to share his stories. His work in this area of drawing from different tempos and sounds predates much of the fuzzy, ambient stuff that has gained attention in recent times but hovers in the same interpretive orbit where the music’s construction and ultimate presentation is secondary to the reinterpretation of the sounds and the recontextualization to support the artists’ perspective, or typically for us, the artists’ raps.
Audio+Achetech+Android+Autistic [AEIOU&Y] is Orko’s first studio album in 8 years. Features raps in various languages, speeds and bars and reminds us that we already are in space bitch!