Am I Conscious Now?

Am I Conscious Now? is the latest release on Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, an album that gets its full release today. Hawksmoor (James McKeown) has been making music since 2017 and in that time has released thirteen albums and EPs. It's ambient with a side dose of cosmische/ krautrock, expansive and immersive and full of textures. 

For this latest work, James undertook some extensive experimentation and research with a psychedelic compound called 5- MeO-DMT, a substance found naturally in some plants and in the glands of toads found in the Colorado River. Many people who've used it describe it as producing a mystical experience and what Hawksmoor himself describes as a 'total psychological reset'. He adds, 'It completely changed my life, outlook and perspective'. Not something to be taken lightly then. Am I Conscious Now? is a musical/ ambient response to that experience.

Trying to describe ambient music sometimes feels like a fool's game at the best of times. 'Language doesn't really work', James/ Hawksmoor says about the use of psychedelics, 'it's everything and nothing'. He followed this by saying that his experiences with 5-MeO-DMT culminated with him feeling like he was reborn. 

The album is it goes without saying a bit of a trip, a haunting but beautiful record that works best as one single piece. There are drones and oscillations, the Moog and Organele M producing long sounds that rise and fall. Opener Amygdalla Opening is the entry, a two note drone, layers of synths combining to push and pull. Golden Dolphins follows, chords and chatter, single key notes and an acoustic guitar, the sound of dolphin squeals and whistles and a wordless human voice. It's either deep below the surface or very high above it. Waves of echo and elements of sound bouncing back and forth. Flooding A Maze (In Slow Motion) is golden guitar chords strummed slowly and dancing, ringing sounds, things shifting slightly as the track unfolds, a diagram or oil pattern slipping in and out of focus. Towards the end a bleep comes through, like someone far away trying to make contact. On Urdhva Hastasna (a Yoga pose, the raised hands pose) two guitars pick their way round each other, one a circling finger picked part and the other a counterpoint. Behind them, there's a hazy backdrop of cosmic synth sounds. Infinite Tapestry sounds ancient, what could be a dulcimer or some other archaic instrument pressed into psychedelic service, notes and drones and ringing sounds. Water droplets fall, the guitar returns, synth whooshes rush in, a track that has both motion and stillness- the sense of sitting still while the world moves around you. 

Side two offers more. Ti Kallisti has piano and reverb, ambience that suggests... I don't know, emptiness? Fulfillment? The past? Now? Adviata swims back towards the drones and the submersion sounds, a voice possibly appearing along with an Indian sounding guitar part. Clear Light breaks the surface and lets the light in- a voice singing an ah ah ah ah part, beamed in from an ashram in 1967, George Harrison drifting in to Hawksmoor's ambient world. Into The White Sun changes the sound and tone again, bass guitar notes, cosmische drones coming via Cluster or Harmonia, the pastoral kraut sounds of mid- 70s West Germany. Our trip ends with Astromeria, three minutes of ending, the bass guitar again prodding away, warm and woody, the synths like flares of light, blasts of horn and disembodied vocals, a landing, a coming round or coming to. 

As I said, writing about ambient music can sometimes feel like a fool's game, trying to describe sounds and the feelings they provoke. Some of what's written above might look like nonsense in the cold light of day and Am I Conscious Now? is much more than I can sum up in a few paragraphs. It feels like a profound and intense album, not the kind of ambient to put on in the background but a record to immerse yourself inside and be open to the effect it might have.  

You can buy or listen to it here.