By Maps And Diagrams
Spiritual drones are sedately shrouded in the dust of dreaming; a blazing, golden sphere lighting up with kind temperatures – the territory of pre-existence and pre-conception – protecting your entire being like a mother’s womb. This is before the womb, before our first intake of air, surrounded by thick, dense forests and shining lights. You have been here before. The traumatic birth into infancy may erode the pre-embryo period to the point of extinction, but the soul still feels the comforting presence of a friend who has chosen your date and time, predetermined with purpose. It is an existence that speaks secretly to the soul, but no lingering sense of home, and no form of déjà vu, is able to break in. It can be easy to repeat yourself, or to know in advance what is going to happen, when it comes to drone music, but Tim Diagram never has such a problem. His gorgeous soundscapes are exactly that: utterly gorgeous, enveloping your soul with beautiful music and white lights of purity that have only encountered love. There is no fear, no pain, there are no tears apart from the rivers that dissect the twin forests. It’s a prime example of paradise. Drone music is a glimpse into the fourth dimension, so deep that it often becomes a spiritual experience, showering nothing but peace as the harmony gently unfolds. These drones sink into you from afar, touched from above.
Curving itself into the scenery is an aquamarine tongue of sparkling water, a thousand white points hovering over the lucid stream, churning up a fluid avalanche of drone with the authoritative force of white water rapids (‘The Science of Transposition’). Translucent, crystal drones enjoy a free, smooth ascent, loosened by an absence of bass. The chains are off; it’s not so much being empty as it is being free, although the emptiness may reflect a clarity of the mind as translucent as the bright and warm surf green current.
Slowly capitulating, the drones come to a tipping point, and then there is only a sensation of falling. Endless falling. Rising from the waterfall is an ascending, never-ending rainbow of soaked, ambient colour. These savoury, substantial drones are phosphorescent colours that shine in and out of focus. Being Empty is a vibrant listen, displaying kindness and a little restraint ( it never gets carried away or excited). The drones hover unpredictably, fully expanded, existing slightly outside the ultra-fine lines of reality’s spectrum. Escapism is made possible, the music taking the place of reality with a trip like that of sleep, but unlike sleep, it is an eternal escape, a golden panorama that stays with you forever.
Being Empty is an excursion into your very being. Millions and millions of people try to plug the gaps with a number of temporary possessions that cannot last, or with objects that will degrade over time, and although music may also fit the bracket and can also be considered a possession, music such as this is a tool aimed to provide peace for the soul, rather than becoming a narrow, material replacement aimed at blocking out the world and her troubles, pointing the way past her inevitable sonic decay and her limitations to what can never rust or fade away; music on a spiritual trip, perhaps on a hike in a half-remembered forest.
The music is infused with a tropical mysticism – Unknown Tone records makes for a suitable label. The drones conceal secrets, a charged scent of a perfect thunderstorm that produces a shuddering amount of voltage, electricity throwing daggers of white lightning into the unsettled, crumbling flecks of dirt. Pinpoints of static that once were sand covered grains are now shining brilliant lights (‘The Language Of The People’). The warmest sensations of love and acceptance filter directly into the soul – is this the feeling of being empty? Is this the feeling of burdens being lifted? Perhaps uninhibited freedom is the very definition of emptiness.
Static fizzes against the drone as lighter tones sprinkle outwards, ejected under a sky of clouded colour. It is musical transcendence, where the harmony rises and then falls like a pocket of pleasant turbulence left in the carved hands of colossal guardians. The title track is drenched in a radiant, pure drone, floating to the ground like petals of pink blossom. Not too far away, a very quiet, shimmering drone begins to levitate, entering another plain of existence as if it was a spirit embraced by an out-of-body experience, the cool drone shifting between a couple of intervals; it is at peace, in the still of the moment, left to linger like the afterglow of our lives. ‘Zuppa’ might be the point of departure, the sphere calling you once again, the orbs of light gently pulsating as they say goodbye. Life’s images, life’s experiences, begin to blacken at the corners, scorching the polaroids and burning up like a NASA shuttle on re-entry as the soul ejects herself from the physical body.
Being Empty is a vista of paradise, one that is somehow unknown to the body on Earth, but is an accessible destination for the soul. Drone music as lucid as this brings back the deja vu as if it was a soft touch to the skin; the whisper of a friend’s voice. With open eyes, we come home.