Yenisei Crossing By Mystified On Spotted Peccary Music

On Yenisei Crossing, sound adventurer Mystified (aka Thomas Park) presents a fearless and striking collection of sonic collages that explore the random yet cyclic nature of recorded looping sounds overlapping at different durations and tempos. The soundscapes, inspired by the Yenisei river that winds its way through the stark landscapes of Siberia, provide a constantly moving soundtrack generated from a surreal and haunting blend of pulsing acoustic percussion, real world events, and ethereal atmospherics.

Thomas Park has been involved with music since childhood, training in classical and jazz as a teenager, and playing the trombone and piano. In the late 1980's he became interested in electronic sounds and began creating techno music under the name AutoCad, collaborating with Robin Storey of Rapoon, and eventually evolving into the proficient, creative and prolific ambient / drone project Mystified, For Thomas less is more, and so the music of Mystified is mainly of an atmospheric nature, exploring texture, consistency, and a type of variety that could be called subtle. "The soundscapes are ideal for listening to while working, sleeping or doing other things" says Thomas. "This is not the utopian ambient of the typical soundscape artist. It is serious music for serious people."

Mystified's Thomas Park has always searched for meaning in chaos, combining seemingly random sound sources into sonic environments that challenge the sensibilities and redefine the experience of listening.

On Yenisei Crossing, Park has taken this concept a step further, pioneering a new form of computer generated composition - one where the musician establishes possibilities before the computer is free to explore them endlessly. "For the first time, I am using a form of Generative/Iterative composing, which I have developed with original Python programming code," Park explains. "This has enabled me to work with my computer in search of sound and rhythm combinations that would have been next to impossible for me to have found myself."

The process began with Park curating a large pool of sound sources that he transformed into elements ideal for iterating and mixing. Then the computer took over, layering the loops in different ways to create countless combinations which Park recorded in real time before he assembled the most interesting results into a collection that best fit the dreamlike feeling of his Yenisei Crossing vision.

By using the computer as a generative compositional tool for the first time, Mystified's Thomas Park has broken ground on a new creative process, exploring fresh artistic possibilities where soundscapes are no longer constrained by the direct choices of the artist. The resulting sonic tapestries of Yenisei Crossing are otherworldly and intense, propelling emotions forward on a relentless journey through the illusory landscapes of the mind.

When asked how he arrived at the name for the album, Park confided that "Once in a memorable dream I felt that I was in Siberia - or a sort of dreamlike Siberia. Later, when I searched for films of the region, I found it was much like my dream; flat, sparsely green, with some slowly sloping hills. Very beautiful in its own way, I found it to be a bit like the American Wild West, but cooler, and even less populated. The Yenisei is a huge river that moves through this landscape. It divides Siberia in half, carrying time forward, and water to the sea."

The Yenisei River valley is habitat for numerous flora and fauna, with Siberian pine, Siberian larch, and Scots pine, or Pinus sylvestris, which was abundant in the Yenisei River valley before 6000 BC. Some of the earliest known evidence of human enigma can be found at the confluence of the headstreams of the Yenisei Valley, where stelae, or stone monoliths and memorial tablets which date from between the 7th and 9th centuries AD, are still waiting.

The song titles were generated using coded random string generation. The composer suggests that you might think of them as remnants of some forgotten language, or, perhaps, transmissions from space of someone we have yet to encounter. Maybe we should keep our lights turned down low tonight.

What you might hear is subtle "music" (or "sound art") using the generative-iterative method, created for those with a taste for the dark and minimal. It has also been said that the tracks have an inner consistency, that these tracks make a good set, that they work well together and with one another. They are also a bit dark and edgy-- they push the boundaries of ambient. With this new release, we must admit, there is a chance, a possibility, that it will be summarily rejected, and that excites me. Taking chances is something we constantly learn to perfect, in order to build upon, or to plunder our own new treasures from, all in order to find an unexpected new way into our futures. We, the listeners, are at the center of things, sound identities can often be intentionally obscured or appear unconnected to their source, in order to unlock our own completely new possibilities for organizing the music of our own future "Great River."

What does the work say? Did we unravel the mystery? Is it music? Where does it take us? This strange so-called music has thrilled and alarmed researchers forever, long into the future. Laymen often find it unintelligible, a monstrous reunification of music, with dissonance, chaotic melodies, disturbing symphonies of noise. What does Mystified intend? When a situation leaves you baffled or puzzled, you're mystified. I am mystified. There is wonderment. The verb mystify is at the root of the adjective mystified, from the French word mystifier, perhaps from either mystique, "a mystic," or mystère, "a mystery."

The album releases July 24, 2020 on Spotted Peccary Music in CD format and in 24-BIT AUDIOPHILE, CD QUALITY LOSSLESS, MP3 and streaming formats. Find consumer sales and streaming links here: https://spottedpeccary.com/shop/yenisei-crossing/.

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