sonic sorcery
echoes through time
Underneath a thick gray blanket of fog, a distorted, almost robotic voice speaks to an enormous crowd: You deserve to feel good, you deserve to feel healthy. The crowd, bathed in blue light, all face toward a stage, where a man stands behind a platform, dwarfed by enormous screens above and beside him. Everyone sways rhythmically to the music behind the voice, completely enraptured by what is in front of them. Just surrender, Erase all the words, Nothing exists except your breath right now, the voice booms. Maybe they’re being hypnotized; maybe this is some sort of cult. Breathe in and let go. The beat drops and the crowd cheers, finally able to dance to Jamie XX’s music with a fervor nearly religious.
Whenever I attend a music festival like Portola this past weekend, I stand in awe of nearly every aspect of it. Forty-two thousand people streamed around Pier 80 in San Francisco each day over the course of the two-day festival and somehow, it never felt overwhelming. As a part of this enormous mass of humanity, I saw more faces than most people ever would have seen a few hundred years ago, as we all came together for the same reason. During the best sets, like Jamie XX’s, when the boundaries between us seemed to fade and the music overtook us, I thought of the history of music, whether this sort of event was so different from what we’ve always done.
As music historian Ted Gioia puts it, “From the beginnings of human history magic was embedded in songs.” He gives examples of how the magicians of every culture would use music to cast their spells, from the hunter-gatherers who made their cave paintings in the spots with the best acoustics to the various musical instruments associated with making it to the afterlife (in the Bible, ancient Greece, and Sumer).
This concept of magic is apparent in the feelings that can come from music, sensations that ascend beyond what we experience in our day-to-day lives. What emerges from the best concert experiences or transcendent dance parties or revelatory religious hymn-singing is the impression that you are more than you were before — an expansive sort of feeling that lightens gravity and bathes the world in an imperceptible glow. It’s what some might call providence or an oceanic feeling, what could spur worship of a higher power, how someone can imagine loving everyone in the world. It’s something worth chasing, a sensation that makes you more than you normally are.
Can’t you imagine those hunter-gatherers, standing in their caves and singing their own hymns to try and chase the same feeling we reach for now? Maybe they’d understand our massive crowds gathering to dance together, a magician on stage casting sounds and lights to great effect. Maybe they’d want to join in. After thousands of years, we can’t shake these instincts away — and why would we want to?
There’s an infinite wealth of directions people can take in their lives, approaches to handling the firehose of information that bursts out of the internet toward us and so many people dedicate their lives to music, over and over again. The enchantment of music is inescapable, and those ensnared by it find ways to dedicate themselves to sharing it as much as possible. They discover their love for music and realize that the world needs more of it, in some form or another. They always have. They always will. Music keeps changing, spanning all sorts of forms and directions, and this will continue forever, from the people atop the biggest stages to the smallest.
The night before the festival, a few of my friends spent countless hours setting up a stage, speakers, and lights in a warehouse in a southeastern part of San Francisco. Before the glitz and glam of the giant festival that would follow, there was Pretola, a show put on by a small group who loved electronic music enough to want to be part of the scene. These are folks with day jobs and full lives who find the time and energy to push harder to make amazing things happen. They had thrown shows before, constantly trying to find opportunities to show their love of the music, but this felt completely different. On the night of the event, everything felt professional, from the hired security and bartenders to the impressive light displays and sound system. The last version of this event was at someone’s apartment. This one had ticket sales and a guest list.
We got there early. We walked around as the music slowly built up, and we recognized each other in the crowd, moving and swaying. And as time passed, as the room filled with dancers and fog, as the lights flashed and shone, as these wonderful friends of mine bounced to the beat behind the decks, the world had never felt bigger.
Programming note: I’m taking a break for a week to rest a bit — no Splash next Thursday. See you in a couple of weeks!
We must do what we can to push back against the genocide in Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon. Consider calling your US representatives to support de-escalation and a ceasefire, donating to Care for Gaza (grassroots organizations delivering food to Palestinians), directly to families or by buying e-SIMs to keep folks connected to their families. Lebanon is suffering too— consider donating to the Lebanese Food Bank, The Zahra Trust, or Beit El Baraka to help provide relief and resources.
💧 Drops of the Week 💧
ALBUM - In Waves by Jamie XX - it’s a good album
POST - “Posting from a Cocoon of Privilege” by Danya Issawi - “I want to hug my mother’s sisters so very much. I want my mother to hug her sisters even more. I want to stop worrying if they’ll be next. I want to stop feeling sorry for myself because none of this distress or concern is even remotely close to true suffering.”
POEM - “Trio” by Bruce Snider - This is her time / when everything is still, / when she could be / anything—a thief, / a mouse.
+1 to jamie xx