LASCAUX21 | Tim Gerwing

Music for the Inner Listener

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TIM GERWING | Music for the Inner Listener

I was about 10 or 11 years old when I claimed the “ghetto blaster” in our house as my own. Not quite understanding what I was in for, I also “joined” the Columbia Record and Tape Club, which meant that I was exposed to a lot of popular music that I ordinarily would never have heard. Older friends also introduced me to a lot of alternative electronic music.

What I remember most about those days is how much time I actually spent deliberately listening to music. I would lie in my room with the ghetto blaster close to my head, the selected cassette playing an album and immersing me in its sound. I often spent hours like this, sometimes in such a deep state that I was only shocked out by the hard clicks of the cassette mechanism flipping sides. These were magical times filled with imagination and strong emotional responses to what I was hearing and experiencing.

These days almost all my listening happens on an iPod while I’m walking or taking the bus. I don’t own a car so I have a lot of time and freedom during travelling to listen in this way. Thinking about this topic today, I feel like something is missing. While I enjoy the intimacy and immersion of headphones and the liberation of being able to carry my entire collection with me, there’s a certain easy intentionality that is not there in the way it used to be. As usual, it’s a case of demanding that music come to us rather than us being available to it. Music has been hijacked to carry a message when in a lot of ways it *is* the message.

This line of thought made me think of how I used to listen to music, and it’s a way of listening that I feel is missing in a lot of people’s lives as we are overwhelmed with visual stimulus and the convenience of portable music players. Many friends have shared stories of how they used to have very similar listening experiences in their early lives. Maybe it’s just my pre-internet generation, or maybe it’s a real effect of living in the Media Field of Distraction (I heard a quote in a Terrence McKenna lecture “media: bringing darkness to the world at the speed of light”).

So, how to listen to music? My spontaneous response: prepare a room as you would for the arrival of a loved one, a close friend, someone special in your life. Maybe a candle, low light, a way of sitting that lets you close your eyes, turning off other media devices, and giving attention completely over to the music. Turning off other devices like TVs and computers, not reading, and not having other visual distractions around is important: the job of music and art in general is to take us to places words cannot, and I think our days are already filled to overflowing with words, typography, and visual titillation not designed for our inner well-being. And, of course, choose good music :-) “Adagio” is available at the LASCAUX21 Music Store as well as a host of online digital distribution retailers.

But if you are a true Inner Listener, I probably don’t need to tell you how to do this. You already have memories and practice listening in this way…my job is only to help you reconnect and remind, which I humbly hope to do.

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Slow in Sunlight (2017)

The exotic and mysterious tones of the Central Asian santur float above electro-acoustic soundscapes like bokeh motes in sunlight.

photon to photon
star to star, music carries
direct connection

How Long is Now? (2016)

Big questions emerging
Big opportunities unfolding
Big challenges looming
Can't. Just. Hope.

Furniture (2014)

Brian Eno originally defined ambient music as "music that does not demand attention but rewards it when given". In the context of this psycho-emotional musical space, Tim Gerwing presents musical furniture for your inner listening enjoyment.

Adagio (2014)

The focus is on strings in this heavily guitar-focused album. Ambient soundscapes fuse with jazz stylings, world music melanges, and subtle percussion.

pull this string, pull that
the perfect note makes no sound
has no memory

Scorpius Rising (2013)

Scorpius Rising takes listeners on an auditory odyssey through the twists and turns of ambient, electronic, and Arabic-influenced music.

"I always find it interesting when I don't even remember playing certain things, or when I try to repeat them and I just can't. My process is very much in the moment and of the moment, and yet it's all tied together thematically by my personal and artistic research and development."
- TG

Masked and Dreaming (2011)

New music focusing on the power of the song and words, Tim Gerwing weaves a web of psychoactive music based on dream theory, the unconscious, and myth.

Once again, music for the Inner Listener...

Stations [PLUS] (2010)

A companion piece to "Chikatetsu", "Stations [PLUS]" is a hand-picked selection of music that was not on the original "Chikatetsu" release. 13 new tracks of music that are a must have for the Inner Listener.

Chikatetsu (2009)

In motion, in transit. Remembered futures, ambient textures and modern musical motifs, non-linear narratives, fractal audio perspective, and allegorical sonic imagery create contemplative and immersive sonic environments which suggest the expansion of culture and of the modern self.

This is truly music for the inner listener.

The Butterfly Effect (2005)

Mysterious, deep, exploratory, unique...from ambient to progressive rock, this is music at the intersection of the demands of creativity and truth.

The Butterfly Effect is the follow-up to Tim Gerwing’s acclaimed release "Being to Being" of 2002.

B2B (2002)

Contemplative elegance in the Fourth World.

Tim Gerwing's first solo album (02002). A rare and alluring blend of sonic textures and spoken word.

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