Idyllic Music

This week's episode of Idyllic Music is brought to you by the number 3. It is, I believe, the most ubiquitous symbol man has created throughout history. From religion to physics and beyond, the number 3 is found everywhere. The atom is made up of 3 components. Almost all faiths have a core aspect containing 3 parts. Shakespere, Tolkien and a host of modern authors have found the trilogy or number 3 irresistible. All of this despite the overwhelming dominance of the number 2 in our own biology, 2 eyes, ears, arms and legs. What is it about that added digit?

This week, we'll explore the many paths to spiritual enlightenment. It might come in a journey, a ritual of repetition or a chemical. Each method is personal.

This week, we'll experience Epic Dreams. Dreams that are so compelling and so vivid the details remain with you for years. When you wake up from an Epic Dream, you feel that you have discovered something profound or amazing about yourself or about the world. They are the dreams shaped by Morpheus and dreamt by Siddhartha and Gilgamesh.

This week we will consider those times when things get wobbly. Not the early 20th century trade union but the feeling that things that once seemed solid and unchanging are now less so. They may be in politics and sexuality, personally or sonically. We will hear from 6 artists finding their footing in an unstable world. They are The National Pool, Auma, Metaharmoniks, Lovespirals, The Esoteric Gender and Korev.

This week we'll look at the Zeitgeist. This moment in time, our collective meme and the era of uncertainty. It's an era that portends the age of human technology while celebrating a kind of spirtitual nostalgia. On this episode of Idyllic Music we'll hear from seven artists reflecting "the spirit of the times". They are Esza Kaye, All India Radio, Andreia Dacal, Daybehavior, Aphone, Giyz and Curly Jefferson.

This week, we'll ponder the summer travel season. The world's a mighty big place filled with destinations that can be both beautiful and dangerous, often times in the same city. We'll hear from six artists with a musical itinerary stretching from Copenhagen to Christchurch, Calcutta to Brixton. Leading our tour on this edition of Idyllic Music are Jordan Reyne, Secret Archives of the Vatican, Tikki Masala, Project 5am, My Bubba and Mi and Chris Pettit.

This week we'll look at women and men and the equally compelling perspectives they bring to music. We have come a long way from days when gender roles were specific and restricting. Now we find even in parts of the world where traditional divisions between men and women remain, within the arts those walls are collapsing. Helping illustrated that on this episode of Idyllic Music are Endless Blue, Boleros En Femeni, Fuji Kureta, Babbaracos, The Crisis Project and Sarah Fimm.

This week, we'll consider the contemplative life most often associated with religious devotion. On this episode of Idyllic Music we'll focus instead on the secular. The conscious decision to notice things. The little details of life that we often skip right past. We get help from Orange Crush, Natalie Walker, Motionfield, Vitamins for You, Text Adventure and Asaguare.

This week, we'll look at deceptions and delusions and how the two often blend into the other in a sort of symbiotic fashion. It requires the need to believe and ultimately deceive. It is one of our most powerful tools in coping with emotional pain. Providing a bit of regression therapy for us on this episode of Idyllic Music are PlanetsCitizens, Naoned, Dave Gerard, Floating Spirits, Ovalys and AlikProject.

This week, we'll explore the search for self. Looking for the light that makes us strive for something better. It might be the agonizing reappraisal of one's efforts and motives over a lifetime or the search for enlightenment contained in so many faiths. Finding your true self is so daunting a project that many simply never try. We'll hear from six of the bold ones on this episode of Idyllic Music. They are Dr Freebs, Cling, Twin Muses, PiliPili, Merlune and Dub One!

This week, we'll explore the belief that all that we know of God can just as easily be attributed to the sun. Of course, sun worship is as old as civilization and even in an Old Testament context, the sun can be just as punishing or life sustaining as God. So rather than worship, we'll marvel at the hope and happiness, love and warmth we get from the sun with help from Adam and Alma, Artemis, Blear Moon, Massive Attack, SackJo22 and Sunspot and Sect23

This week, we'll welcome the cleansing power of fire. It's a concept so broad as to include ancient elements of Egyptian, Christian and Druid rituals as well modern ideas about the birth of the universe. On a personal level, Fire can lead either to brilliance or devastation. As Tennessee Williams noted "We all live in a house on fire".

This week, we'll look at abbreviations and acronyms. You see them everywhere from texts and license plates to government forms and love notes. They might be cute and clever or confusing and inscrutable but these brevis or shortenings have become the bane of writers and lovers of language everywhere. We'll hear from six artists, PDQ, who use them in name and title only. LOL. They are 2 percent, The Reverend Shortboy, WEED, Alien S, Alec Troniq and Rho.

This week, we'll breathlessly await a world of possibilities. The future is more open, blended and diverse than it was even a generation ago. That means there is more opportunity for progress and enlightenment even in the face of retrenchment. The tide is inevitably against the forces of the status quo. It's called progress and it's not limited to the macro. Everyone has the possibility of growth.

This week, we'll look at the unbearable sadness that marks the end of relationships. Whether the result of the discovery or admission of infidelity or the euphemism of 'growing apart', the cold numbness deep inside of those unaware and most pained lives on in a hundred ways. Its never about them as protested but the left behind deal in anger and recriminations, self-doubt and what-ifs. It is a sadness that lessens over time but never heals. Seven heartbreaking tales are offered up this week by Delgarma, Garmisch, Cobrider, Billy Cote and Uniit Carruyo, Tumc, and Full source.

This week, we'll try to fathom the hidden world of Esotericism. It's a fool's errand; really, because the point is certain things are kept by a narrow circle of the enlightened or initiated away from the rest of us. The most obvious are in the government or religious arena but the idea cascades down to much smaller things like school or office politics. Holding the torch whilst we search the catacombs are the x-structure, Tang Kai, Dive Index, Sister Overdrive, Sekotis and Secret Archives of the Vatican.

This week, we'll look at the wars men wage with all its glory and tragedy. How something so awful can be a source of honor and how Napoleonic ego can lead us into horrific conflict. It's the story of mankind for better or worse and war's moral paradox largely defines the human race. Informing us in ways large and small are Kate Martin, Drifting In Silence, Jelle, Bill Laswell, CC Asia and Peter Gabriel.

This week, we'll lay back and take in Camus' invincible summer. In times of ambiguous environments, artificial seasons, climate controlled offices and 24 hour shopping malls, its nice to revel in the easy season. Summer. Its sprinklers, beaches, vacations and slower pace.

This week, we'll look at Promises and Lies. When Ali Campbell sang of the sorrow and pain from the serpent's song of a lovers deceptiveness, he also implied that acknowledging those lies led to hope and healing. Setting down that road this week are Sabian, Vela, Null Device, Wordless Poem and Lucky Cat.

This week, we'll marvel at the plant world. Turning the sun's energy into life from nutrients in the soil and atmosphere is so fundamental to our existence that it is hard to believe we would do anything to disrupt it. Taking us through the first trophic level are Rho, Hands Upon Black Earth, Analog Fury, Sitchin, and Seth Master.