I would say that some of the most interesting work in sound that I have come across, are the Metaphonic works by Z'EV.  This work is truly extraordinary and has opened my eyes up to a whole new arena of audio experience.  I first became aware of this work through the "Metaphonics" release on Eter in 2007.  At the time I got it through Blossoming Noise.  The release was limited to an edition of 222 copies on CD-R, but at one point in 2006 he was producing Metaphonics for individuals through his website.  To paraphrase his own description, the term refers to sacred sounds that can alter consciousness and that is in fact what they do.

In order to fully appreciate the experience, it is strongly advised that you lie down flat in absolute total darkness with your "eyes open". 

Of the twelve different Metaphonics recordings I have, I have had conscious altering experiences in all of them.  Here is a list of some of the most hallucinatory experiences I have had.

 

1-     A group of "carnies" appeared and half-heartedly tried to get me to look into a deep black well called "the void", and pinched me and nudged me towards the void, and I was a little scared and could not move.  Like sleep paralysis to the Nth degree.

 

2-     2 floating cupped hands, not severed but not attached either, pulled a caged hourglass from my chest and flew off with it, while 2 other floating hands with bright orange road safety cone "finger hats" waved around my face.  Some time loss.

 

3-     An old lady, unknown to me, waved her finger at me dissapprovingly.  A fork scraped across a pane of glass.

 

4-     The exact opposite of levitation.  I sank down heavy hard.  My physical presence was made known!  Very powerful physical awareness.  My body was made dense and I could feel my pulse in multiple places beating at different times.  Heavy, numbness, rigidity.

 

5-      A slowly rotating pyramid, like a display model, ejaculated a white beam of liquid light.

 

6-      A somwhat orderly line of birds escaped or flew out of a 2 Dimensional plane into 3 Dimensional space.  They flew in a line but not perfectly straight, more natural.

 

7-      A crucifix started turning, and its innards fell out and the entity became a mushroom jellyfish floating up.  The seaweed beckoned me with tentacle fingers like from muppet hands and then out of nowhere a creature 1/2 Asian and 1/2 ape dressed in ancient garb took a bite out of me.  (This one was especially intense)

 

8-     Very asymetrical sounds !  A slug on the left side of my body, pulled itself up with its mouth and went into my left ear and went through my head and dripped out of the right ear forcefully.  Very balanced but very asymetrical.

 

If you have not heard this work, or if you have not listened to it properly, I strongly recommend that you do so.  There is nothing else like it in the audio world!

 

 

 

 

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(The following are Z'EV's own words about the work)

Metaphonics is the word that I coined for that family of sounds which are intended to function on a shall we say sacred level and which possess the ability to alter the consciousness and/or induce a Trance state in a group or individual.

It is recommended that these CD's be listened to in total darkness. Usually the easiest way to accomplish this is by using some sort of scarf etc. to cover your eyes. If you can get a room completely light proofed that is the best, because then you can listen with your eyes open.

Over the years I have been presenting my live music in just such environments and here's a bit about that [from program notes]:

These sessions occur in the complete dark with the participants lying on mats. Their purpose is to produce a synaesthetic experience in the listener. In this case people are seeing what they are hearing. People report a variety of psychic / emotional experiences focused through a range of visualizations; from abstract firework-like flashings to geometric imagery to cartoony type things to visions which are as representational as if they were a dream or guided meditation.

About Metaphonics:

Meta- is a Greek and Latin preposition originally signifying the relations:
'in the midst of', 'among', 'between', 'after' and 'according to'.
Its first definition in Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary is; 'changed in position or form', ' altered' and ' transposed'.
Which leaves us with:
Phon- which is from the Greek phone; ' sound' or 'voice'

Metaphonics then, is a specific term for what is now generally referred to as Sacred Musics. That is, a music whose intent is to alter consciousness or to transpose between states of consciousness and/or levels of reality/ies. And this would be in contradistinction to secular musics which seek to entertain.

Perhaps the primary power of sound, and this is especially true in regard to Metaphonics, is in its relationship to Time.

More specifically this relationship is expressed by sound's ability to achieve various degrees of Time Dilation; i.e., relative / subjective experiences of Duration. For it is during experiences of Time Dilation that one is taken out of mechanistic / linear reality and inhabits the probability rich realities of Relativity.

In many cultures/religions music is not humanly, but rather, divinely patterned and is considered less an expressive 'art' than a technology to produce practical results. For in its performance Music provides one of the most effective bridges between Myth and Ritual, that is; between belief and action.

It is also possible to consider Sound as the basis for the Mythic structure of the Tree of the World, the sacrificial stake, the column / stairway and any and all of the other similar symbols that act as mediators between Gods / Upper or Inner Worlds [and etc.] and Humanity and which are believed to occupy the center of the Multiverse.

During the cosmic time when Heaven and Earth, or the primordial world and our world, were still either united or undifferentiated, there was no need for a mediator.

But when these two [or more] regions became separated, the re-connection seems to have been attempted primarily through Sound. That is, through chants, lamentations and etc.

- Z'EV