During the September 2025 Heritage Days in the Paris region, I visited the Khanh Anh Pagoda in Evry with my family.
A guide toured the site and explained some Buddhist principles to us along the way. During his narration, an image stayed with me. He showed us an imposing stupa with several floors. Each floor represented a level before attaining Buddhahood. The first level was hell, the second was for animals, and the third level was for humans. According to our guide, before the awakening state, there were six or seven floors before reaching the state of enlightenment. And I thought, "It's a long way." This piece was born from this encounter with our very interesting and friendly guide.

A long way to Hapiness

My first encounter with ambient music was a happy accident in 2001. At the time, I was working for a company that managed the SNEP catalog: the French National Union of Photographic Publishers. We received entire boxes of new music on CD from most of the country's record labels. One of my colleagues was a music fanatic and had a keen ear for finding interesting works. One day, he put on Recoloured - The Remix Album by Nils Petter Molvaer.
I was expecting electro-jazz, but one track on the album really touched me. I'd never heard music like it before: "Kakonita" by Deathprod Mix, aka Helge Sten, a Norwegian musician. That's how I discovered ambient music.

Alongside my musicology studies at the University of Paris 8
I played bass and guitar in small clubs and cafes in the Paris région. Interested in ambient for a long time, I started to really compose it since 2023
in my small home studio.
My next goal is to be able to practice and create ambient in the street, to do featuring and improvise;

A long way to Hapiness

Eptel Oru