Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born 5th of May, 1813. He died in Frederiks Hospital on the 11th of November, 1855. This album is inspired by the forty two years of Kierkegaard’s life, a life of struggle with reason and faith, with joy and despair, and with terrible depths and clarity of thought – lived always with the quiet laugh and smile of a man who lived in the paradox of faith. A life of many - often contradicting - faces.

The loss – Kierkegaard, although passing away relatively young, would survive all but one other member of his immediate family; of his seven siblings, only his older brother Peter would outlive him. Peter would become a bishop, and a defender of the state Church that Søren bitterly attacked. Peter would be rejected (along with a last Holy Communion) from Søren’s deathbed without a word – and Peter would bury Søren in the family cemetery plot but leave nothing to mark the spot.

The love of Regine, his fiancé – who was his obsession and muse and would become his cross. A woman who grew as obsessed with him as he was with her, until it was revealed to him that the rejection of this earthly happiness was God’s request of him, his own painful covenant. He knew, with terrible clarity, that he was not fit to marry her or anyone else. She rejected this self-martyrdom, but Kierkegaard insisted. For the rest of his life, he would both regret and affirm this decision – in a note he hid in his desk for after his death, he stated: “What I wish to give expression to is that to me an engagement was and is just as binding as a marriage, and that therefore my estate is her due, exactly as if I had been married to her.”

The conviction – despite knowing full well it would destroy the few friendships remaining at the end of his life, he ruthlessly criticized a political Church that was unacceptable to his understanding of the purpose of Christianity. Despite the pleading on all sides, he did not recant.

The hope and the faith – that which drove him forward despite the stumbling in despair. Though he would claim as much in some writing, it is difficult to believe it was a happy faith. In his work Fear and Trembling, the Knight of Faith is described – an individual who has a faith so complete in God and their own role that they will obey the impossible decree of faith. He spoke of Abraham, who stood on Moriah and prepared with complete sincerity to sacrifice the child that God himself provided and now demanded in return. It is important to understand that Abraham lifted the knife with full intention – that he abandoned logic and ethics and all worldly things in the name of faith. 

It is not a position that can be taken lightly. It is, in a word, impossible. For Kierkegaard this was to be his goal, though he would never claim to achieve it. As he expected, his life would be a struggle – sometimes smiling, sometimes bitter and fierce - against the afflictions of this path, both those out of his control and those within. In one of his last journal writings he put it so:

“Those who have a little more spirit, and are not overlooked by grace, are led to the point where life reaches the highest pitch of world-weariness. But they cannot come to terms with it, they rebel against God, etc.

Only those who, when brought to this point of world-weariness could continue to insist with the help of grace that it is out of love that God does this, so they do not hide any doubt in their soul, not in the deepest cranny of their soul, that God is love—only they are ripe for eternity.

And God receives them in eternity.”



Artwork by Odilon Redon: "Old Knight" (1896)



Download for free at ophion.bandcamp.com.

Knight of Faith

Photograph by Trarete.

Also uploaded to bandcamp: https://ophion.bandcamp.com/track/korsakoff-blue

Korsakoff Blue

Lethe

Tannhäuser Gate

Rhea

Art by Odilon Redon, "I Am Still the Great Isis! Nobody Has Ever Yet Lifted My Veil! My Fruit Is the Sun!" (1896)

Kenoma (To Go Without Light)

Composition by Aphex Twin (Richard David James).
Photograph by Shane Min Zaw.

#3 / Rhubarb (Aphex Twin Cover)

With Fear and Trembling

Photograph by Hossam Ashoor.

" Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire 
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

     The houses are all gone under the sea.
     
     The dancers are all gone under the hill."

- T.S. Eliot, 'East Coker'

The Houses Are All Gone

Art by Odilon Redon, "I Continued to Gaze On[...]" (1896)

13 Years (Song For Regine)

Artwork by Carl Gustav Carus, "View of Dresden at Sunset" (1822)

“ After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ”

"In a little while,
I shall have won,
The entire battle
Will at once be done.
Then I may rest
In halls of roses
And unceasingly,
And unceasingly
Speak with my Jesus."
-Inscription of Søren Kierkegaard's tombstone.

In Halls of Roses

Artwork by Odilon Redon: "Oannes: "I, the first consciousness in Chaos, rose from the abyss to harden matter, to determine forms,” plate 14 from The Temptation of Saint Anthony" (1896)

Infinite Resignation

Wandering Synthoid Blues [SNES / 16 Bit Chiptune]

"Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

"As for me, a thorn was set in my flesh early in life. If it were not for that, I would from the beginning have lived an ordinary life."

Artwork by Odilon Redon: "Christ On The Cross" (1904)

A Thorn In Flesh

"It was early morning. Abraham rose in good time, kissed Sarah the young mother, and Sarah kissed Isaac, her delight, her joy forever. And Abraham rode thoughtfully on. He thought of Hagar and of the son whom he had driven out into the desert. He climbed the mountain in Moriah, he drew the knife."

Artwork by Odilon Redon: "Princess Maleine (The Little Madonna)" (1892)

Moriah (Burnt Offerings)

How can I not get inspired by Kentucky Route Zero?

Outside / Interior (The Bureau of Reclaimed Spaces)

"If a human being did not have an eternal consciousness, if underlying everything there were only a wild, fermenting power that writhing in dark passions produced everything, be it significant or insignificant, if a vast, never appeased emptiness hid beneath everything, what would life be then but despair? If such were the situation, if there were no sacred bond that knit humankind together, if one generation emerged after another like forest foliage, if one generation succeeded another like the singing of birds in the forest, if a generation passed through the world as a ship through the sea, as wind through the desert, an unthinking and unproductive performance, if an eternal oblivion, perpetually hungry, lurked for its prey and there were no power strong enough to wrench that away from it—how empty and devoid of consolation life would be!
[...]
No! No one who was great in the world will be forgotten, but everyone was great in his own way, and everyone in proportion to the greatness of that which he loved. He who loved himself became great by virtue of himself, and he who loved other men became great by his devotedness, but he who loved God became the greatest of all. Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone became great in proportion to his expectancy. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became the greatest of all. Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone was great wholly in proportion to the magnitude of that with which he struggled. For he who struggled with the world became great by conquering the world, and he who struggled with himself became great by conquering himself, but he who struggled with God became the greatest of all. Thus did they struggle in the world, man against man, one against thousands, but he who struggled with God was the greatest of all."

"Everything looked like pride and vanity, but it wasn’t. I am absolutely no better than other people, and I have said so and have never said anything else.
[...]
I pray first for the forgiveness of sins, that everything might be forgiven; then I pray that I might be free of despair at the time of my death, and I am often struck by the saying that death must be pleasing to God. And then I pray for something I very much want, that is, that I might be aware a bit in advance of when death will come."

Artwork by Odilon Redon: "Primitive Man" (1872)

In Hospital

Artwork by Käthe Kollwitz: "Battlefield" (1908)

Stauros (To Go Without Breath)

Replayed Act III recently and was inspired by the glorious Xanadu music (Ben Babbitt why are you so great). Getting so hyped for Act IV!

Bedquilt Caves (Synthesized Macrocosm)

Artwork by Max Klinger: "An die Schönheit" (1898)

Pleroma (To Go Without Time)

Composition by Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou.

Memories of Green (Vangelis Cover)

"I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and 
Heard mountains moan in their sleep. By daylight,
They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occasions
Of not going anywhere except in slow disintegration. At night
They remember, however, that there is something they cannot remember.
So moan. Theirs is the perfected pain of conscience that
Of forgetting the crime, and I hope you have not suffered it. I have."

-Robert Penn Warren

Photograph by Senoka.

Death and Sunlight (Anterograde)

"Everything seems an echo of something else.

And when, by the hair, the headsman held up the head
Of Mary of Scots, the lips kept on moving,
But without sound.  The lips,
They were trying to say something very important.

But I had forgotten to mention an upland
Of wind-tortured stone white in darkness, and tall, but when
No wind, mist gathers, and once on the Sarré at midnight,
I watched the sheep huddling.  Their eyes
Stared into nothingness.  In that mist-diffused light their eyes
Were stupid and round like the eyes of fat fish in muddy water,
Or of a scholar who has lost faith in his calling.

Their jaws did not move.  Shreds
Of dry grass, gray in the gray mist-light, hung
From the side of a jaw, unmoving.

You would think that nothing would ever again happen."

-Robert Penn Warren

Artwork by George Wesley Bellows: "Dance at Insane Asylum" (1907)

Shadow of Truth (Retrograde)

"Dobru noc, ma mila, dobru noc;
Necht' ti je sam Pan Buh na pomoc.
Dobru noc, dobre spi;
Necht' se ti snivaju sladke sny.
Dobru noc, dobre spi;
Necht' se ti snivaju sladke sny.
Dobru noc, ma mila dobru noc.
Necht' ti je sam Pan Buh na pomoc.
Dobru noc, dobre spi;
Necht' se ti snivaju o mne sny.
Dobru noc, dobre spi;
Necht' se ti snivaju o mne sny, o mne sny."

Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, "An Icy Night" (1898)

Dobrú Noc

Photograph: Project 24 Operation Hardtack (National Archives)

Music for Ash and Sea

Donald (Black Mold Reverie)

Composition "Prelude in C major" by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 846).

Artwork by John Singer Sargent: "Thistles" (1889).

Bach: Prelude in C Major

This track uses samples from the Magnetic Fields collection. 

http://99sounds.org/magnetic-fields/

Elkhorn Mine (Remnants / Reverberation)

"It was cold and dark, but the warmth came from within. Like a burning, like a blooming of flesh and steel. Ten by ten thousand, it came and went without sound or prayer. Only light, and heat. There was never anything half as pure, never a greater antiseptic. Once the light had fled, there were only the empty homes left behind in quiet and dignity. Only rooms without light or shadow, bare of window or door."

Music for Empty Homes

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
 Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
 Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem."
 
"Give back my father, give back my mother;
 Give grandpa back, grandma back;
 Give my sons and daughters back.
 Give me back myself,
 Give back the human race.
 As long as this life lasts, this life,
 Give back peace
 That will never end."

Photograph by Yōsuke Yamahata: "Before noon on August 10, 1945, a mother and her son have received a boiled rice ball from an emergency relief party. One thousand and two hundred meters south-southeast of Ground Zero, Nagasaki."

Music for Knife and Lamb

This track uses samples from the Project Pegasus and Magnetic Fields collections, courtesy of 99Sounds.

http://99sounds.org/project-pegasus/

http://99sounds.org/magnetic-fields/

Wraith / Interference (Marquez Farmhouse)

I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least

I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and

Heard mountains moan in their sleep. By daylight,

They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occasions

Of not going anywhere except in slow disintegration. At night

They remember, however, that there is something they cannot remember.


-Robert Penn Warren



*     *     *

This track uses samples from the 99Sounds Magnetic Fields collection.

http://99sounds.org/magnetic-fields/


Neon / Fluorescence (Equus Radiance)

"You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
    On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
    For the answer is:
        Silence."
-Carl Sandburg

Ambient, minimalist classical, and electronic music.

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