A fragment from a recording from January 2010.

Participants:

Max Abelev - laptop
Keith Yates - Sax
Etanna Sack - noisemakers
Lydia Harari - noisemakers
JC Mendizabal - mixing, looping, deconstruction

Secret

A re-imagining of an old RFCL track.

Participants:
Colin Hamilton - voice and violin
Max Abelev - laptop
Etanna Sack - voice and noisemakers
Lydia Harari - voice and noisemakers
JC Mendizabal - synths, mixing, looping, deconstruction

The Ritual And The Object - Ambient Remix

Long Blue Thread - Remix

A re-imagining of an old RFCL track.

Participants:

Colin Hamilton - violin
Max Abelev - laptop
Etanna Sack - voice and noisemakers
Lydia Harari - noisemakers
JC Mendizabal - synths, mixing, looping, deconstruction

Subjective Expansion - Ambient Remix

A re-imagining of an old RFCL track.

Participants:

Heejin Jang - laptop
Max Abelev - laptop
Lydia Harari - vocals, noisemakers
Etanna Sack -  vocals, noisemakers
Juan Carlos Mendizabal aka Kyron - laptop, electronics, mixing, deconstructing

Shared Aim - Ambient Remix

Organic Alchemy - Ambient Remix

Only To Quickly Forget

A fragment from RFCL performing live at Symbiosis Gathering
September 21, 2013 (at sunrise)

Participants:

Max Abelev - laptop
Keith Yates - tenor sax, soprinino, clarinet
Lydia Harari - vocals
Etanna Sack -  vocals
Juan Carlos Mendizabal aka Kyron - laptop, electronics, mixing, deconstructing

*  *  *

There is a well-known story about Ga.
She was once asked by H. on a train what business she was in. 
Ga then unveiled her secret persona: an embodiment of the goddess Venus.
Ga explained that she was an architect.
"Of what?" asked H. 
"Of solar energy," Ga replied. 
"As I arose before the sun, I was called the star of the morning, 
or Lucifer, which meant the light-bearer."

She sat there in a thong, 
letting people know that she was now Venus, goddess of sex.
(This association between the planet Venus and lust goes back thousand of years.)
“As the morning star, I was visible before sunrise,
and a number of names were given to me by the ancients."
H. then perceived a kind of light in and around the creator Goddess 
even while his consciousness was yet mired in things of the earth.

The Mother Monster was apparently now the Mother Goddess.
A holy transformation had occurred.
H. felt himself arriving at the Sun, 
where his consciousness was no longer even human, not even alien.
"I advise you, my dear H., not to put such questions to yourself yet. 
Do not be impatient." 
H. found himself back in the train, staring at the nearly naked Ga.

"In the meantime, exist as you exist. 
You will find the Clear Light of this space to be neither heat nor light.
As you become acquainted with it,
it will accord you the possibility of voyaging within this artifact 
which is the dead and sleeping machine.
Only do not forget one thing: 
at your age it is indispensably necessary that every day, at sunrise, 
you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the unconscious, 
the Sun is the place wherein you will meet the unconscious with you present awareness."

Ga’s performance was indeed a tribute to her past personas
and the birth of a new one.
She was now vibrating at such degree 
as to exist, expanded, 
between the living particles of light.

Sunrise - Live at Symbiosis 1

A fragment from RFCL performing live at Symbiosis Gathering
September 21, 2013

Participants:

Max Abelev - laptop
Keith Yates - tenor sax, sopranino, clarinet
Lydia Harari - vocals
Etanna Sack -  vocals
Juan Carlos Mendizabal aka Kyron - laptop, electronics, mixing, deconstructing

* * *

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a young woman.
She was very sad because she had been hurt.
To guard against a possible rebellion, 
her father had implanted an electronic organ at the base of her spine, 
so as to stop her from becoming intelligent.

She became wild, bohemian, impulsive and more than a touch batty.
She didn't realize that her miracle was standing atop someone else's sacrifice.
(At that time, at that place, who was actually there and who was not?)
I told her there was no need to be ashamed, because the memory she possessed was a worthy one. 

"I know that you're the same as myself. 
Your eyes are like those people who can't help wanting to make memories last forever."
I knew then that only those with beautiful memories are allowed to wish.
And like with most cases of love at first sight, 
one cannot describe what exactly just happened.
(Often, feeling something intuitively is no more than a device for committing oneself to it 
while signaling that one is not going to provide any further arguments for this course.)

If only those days could last forever, if only I could still be what I was back then.
But eternity doesn't exist in this world, does it?
(There was nothing wrong in principle with metaphysics the way she had practiced it.)
"Now it's my turn to go to you," she said to me.

The dominant influence in her life had been the religious guru G.
"You remind me so much of G. when I loved him. 
But he could never be my prince."
G.'s long-winded teachings are hard for me to summarize.
He set before himself the goal of figuring out the basic ontological structure of the universe.
All she could actually do was keep repeating to herself:
“This is good, very good, so very good.”

"No matter where you are, I'll find you for sure."
I left of my own free will.
That sort of sacrifice is what is always demanded.
But she stayed with his corpse for days after his death.

"Wait for me"
One can have an argument that starts out with good premises, 
but reaches its conclusions in a way that is logically unwarranted.
And yet the conclusion may work.
(This could refer to some magical ability only she possessed.)

The way before me had been prepared.
I think I had bumped onto it a long time ago.
I had latched onto the rose-colored idea of friendship, 
trying to make it last forever.
Anima & animus, brother & sister, princess & prince.
It was all a long, emotional monologue 
about how we would both exorcise the ghosts of our childhoods.

Before I left, she said:
"Never lose that strength or nobility, even when you grow up. 
I give you this to remember this day." 
My life may be just a moment, 
but eternity means that this moment lasts billions of billions of years, 
without end. 
I want eternity.
Someday together we will shine.

Someday Together - Live at Symbiosis 2

When I Become Invisible

A new version of an old RFCL track.

Participants:
Etanna Sack - voice
JC Mendizabal - synths, looping, deconstruction

Dream Of The Ocean 2022

Participants:
Etanna Sack - voice
JC Mendizabal - synths, looping, deconstruction

Clouds Of Thought 2022

Particles 2022

The Outer World

The Nmari 2022

Crenellations

(originally made for a web art piece)

Participants:
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Some Other Level 2022

M. was a practitioner of black magik,
a voyager of the shadows of the landscape 
beyond reason, beyond logos, 
beyond order, beyond harmony.

M. discovered that strict rationality and magik did not go together.
There were certain spaces that were clearly there 
but we could not see them eye to eye. 

M. revived the sexual vibrations in all the hidden centers of our bodies.
He would frequently take blood and urine samples from the group in those days.
Sometimes the group was strongly affected. 
Some of them cried and felt suicidal.
I feared loosing my memory.

Above all, M. was cunning.
One night he approached me and said:
"The Governor is now in my power.
There are payments to be made. 
They have not paid me what they owe me."

He led me to the basement.
There I found myself face to face with the Governor.
M., standing next to me, spoke to him in a loud firm voice:
"All my life you have pressured me and offended me.
Give your place to me now, Governor."
What happened next was inevitable.

M. reasoned that once the Governor was dead, 
it followed that any ultimate purpose was out of the question.
We had become the dissonant note in music,
a hidden part of the governing principle of the universe.

In later writings, he proclaimed the rejection of all morals.
As a magician who had cunning, he could do both white and black invocations.
"Do what you will, that is the complete set of rules for the game."

The latter events were a clear response to what he had left untouched.
From him, I had learned that magik was transrational.
A substance could be ingested which would furnish help for such irrational invocations.
Through such experiments, I learned to inhabit the silent spaces between sounds. 

"After a certain age this effort would become very difficult, often impossible."
I said to him.
"We would much rather become a natural contrast to those things that are illuminated."
He understood immediately. 
"This not my will, but yours." 
I said to him as I performed the old ritual.
"And it will be done.”

In the end, this is why there would always be two magiks. 
"Black magik is cunning, you understand the difference?" he asked me once.
Our magikal practice used power as currency. 
Only we couldn't be impartial and fulfill our obligations to the Governor.
What happened next was inevitable.

Black Magik Remix

Participants:
Colin Hamilton - Violin and Noisemakers
Max Abelev - Laptop
Lydia Harari - Noisemakers and voice
JC Mendizabal - looping, mixing, deconstruction

The Wandering Stars

Participants:
Lydia Harari
Isabel Obrecht
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Nix Ruina

Participants:
Isabel Obrecht
Lydia Harari
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Kam Se Kam

Elachistos

Participants:
Colin Hamilton - Violin, noisemakers
Max Abelev - Laptop Noiz
Lydia Harari - Voice, noisemakers
JC Mendizabal - keybaords, looping, mixing, deconstruction

Doom Spiral

Originally recorded in July 2010
Mixed and re-imagined for 2023

Participants:
Colin Hamilton - acoustic guitar
Mark Goldstein - electric guitar
Thom Tamayo - synth noise
Max Abelev  - laptop noiz
Etanna Zack - vocals, noisemakers
Lydia Harari - vocals, noisemakers
JC Mendizabal aka Prospero -  mixing, deconstruction, loops

Are You Going? (Scarborough 1)

Nostos

Minimalist Electronica
A bit of a return to classic electronica
(and the style of music RFCL was doing about 8-10 years ago)

Night Serpent

Experimental electronica - dark ambient drone.

Participants:
Isabel Obrecht
Lydia Harari
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Istripua

Dark semi electronic dirge for dark times.

Participants:
Isabel Obrecht
Lydia Harari
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Recidivo

A constant ostinato and lightly falling snowflakes.

Participants:
Isabel Obrecht
Lydia Harari
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Elur

Electronic music for altered gatherings.

Participants:
Isabel Obrecht
Lydia Harari
Etanna Sack
JC Mendizabal

Feuerkreis

Today, today is my birth.
The day, the day of birth.
Today, today. 
There is only today,
when desire and birth converge
on a plate of marshmallows.

Ukulele: LaVonne Deguma
Samples: Harari family

Hayom Yom Huledet (Birthday Song)

Improv Session from 3/1/2019

Participants:

Kevin Seal - sax and noisemakers
Serena Di Pinto - noisemakers and vocals
Lydia Harari - noisemakers
JC Mendizabal - deconstruction and mixing

Philo 3

Blue Mirrors

A fragment from a recording from January 2010.

Participants:

Max Abelev - laptop (featuring noise solo)
Etanna Sack - noisemakers
Lydia Harari - noisemakers
JC Mendizabal - mixing, looping, deconstruction

Black Blood Filters Of Flesh

Radio Free Clear Light is a living radio built of various human components at different times.

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