“When two people fall in love and suspect they are made for each other, the thing is to have the courage to break it off, for by continuing they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.”

— Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment Of Life

Everything To Lose And Nothing To Gain

This is part of my morning commute which takes me through the Devonshire Street Tunnel a 300-metre-long pedestrian tunnel located beneath the southern end of Central station connecting the suburb of Surry Hills with Railway Square in the Sydney central business district.

Morning In Devonshire Street Tunnel

In "One Sample, Thirty-One Variations" each participant was given the (fairly impossible) challenge to compose something with only one sample as source material. They weren't allowed to add any musical elements. All compositions were made with the same sample - the one that is included in this album as the first track. The diversity of the album is astonishing and proves the creativity and talent of the participants.

Mastering: Nate Johnson
Curator: Nate Johnson
Cover: Abe Vink
credits
released March 19, 2021

AEMC One Sample – The Milkwood Project – What You Hold Onto

'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.'

T.S. Elliot – 'Four Quartets'

The Long Way Home

The title of this track comes from an Albert Einstein quote. I found reference to it in an NPR Science Friday interview with Dr Lee Smolin.

"Albert Einstein once wrote: People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion. Many physicists since have shared this view, that true reality is timeless."

NPR Interview with Dr Lee Smolin
https://www.npr.org/2013/05/17/184775924/resetting-the-theory-of-time#:~:text=Albert%20Einstein%20once%20wrote%3A%20People,that%20true%20reality%20is%20timeless.

This track also contains a audio from 'Tenet'

The Distinction Between Past, Present And Future Is Only A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion

The title of this track is a reference to the two previous tracks published:
'The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion' &
'REDUX: The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion'

It is our constant thinking about what might have been and what will be that exhausts us. If we could learn to live in the present and worry less about tomorrow or yesterday we might find we can cast aside anxiety, fear and regret and fully inhabit the situation we find ourselves in. 

'The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There  is no such thing as tomorrow. There will never be, because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.' 

Alan Watts 'The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an age of Anxiety'

If Time Is An Illusion, Why Do I Feel So Old?

The idea of the past, present & future being an illusion led to thinking about how we experience time. Is the start of a track the beginning, middle or end? And do they necessarily occur in a linear fashion. This is a previous track 'The Distinction Between Past, Present And Future Is Only A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion' reversed but the effects still occur in a linear way. I think it makes an interesting sound.

The title of this track comes from an Albert Einstein quote. I found reference to it in an NPR Science Friday interview with Dr Lee Smolin.

"Albert Einstein once wrote: People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion. Many physicists since have shared this view, that true reality is timeless."

NPR Interview with Dr Lee Smolin
https://www.npr.org/2013/05/17/184775924/resetting-the-theory-of-time#:~:text=Albert%20Einstein%20once%20wrote%3A%20People,that%20true%20reality%20is%20timeless.

This track also contains a audio from 'Tenet'

REDUX: The Distinction Between Past, Present And Future Is Only A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion

'Thirty spokes meet in the hub,
but the empty space between them
is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,
but the empty space within it
is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors
form the house,
but the empty space within it
is the essence of the home.'
Laozi

The Space Between

The Milkwood Project is an experimental electronic music project. Using synthesisers, tape loops, voice, and found sounds to create dramatic soundscapes and thought provoking sound pieces.

The Milkwood Project

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