electronic, ambient noise, audio art, challenging art, challenging listening, dark ambient noise, deeplistening, dementia, electronic music, reimagined field recordings, reimaginedsound, sound collage, wall of sound.
Today is as good as any to finally release the second part of my sonic exploration of my husbands journey with dementia.
Hinderlands is not a spelling mistake. The title comes from two of the original ideas I had based on definitions. Firstly, the idea of an area of land lying beyond what is visible or known, originally referred to as the hinderland from the German and secondly, the word hinder – to make slow or difficult progress, to be held back or delayed by something.
This is a challenging dark ambient noisy listen.
Eidolon was a dark and meditative exploration of the split between the physical person with the shadow being that is increasingly taking over. Hinderlands is more ambient noise, anger in sound, time out of sync and unsure of the path ahead.
Sometimes the world is not pretty but as an audio artist I feel that sound can express and explore the darker side and also be cathartic. This is an attempt to try to express what it is like for the one experiencing it but also the one looking on helpless in the Hinderlands.
As always I thank you for listening, reading and your continued support.
I wish you all the best
Odette / Museleon
Hinderland I – A blasted heath, an unsteady ship, a horizon that perpetually moves.
Hinderland II – Clocks out of sync, scrambled thoughts, on edge, agitated and anxious.
Hinderland III – A trail of thought is gate-crashed by a world of noise, a cacophony of sound, mixed messages hard to decipher. Lost in the hinderlands.
In 2022, Eidolon was released as a sonic exploration, in part, of the slow decline of my husband with cognitive impairment, a long term project. The title comes from the definition of an Eidolon as one being a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form. In these two short years things have moved on and now there is a diagnosis of Vascular Dementia and my journey has taken a new path, one of certainty of a diagnosis but also of uncertainty of the path, one that leads into the unknown – the hinterlands.
Whereas the sound landscape of Eidolon was very much insular and self reflecting filled with nightmares and delirium, Hinderlands is about that space between certainty and solid ground and the unpredictability and shifting sands of the future. It is a landscape of the hinterland, an area between the populated, busy, connected and built environment with the wilds, outside boundaries and open spaces but it is not freedom. It is that place where you stand seeing the horizon but for reasons you cannot reach it, something is hindering you but you cannot see what it is clearly. It is a kind of limbo, a suspension of time and surety. It’s the hinderlands.
Eidolon is a dark and meditative exploration of the split between the physical person with the shadow being that is increasingly taking over. Hinderlands is more ambient noise, anger in sound, time out of sync and unsure of the path ahead..
Best listened through headphones but beware loud noises.
Composed, Recorded, Produced by O Johnson / Museleon
Copyright museleon2024
Field recordings used and reimagined, courtesy of the Freesound Community under the Creative Commons 0 Licence – Many thanks to 457012_devern and freekit for sounds.
EMF recordings courtesy of Kit Johnson (Freekit on Freesound )
All other field recordings by O Johnson
Artwork based on photography by O Johnson
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