Ep. 8: Dominance & Control (1 of 3)
What are you willing to throw your life away on? With Andrew Reed and The Liberation. It's a serious question, one worth pondering. Am I living the life I want, an intelligent life, or something else? How can I have a better experience of life?
Speaker 1:These are some of the questions explored in this series of messages without the brag and the advertisement. Getting beyond even human institutions and society into the wilderness, nature, the reality of how life actually operates on this planet. These messages range from intimate recordings from the awakened forest to concerts, national conferences, and broadcasts on a wide array of philosophical topics.
Speaker 2:Okay. This is another song podcast here. We're gonna talk about one of the trilogy releases, and this one being Dominance and Control. It's a fairly epic prog rock series. The first album in the series being Demarcation, which was released a few years ago under the name Opium Den, and it did really well, especially in Europe and what have you.
Speaker 2:And then The Powers That Be with major record labels saying, We really don't like that. And then we changed it to evil versus good, which is kind of both of these are really alter egos for me. And well, there's enough behind Andrew Reed and Liberation that the better marketing idea was probably to put it out as Ando Reading: Liberation rather than evil versus good five forty. But dominance control, let's get into this. It's the classic tale of life really.
Speaker 2:Life on several different scales, an individual scale, which we all experience, and then also a public figure, someone of some power influence or a nation in this case, symbolic in the Roman themes here, where an individual's actions impact thousands, even millions of lives. And so you have several planes of existence really happening here. But the classic tale is what? Of the natural impulse for so many human beings for power, control, you might stylize it as. So you have the rise, the work, taking risk, to the rise and decline.
Speaker 2:You have the examination of life when the fulfillment or the attainment or the victory or triumph happen, and it's unsatisfying or it wears thin quickly. And thus, you have the decline in life, the decline of desire, all this. Eventually death, or the great uncertainty occurs, and then the afterlife, and that exploration, and then of course the reiteration of life, because that seems to be the natural process is, you know, where things are renewed, the life death cycle and all that. With this podcast, and we're gonna have three podcasts on this, each containing three songs as they appear on the album, and the album is meant to be listened to as an entire body of work. I find just writing a song relatively unchallenging.
Speaker 2:Whereas when you start thinking about concept albums, well that involves a whole different degree of thought. And then you start thinking about trilogies and you gotta go way beyond it. So producing these integrated coherent bodies of work is something I like to do. And of course that completely challenges musical conventions at this time, right? Because it's a single Spotify dominated world, which album stuff is really not part of that equation, let alone the denigration of sound quality.
Speaker 2:Alex and I are sitting here, we're both audiophiles, you know, we listen to those minute details and appreciate so many epic and great recordings. And this was recorded like this, and that's one stunning aspect is just the magnificence of the recording and production value of this. This whole thing is here you got a prog rock record captured in very unique ways in this burnt down recording facility. And then you have these epic drum sounds that, you know, you have you'd have to have a huge studio to to pull off an event like this. The other thing is that most of these are first takes.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had intended to replace these guitars. A lot of times you want to nail the drums, nail the bass, things like that. But here we had the whole band assembled and we captured all of this live while the energy is there. And surprisingly, almost the entire record has first takes. For example, in the song Pulsar, well, was the first time I'd ever played that solo.
Speaker 2:And I I was right in front of both Trevor, Wayne, and and Aaron. And of course, these are great musicians. I mean, studio musicians. I just didn't wanna screw up. But, you know, there's something about that tension of not playing through a piece too many times where it starts to sound very mechanical.
Speaker 2:That if you've got something that sounds like it could go off the edge, or you might not make the note, there's an excitement there. That if you play something too much, it gets so smooth, there's no stick value or interest or spectacle. So that's a big part of the production. And the fact that so much of this, like the album Demarcation, which is the first album in this trilogy, a lot of it came out of of the in between states of consciousness. Not quite the waking state, not the sleeping state, but the middle state.
Speaker 2:But also fused with a lot of reflection. Obviously history coming into play here, the introduction of sci fi which represents the future, which is a cool factor in there. And then also rock and roll as music, again in the modern age, has been propelled to these gargantuan proportions that never existed before. I mean, they didn't think about filling stadiums and auditoriums with people just to listen to music. I mean, you needed a burning at the stake event or something like that going on or gladiators or chariot races to fill a stadium.
Speaker 2:And music, it played a significant role, but it wasn't the kind of the rock star or the celebrity status that it has now. And so that's a fairly recent occurrence for those who are students of history. Let's talk about the very first piece, pulsar. Well, it has to do with life as pulsation, as vibration. The oscillation of up and down that all life, all life in all its forms, whether it be a human being, whether it be a computer, whether it be a rock or a tree, all vibrate, which signifies some level of consciousness.
Speaker 2:So pulsar, of course we look into the sky and we see a planet doing this. And yes, it's this big vibration just like we are. And it's a spectacle in the sky. So in this case, Pulsar, I came, I saw, I conquered, you know, the words of Julius Caesar, especially as he crossed the Rubicon. You know, this is a person coming into their own, that's feeling their own power and potential.
Speaker 2:Just like all of us in life, we have these opportunities where you gain a vision and you summon your strength. And in this case, might makes right, just like Nietzsche said. And so, he's actually preparing to cross the Rubicon, is the next song. But I came, I saw, that is I gained the vision, and then I took a risk. The risk of plunging an entire nation into civil war.
Speaker 2:So basically gambling with the lives of others, but willing to bet on himself and his legions, that is his followers. So that's basically the explanation of Pulsar. The other thing, let me just say this, the folks that worked on the videos, Alex did a tremendous amount and then we had Daniel in Chicago and Nicholas did a lot of the animation. Just tremendous work and it brings a whole cohesiveness. Fact that it's a visual album, well who does that?
Speaker 2:Nobody. So when you can play all of these together, there's a cohesiveness. It almost puts you in a different state of consciousness just because it's so thematic and connected. You know, it's like a continual stream without anything jarring you out of the dream. So, a lot of production value there.
Speaker 2:And I guess if I was going to give it a sound description, it's almost Jethro Tull like, but also Led Zeppelin like in that there's just this absolute feel aspect that's happening. And we didn't want it to sound like, you know, machine metal where everything's like so precise. No. This is this is rock and roll. This is about pure expression.
Speaker 2:So with that said, let's get on with Pulsar I came, I saw, I conquered.
Speaker 3:I see all with my mind. I see this very time.
Speaker 2:This next piece is called Crossing the Rubicon. And then, of course, the Rubicon is a small stream at that time that demarcated what was known as Gaul around France and of course Italy or, you know, the Roman Empire at that time. When we all look at our lives, we have these lines of demarcation. You know, this is what gives shape, I mean, makes a shape because without these boundaries, it would all just be goo, like together. In the idea that we have to risk something, which this entire album really is about, again, power, desire for power, the desire for control.
Speaker 2:We have to risk something, which means stepping across the line into uncertainty. That is things could go bad, you know, you could die, you could lose your fortune, you could lose your health, you could place many other people in jeopardy or peril. And so crossing the Rubicon is symbolic of our lives and is directly referenced again in this piece. And I'll just say this, there's this almost Zen aspect of it as well that when a person decides to bet on themselves, has the courage to say, Hey, this is where the vision is and I'm going to pay whatever price. I'm going to throw my life away.
Speaker 2:This summons almost this laser beam like focus where you're really living at that point. Because if you're living this very ultra conservative life where you're not venturing out and trying new things, I mean, what kind of life is that? What's life about? You know, it's it's to me, it's about playing your role, your function, just throwing your life away on that with almost a reckless abandon, you might say. So, to be present, that's the Zen part.
Speaker 2:And also, what's significant about this is, again, this is the second song of this second album in this trilogy. But the first album is called Demarcation because it's all about really a regular guy in this case taking basically the same journey as rock star Caesar in Dominance and Control. You know, but it's just on an individual level, whereas the second album has to do with, again, a national figure with power and whose actions have significance just like any political figure that you would have today. So with that, let's cross the Rubicon.
Speaker 3:A Rubicon I cross with salt upon my hill. All my plans take me some pace. Unknown enemies in every soul I face. I say now. I limits of this earth I do not see.
Speaker 3:No demarcation line or boundary stream. Expanse I feel within myself. A universe in me
Speaker 2:Thunder in my soul. This is a pretty epic piece in in my book. This is after the victories, at least the initial victories. Rock star Caesar in this case enters the holy city of Rome, the center of the civilized Hellenized world. And he addresses, again, the plebs, the mobs in the arena.
Speaker 2:You know, so similar to a rock star kind of event that we'd have now. We're looking for context here. And so people see this experienced, worldly successful person, and it does what? Just like in normal life, it inspires us. It gives us a glimpse into our own potentials and we just enjoy the experience of it.
Speaker 2:And this song, just say this, the lyrics, they have a lot of different connotations you might say. Probably the big one is that, again, we see life, we know that it has bookends, that it begins and that it ends. Okay, so the great certainty is always staring us in the face, saying get on with it, let's get on with life, accomplish what we need to do. And it sets up the idea that life is really a game, a good game to be played, not a boring game. And this is why the illusion of control is kind of a fantasy for most people.
Speaker 2:The unreconciled mind only wants, again, the one side of life, only wants the sweet, only wants all good, all sun, all warm and all that. When, again, we need the dark side of life, the bitter, the cold, the defeats, is the other half of life here. We know this. And so Caesar, rock star Caesar, has figured this out and he's basically leading his people or followers on this journey with him. This song really don't know of even a more rock song than this.
Speaker 2:This has everything from Wang bars to screaming guitars to crazy, almost demonic screams in the back. I mean, don't take that literally, please. Don't go burn the album because you think it's full of demons or anything like that or backwards stuff. But, you know, it has all these overtones. You know, just like you could look at the B section in this, Electric boobs, coins and tubes.
Speaker 2:What the heck does that mean? Well, you can take that a lot of different ways. Obviously a lot of people will go to the sexual connotation. But then there's boobs are just silly stupid people. You know, tubes, test tubes, you know, whatever, and then coins that are so important at least in society and civilization in this transactional world that represent value.
Speaker 2:And so you'll see obviously lots of references to coins and multiple of these songs. And that's the other thing I think about the whole album. This is so not superficial. It will take several listenings to really start to put it together. But we're not talking about just pedestrian life, the unconsidered life.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the patterns of history, again, Because that is the value of history, is to see what happened in the past, see that they have success value, they have survival value, they have profit value, and that these patterns in the large repeat themselves. That's the value of studying history. But yet, you have so many kids and people really. I mean, who fought in World War II? Well, they can't tell you.
Speaker 2:Who was in World War I? Why did it start? Civil War, I don't know. You know, I mean, just stuff that should be so elementary, people don't know. And therefore I have to question, really, education at this point.
Speaker 2:I mean, are we dumbing people down or are we lifting them up? But knowledge of history is important. It's not just about dates and stuff. It's really about, to me, the concepts, what happened and what it means. So with that said, let's go into the arena.
Speaker 2:Let's enter the holy city, Rome in this case, the center of the Hellenized world, and it's thunder my soul.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If you need anything further, just go to MBI.life.