Ashan – Sacred Spring

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Ashan is the art and music of Sean Conrad. “Sacred Spring” is Sean’s thirteenth album as Ashan and the third in the Drifters Series after 2018’s “Far Drift Afield” and 2019’s “Transfigurations”. 

“Sacred Spring” began in a similar fashion to the two previous albums. All are derived from generative music techniques, gathering sounds and letting them mingle in an indeterminate way to create random collisions of melodic fragments, rhythms, and textural accents. There is something exciting, from the creator’s vantage point, about composing without making all of the decisions and surprising oneself self with the various combinations and permutations that arise from this approach. It’s a wonderful feeling watching as music creates itself within a set of sonic parameters tailored to the creator’s personal taste.

The album is available on Bandcamp:

These pieces are part of a larger collection of music that was created as part of an exercise to make one track every day for a few weeks. This endeavor produced about twenty tracks, each of about 10-12 minutes in duration, of raw generative material. After sitting with these tracks and listening to them for a few months, the next step presented itself. The tracks could perhaps achieve a stronger dynamic quality with more compositional care, sculpting, and the addition of a musical responder. Overdubs were recorded live in response to the generative material to create a dialogue between the predetermined and the sentient, to inject some extra life and movement into the flow of the work: a foundation of chance with garnishes of intentionality.

And in the end, the goal of the work is unchanged from “Far Drift Afield” to “Transfigurations” and now to “Sacred Spring”. The mode of operation is still to create an environment in sound to honor stillness, surreality, and the divine.

For more information and music samples, visit thegentleways.com