Crystalline/Glacial

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sadmanbarty

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #1

Music that sounds like crystals.

Music that’s crystal clear.

Music that crystalizes.


Purity, sharpness, edges, frosted, fractal, cool air, arctic color schemes, slick, sleek.


This isn’t merely aesthetic, it’s cognitive. That LSD sharpness.

Clear headed, sharp witted, a moment of clarity.

 

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sadmanbarty

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #2

Diagonal lines (such as those found in crystals) are often paired with this kind of cognitive state:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ley_1,_Erdman_i,_Keynes_i)_British_Museum.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...siegel_hq.jpg/1200px-Dollarnote_siegel_hq.jpg

http://www.3rdeyeart.com/wp-content/uploads/Aleister_Crowley_in_Hat1-e1364549253847.jpg


(Luke once described that Bukem track as shards of ice cutting an X across his chest)

 

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sadmanbarty

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #3

Chewing gum marketing plays around with this aesthetic; “Ice”, “Spearmint”, “Wintermint Ascent”, “Ice Breakers Cool Mint”, “Winter Mint”, “Airwaves”.

That thing of clearing your airways.

Being bunged-up is the polar opposite of this. Your mind gets all mushy when you have a cold. Snot is viscous. Sonic viscosity is swampy and mid-range rather than sharp and treble.

 

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sadmanbarty

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #4

This aesthetic is integral to Apple’s chic; touchscreen, operating system names (Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, Sierra), the default desktop pictures are mountains and arctic ranges.

The Shard (which is just one massive iPhone) also fits into this.

 

version

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #5

March Madness instrumental.

 

version

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #6

 

Last edited: Jul 10, 2020

entertainment

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #7

 

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sadmanbarty

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #8

entertainment said:

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I forgot to post earlier that this aesthetic can defeat itself by crossing over into garishness.

Glass reverts back to sand.

That LSD cognitive electricity becomes frazzled as wires get mixed and fuses get blown.

Seraphic light becomes migraine-inducing.

Snow blindness.

The threshold between enlightenment and madness.

 

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sadmanbarty

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #9

version said:

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Bells have very good. They have religious connotations in the west by way of Churches, but also with Gamelan music and finger cymbals from the east.

The crystalline aesthetic like the breath of Gabriel. Communicating the higher truths.

 

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #10

The Japanese do this better than anyone. It's at the core of their traditional aesthetic. Clarity not intoxication.

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2019

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #11

Then you've got themed albums like Koners stuff.

 

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #12

So obviously here ice isn't operating as metaphor for mental clarity but for isolation and etc as well as having a representational dimension, i.e a depiction of landscape/environment.

 

version

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #13

 

Last edited: Jul 10, 2020

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #14

Crystal is a central metaphor in new age culture as well as having a literal dimension (healing crystals)

 

version

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #15

Thaiboy Digital's stuff has it.

 

Last edited: Jul 10, 2020

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #16

The mountain is an important component of this symbol complex. Again, isolation, spiritual elevation, a vantage placed above the human, the heavens, the arduous ascent

 

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #17

Wiley. Where again it seems to operate mostly as a metaphor for isolation, becoming inhuman, cold blooded, unemotional, numb.

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2019

version

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #18

 

Last edited: Jul 10, 2020

luka

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #19

The acid state can seem very inhuman, the cold windy rock of Hassan Sabbah. Woebot told me an essay I wrote last year had that authentic psychedelic coldness, which I don't think he meant as a compliment exactly. Something alien about it, not disembodied precisely, but lifted out of human concerns. The reptile eye.

 

version

Well-known member

• Oct 5, 2019

• #20

Ket feels a bit like that at times. Very detached, like being encased and falling deeper into frosted glass. That's on smaller doses though when it feels a bit cleaner. Beyond a certain point it gets a bit sludgy and mushy.