Esalen Lectures

2015 release. Inspired by think tanks and floatation tanks, psychological research, 2012 mythology, 1960s social planning, stoned apes, elite transhumanism, and the counter-culture, The Host's Esalen Lectures is an imaginary trip to a NorCal psychedelic retreat. Use the sounds to enter into a program of theory and practice, to accompany inward voyages, and for sunset induction rituals. And when the colored dust settles, and the weird dreams have eased off, maybe your neural re-programming has just started? Drawing from a wide source of tranced-out musical legacies, the Esalen Lectures is pitched somewhere between Ash Ra Tempel and Steve Hillage at their most freeform, and more underground new age artists like JD Emmanuel and Ariel Kalma. The Host use sweeping synthesizer patterns and subtle field recordings to create dramatic arcs across the record, and spiraling guitar squalls meet blissed-out, motionless womb lullabies and digitally-enhanced nocturnes to tell a weird story of induction, hypnosis, and psychic disturbance.