Othon - The God Within (2019)

‘Silence the chatter of the mind, close your eyes and open the eyes of the Soul. Behold the vastness of the cosmic sea. Sail your boat through the life’s waves of joy and suffering. Hold your balance and focus on your true divine nature. Become the Wave Master until the waves stop. Then you will wake up from your dream and melt into Infinity’

With these mystical words, Othon encapsulates the intention behind his much anticipated & first truly solo album, released digitally and on a limited edition vinyl. Seating somewhere between the post-minimalism of Einaudi, the spacious experimental ambient of Coil and the film music of Yann Tiersen, The God Within is defined by an air of transcendence rather than a sense of belonging. Through the mediums of the piano, sensitive electronic manipulation and sound design, Othon creates an emotionally expansive sound-world that loosely describes the momentous inner journey of the Yogi-Meditator from Pratayahara (withdrawal of the senses) all the way to ‘Samadhi’, the blissful merging with the Absolute and the initiate’s highest goal.

The God Within’s birth came from Othon’s performance at London’s Tate Modern in 2017, in which artist and Turner Prize winner Wolfgang Tillmans featured as his special guest. For this pivotal concert Othon had composed and prepared only half of the material, whereas the rest was “downloaded on the spot in the transcendent state of expanded consciousness”. Similarly, in the album, 6 of the pieces were pre-composed, while the musical bridges in-between them were ‘channeled’ in a state of ecstatic inner absorption. This gives the work a sense of organic continuum and flow that aims to speak directly to the heart, the subconscious and the super-conscious mind.