Hawksmoor - Methods of Dreaming (2020)

Hawksmoor on ‘Methods of Dreaming’:

May you live in interesting times…

To paraphrase Albert Camus in The Plague, events often unfold which provide a sharp reminder that the human condition is absurd and precarious.

Confronted with unpredictable circumstances, my solution was to look for escape and some form of mental release.

My research unearthed a paper by Prof. R.J. Bennett of the Milton Keynes Institute for Neurological Dream Research, published in 1979 and titled ‘Methods of Dreaming’. In it, he details his investigations into the methods of invoking dream states, lucid dreaming and harnessing dream logic. This document effectively provided a guidebook for achieving expansion of consciousness, cerebral escape and transcendence, becoming the inspiration behind the creation of this music.

Taking cues from experimental electronic music artists including Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and early Vangelis, the deliberately minimal textures have been created from an array of Moogs, soft synths, tape loops and processed guitars, with live bass lines creating rhythmic pulses. Mellifluous, flowing and ethereal… this is a launch pad for dreamscapes.