Exegesis: Five Albums to Meditate To

Mind-altering music from Laurie Anderson, Tame Impala, and more

In Exegesis posts, I project my own ideas onto popular art—mainly fiction, music, and film—with little regard for the artist’s intentions. Past subjects include Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” and Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”. Future subjects will include Octavia Butler’s Earthseed Series, the music of Dan Deacon, and TV’s Adventure Time.

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One of my favorite things to do is put on a good pair of over-the-ear headphones and listen to a full album, end-to-end, no distractions.

Is this meditation? I don’t know! But for a skillful practitioner, anything can be an opportunity for contemplative practice. And there are a few albums which—thanks to their lyrical content, musical form, or both—make particularly good meditation companions.

Songs from the Bardo

Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, and Jesse Paris Smith

There’s something magical about the harsh whisper of Laurie Anderson’s voice breaking through an ambient silence with the words: Awakened One!

Awakened One! Do not let your thoughts wander.

Now the bardo of the moment before death is dawning. Abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment. Enter undistracted into clear awareness.

Release your consciousness into the space of the unborn mind, leaving this body of flesh and blood. Know it to be a transitory illusion.

I’ve been a Laurie Anderson fan ever since the video for O Superman changed my definition of the word “music”. So I was immensely excited to see her collaborate with Tibetan Buddhist and world-famous musician Tenzin Choegyal¹.

Songs from the Bardo draws from the ancient Bardo Thodol, popularly known as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The book itself is delightful and disorienting. It takes the reader—or more traditionally, the listener—on a journey through the liminal, dreamlike space that allegedly separates lifetimes. The text is meant to serve as a guide for the recently deceased, as they navigate the bardo seeking liberation (or at least a promising rebirth).

On the album, Anderson recites passages from the text, accompanied by singing bowls, violin, cellos, piano, and traditional Tibetan instruments. Occasionally Choegyal joins in, singing in a throaty, resonant Sanskrit.

Much like the book, Songs from the Bardo balances light and dark, harmony and dissonance, awe and terror. There are beautiful rainbow lights, deities dancing with knives, holding cups full of blood, angry and smiling. The instrumentation follows along, sometimes beautifully consonant, and sometimes holding a horrific tension.

The album has the same ritualistic feel as a ceremonial reading of the Bardo Thodol might. It feels disrespectful to put it on casually, without giving it your full attention.

And if you do start to get lost in thought, every few minutes Anderson will pull you back in with a jarring: Awakened One!

Currents

Tame Impala

It should come as no surprise that I’ve listed an album that dedicates an entire song to the effects of nitrous oxide.