Review Summary: The full spectrum of the material world
It all starts with nothing. Call it God or call it a big bang, in the center of absolute darkness there is an invisible light, shining brightly but remaining unseen with no eyes to see it. It’s filled with infinite potential, for everything that ever happens in what we know as life. Discovery, love, procreation, pain, and growth; just a few of the many elements we as organisms recognize. It all came from one source, whatever that may be.
And all at once, everything is there: life, with all its beauty, sensations and perspectives, in full detail and as rich as anything comes. The stars illuminating the sky, day and night cycling ever onwards, living things dying and being born, everything we know is interweaved, and the most deviant and opposing features reveal themselves to be siblings. Origin is a mystifying and elusive thing. However it happened, it happened quickly and it happened only once. What was it like? It must have been truly beautiful; Brian Transeau’s
Ima takes creation itself and slows it down for all to see.
With his debut, BT’s brand of progressive electronic music could be seen as a beefy, fashionably late entry to the 90’s dance scene. It’s when you see the imagery when all that changes: Pitch black space suddenly sends waves of blue across the atmosphere like spilled paint, and massive gusts give way to the circulation of air. The area fills up like a balloon, then like a red carpet, soil rolls out in all directions before meeting again in a full sphere. Grass sprawls out from under the dirt and the color green is created. Seeds spurt like bullets under the ground, in the most graceful patterns imaginable, and quickly mature into a full rainbow of flowers of many different families. The trees creep and crawl branch by branch, while its foliage forms from under its skin. Ground is morphed and molded like clay into a vast population of hills, mountains, and canyons. Mist materializes in the sky in the form of thick clouds, seeping at every seam before exploding with a torrential downpour that fills up bowls in the earth to make oceans. Heat suddenly booms many miles away, cooking everything without burning it, and the sun is born to give warmth. Everything is put into motion, including the entire mass of land that was just created. Cycles start, and like the beating of a heart the Earth is a self-watering, self-sustaining source of life. Man is born, and time is measured. Things begin and things continue for the rest of eternity.
Past, present or future, it doesn’t matter.
Ima’s painting is that of the world at the core of everything; every flower picked for a lovely lass, every tree cut down for resources, every animal, every sediment, everything belonging to the never-changing constants of the Earth, and every last particle of life and feeling involved. What Transeau has created here is all-encompassing and far-reaching. At the core of everything is one basis, and that is life. There’s no personal emotions to be found on
Ima, but rather the grand emotion that is beauty, and for BT that beauty lies in creation. The progressive elements of his music represent the sense of growth and blooming energy
Ima has to offer. One star at a time, one cell…the ultimate outcome doesn’t question where it all came from, but instead emphasizes the beauty of life by going on a vivid journey through the creation process. Whether it came from a God or a big explosion, an artist is definitely at work here.
