At the time of writing, Christmas is almost upon us and I’m rushing around trying to get all that last-minute shopping completed along with all the other men who, like me, have left it all to the last minute. Stressed doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel right now.
By contrast – with twelve million fans worldwide – British ambient band, Marconi Union, can certainly be putting their feet up and relaxing knowing they’ve done a good job with their latest album, ‘Weightless’. Thankfully, their success is helping me too because the title track (part I – actually ALL the tracks are title tracks as they’re all called ‘Weightless’ but you get what I mean – the track released as their single) has been declared ‘officially the most relaxing track in the world’. I can certainly attest that it is gloriously dreamy. I can feel my heart beat slowing as I listen like a car running out of fuel on the highway. I don’t know if I’m in danger of falling asleep or going into a coma-like trance worthy of a zen master.
Musicians Richard Talbot and Duncan Meadows were commissioned to write a relaxing piece by Lyz Cooper, the UK’s leading sound therapist, to be subjected to scientific testing for its effectiveness. Initially wary of writing ‘relaxation music’ the Manchester duo became more interested when they knew the completed piece would be tested on people and brainwave measurements taken. The results showed that ‘Weightless’ slowed the heart rate, reduced blood pressure and lowered the levels of cortisol – a hormone released in response to stress. These results led to one British newspaper referring to the piece as “stress relief in a song”.
Watch the intriguing ‘drone’ video which accompanies Weightless here…
As a writer, I find it helpful to listen to music as I create articles, write stories and generally bash out pieces in time to meet my editors’ deadlines. I have an eclectic taste in music – listening to mozart one moment and psychedelic rock the next – but when it comes to the need for artistic creativity (such as with the collection of short stories I’m publishing in January 2015) then ambient is the drug of choice. Often that means the mildly irritating synth, seaside waves and whale sound mix beloved of so much muzak out there, or listening to a gentle track on an album only to be rudely snapped out of the mood by an over-enthusiastic electro-drum beat in the next.
Weightless, as an album, avoids all of this. There’s almost no percussive beat at all (two of the tracks have low-level drumming in the background). The tracks use a variety of riffs ranging from two-notes looped to longer more extensive thematic ideas and vary the timbres so we’re listening a piano one moment and a marimba the next while it all holds together in seamless continuity underlaid by synths. The result is you can play the album from start to finish and think you’ve listened to a single piece of music yet you never tire, never feel the sound is repetitive or dull. Comparisons with Brian Eno are inevitable and have, of course, been made. My feeling is that Marconi Union stamp their own personality on the genre and are worthy of their hard-earned success.
Well recommended then, Marconi Union’s album is music therapy for the soul and has made this writer’s stressful holiday season considerably easier to bear.
CD and Download available here: http://tinyurl.com/ptz5gzn
