In outer space, music does not exist. Only in a thin layer of atmosphere, wrapped around the planet earth, humans can live and breathe. With all their power and creativity, they have exploited and eradicated an unspeakable amount of fellow animal beings. As Arvo Pärt once put it: also with music, you can kill – because with music, you touch the medium of life, the air itself. In this sense, music is not condemned to express the inner life of homo sapiens.
Instead, humans are affected by music, because the material world, out of which music is born, is susceptible to suffering. Perhaps that would be the meaning of mono no aware – the compassion (aware) of beings. The question then is not: are they intelligent or not, can they speak or not – the fundamental question is: can they suffer? If the answer is yes, we are one with them. So instead of imprinting an image of ourselves in the air, music arises when the atmosphere is handled with care. If we succeed in that, maybe, we can be forgiven.
Requiem for a Dying Animal is the second album of Alexander Glück on Glacial Movements Records, after his debut in 2017, The Book of Wind. Music by Alexander Glück, Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k.