Neighbourhood Cosmology

     The research team of acoustic anthropologist AgentMX7 and visual ethnographer MYSTERYFORMS are commissioned off to the flood-drenched foothills of Del Monte, to conduct a series of studies on the indigenous communities co-habitating within the little-known post-colonial township of Neu Berg, as part of the ICS Cross-Cultural Immersion Invitational program (C2I2) to promote and cultivate awareness and empathy among tribes and nations of the far eastern subtropics.

     Phase I of this study centers around neo-tribal ritual and worship, as manifest in their music and art; their rhythms and tonalities, their visions and symbology.  This is no mere dance music, MX7 reports, this is consecrated ceremonial music played in their regular Sunday worship; played across gymnasiums and town plazas, blasting through military-grade soundsystems;  elders and children-alike partaking in this hallowed commune.

    ...This body of work, including painting, video, dance and sound design, is an exploration into parallel cultures and new realities; a home-made, ghetto cosmology based on and stemming from an intimate and personal spirituality. 

     Ancient truths are spoken in a new symbolic language of ritual, pattern, repetition, symmetry and geometry. Steeped in devotional vibrancy and dynamic self-surrender, theirs is a religion of chromatic self-cultivation that culminates in a frenzied fervour for the Divine and an uncleavable oneness with the Universe.

     Recently premiered at the East Richmond Cultural Centre as part of the annual Asiatic Heritage Exposition Fair, we now present the acoustic module of this important study -in its entirety- for public broadcast, to be followed by a comprehensive exhibition of our visual research in the weeks ahead.  All proceeds will go towards the perpetuation of the C2I2 program, as well as funding for a return trip home for MX7 and MYSTERYFORMS.

...in honour and invocation of the One who soon cometh...

Benedictions

     The ICS Arts Crafts and Livelihood Program continues to forge ahead with a this new integrated study, entitled Benedictions, conducted by ICS resident visual artist MYSTERYFORMS and agent-apprentice MX7 as part of their current work-study practicum.

     This brilliant, vibratory opto-acoustic rendering of their research is prefaced with the following invocation, ceremoniously setting the thematic approach and atmosphere of the piece:

A Point in the Unknowable

     

     Extraordinary events since their last project, A Patient Transit, leave the family and staff of ICS/MYSTERYSEVEN in utter disarray and disorientation.  The abrupt and unforeseen passing of their newest and youngest member, J.M. Jr., thrust the crew and project into a seemingly sunless limbo.

     If A Patient Transit pushed the fledgling team towards reconfiguration and reorientation, the current circumstances sent the remaining members in a silent scramble for purpose, meaning, and motivation.

     The inimitable junior member infused the team with an unalloyed innocence of action and a joy of discovery - rare in these times.  Yet, as M.L. Navajo intimates, "Contrary to leaving a void in our lives, he has shown us a light to catch hold of and a crystalline purity to attain to.  For we that remain, the urgency of the search is increased tenfold".

     "A Point in the Unknowable is our initial re-search attempt, not at understanding nor comprehending, but at acceptance and surrender," agent MX7 writes.  "This work is not our lament, our personal blues;  instead, it is our coming to grips with the larger forces of design secretly at play; an awestruck and humbled ode to His mysterious ways."

     Digital copies available here; includes a digitized album poster designed by MYSTERYFORMS with threadwork collaboration from M.L. Navajo for the Ecclesiastical Society of San Joaquin and the ICS Arts, Crafts and Livelihood Program for Cultivated Living.

Prelude to a Showdown

"Tension mounting and temperature rising,

Looking Death square between the eyes;

Who will shoot first??"

     Embarking on a new ICS directive, we find Agent MX7 once again collaborating with the friendly neighboring camp of SEEKERSINTERNATIONAL.  Since their initial Manila Brukout convergence, the two factions have come together once more to further their experiments in bringing their studies to the people.

     As with all their past efforts, the project takes on a life of its own;  distinctly shaping itself into a study on the natural forces of resistance and opposition, coupled with their outward manifestations as conflict, struggle, and tension.

     Our kind ICS allies at Galaxaburn have graciously presented us with this lost footage, granting us an exclusive glimpse -and a friendly warning- about the impending approach.

MYSTERYFORMS Digital Portfoliage

     Long-time MYSTERYSEVEN Associate and current Artist-in-Residence for the ICS Arts Crafts and Livelihood Program, MYSTERYFORMS has finally completed an archive of personal works for public viewing.  This exhibit, entitled MYSTERYFORMS DIGITAL PORTFOLIAGE, encompasses selected works spanning more than a decade, and promises to continue sprouting while taking deeper root.

MYSTERYFORMS touches on Identities and Personas

- their frailty, transience, nonsubstance -  

and what lies further beneath:

secret structures, a veiled order,

inner circuitries that forever hard-wire

us to the ONE unseen

     Visit the MYSTERYFORMS galleria for a more in-depth micro-panoramic study.  Collaborations and commissions welcome.  A recent collaboration piece with MX7 following a brief Subtropics Evaluation Tour shall be posted here soon after.  Stay tuned.  

A Patient Transit

 

     MYSTERYSEVEN, in conjunction with ICS, officially inaugurates the public broadcast and civic archiving of their fourth micro-album catalogue release, A Patient Transit.

     Since the last information dispatch, ICS issues a tactical maneouver by instating a surprise third element to the new MX7 and M.L. Navajo team : J. Monteiro Jr, lead chair of the ICS Youth Promotion Board.  "This trio combination is designed to incorporate and effectively test the ICS principle of sound introspection within the context of everyday living," ICS' Noveloso explains,

     "Taking MYSTERYSEVEN and ICS research studies out of the relatively controlled academic intellectual environment is a necessary step in its development; entailing an awareness and embracing of  our present living conditions as a more complete field of growth and study.  We feel the MX7-Navajo-Monteiro combination will facilitate this move towards a broader,  more integrated understanding."

     "In many respects this undertaking is a return to Square One," MX7 comments, "It is having to re-evaluate and re-learn all our previous findings in a new context; in a new light.  A Patient Transit is all about that;  this is our initial attempt:  hits, misses, stumbles and hiccups, all inclusive."

 

addendum : MYSTERYSEVEN has established a cooperative with the ICS Arts Crafts and Livelihood Program for Cultivated Living with the aim of gathering resources and funds to build a self-sufficient and self-sustaining operation.  In addition to establishing several buko juice stands in campus, the program will be setting up all current and subsequent MYSTERYSEVEN releases for digital dissemination online.  Obtain your digital facsimile of A Patient Transit here.  Thank you for your kind support.

Ultra-Infra-Sound Test

 

     At the onset of the spring term, yet undisclosed designs pertaining to the future perpetuation of the ICS program are slowly unveiled as the ICS Logistics Committee assigns agent MX7 and M.L. Navajo of the Parks and Recreation Board to develop together a new and integrated model of their research and study.

     The initial collated data resulting from this marriage of disciplines have been promising. Circulating mainly amongst peers, colleagues and ICS faculty members, the collaboration has been gradually well-received despite suspicions of its authenticity and doubts about their improbable symbiosis.

     Upon completion of the first stage in development, the works shall be made public. Ultra-Infra-Sound is a peliminary study that will serve as an index code for all sequential inquiries into the heart of the project. 

     MX7, in a letter to our editor writes, "...the piece alludes to the mystery force laying nascent, potent and bustling deep within all things - and all the wonder and promise that they bring..."  Signaling a progressional return to center, it's back to basics for the MYSTERYSEVEN family.

  Ultra-Infra-Sound by MYSTERYSEVEN

Sitting Silently At Your Door

     MX7 returns from an extended tour of duty in the subtropics and is promptly directed by MYSTERYSEVEN to set up a new satellite workshop outside university grounds.  Furtively tucked away in an undisclosed marshland sector of South East Richmond, AQUABOOGIE studios is initiated.

     Along with establishing the new workspace, MX7 experiments with a new instrument signal routing configuration, coupled with the prerequisite internal circuit flow re-calibration to complete the overhaul process; all this as MX7 silently awaits and prepares for the next MYSTERYSEVEN project directive.

     And yet it is during this crucial interim that Sitting Silently At Your Door is made manifest.  What begins as a small series of test signals and tone equations, unknowingly synthesizes into a collection that is to be the second MX7 micro-album and third MYSTERYSEVEN official release.

     "Sitting Silently is about the In-Between, the Neutral Space, the Unmoving Field that upholds all," MX7 confides.  "It is about the Interval, the Meanwhile, the Gestation, and the quiet trust and discipline required to sustain oneself during this uncertain yet essential, fundamental period of development."  Listen up, this is the Nowhere Now Here Sound.

Sitting Silently At Your Door by MYSTERYSEVEN

MANILA BRUKOUT SPECIAL

     Following the wonderful discovery and unexpected success of Letters From The Void, agent MX7 is suddenly sent on a strategic tour of duty to the jungle boroughs of Smog City, Manila; precariously nestled along the far eastern arm of the infamous Pacific Ring of Fire.

     Appointed as Remote Access Satellite Stations Operator and Eastern Subtropics Liaison Officer,  MX7 is commissioned to seek the cooperation and collaboration of the region's most elusive Sound System Operator and Radio Repairman,  Papa "Steady" Ranking of SEEKERSINTERNATIONAL

     The mandate was to integrate the ICS system of electrosonic introspection with the distilled depth-expanse of Seekers Dubwave Music, and at the same time incorporating the mass-reaching embrace of Sound System Culture.  All of this was to be successfully achieved while operating in impoverished, less-than-ideal, third world conditions.

     Papa Ranking, nicing-up one sweltering Sunday afternoon inter-city dance, was heard announcing in his characteristic jovial yet deathly serious speech:  "Manila Brukout Special...we a taking INNER search OUT to the people them, seen!  And we do it nice and easy..."  


Manila Brukout Special select cuts

LETTERS FROM THE VOID select cuts

    MYSTERYSEVEN enlists their newest member, collaborator, and shop assistant; a promising ICS freshman who -due to university undergraduate policies- has chosen to remain anonymous; an apprentice operating under the designated codename : MX7

     Inspired and enthused by the first course dissertation of MX7 entitled Letters From The Void, MYSTERYSEVEN commissions  the inspired work as their flagship micro-album release, catalog no. MX7001 

     Formulated in symphony with his Far Eastern Studies, MX7 offers this  passage, taken from a discourse delivered by the eminent Dr. S. Suzuki-roshi, as a revealing key in expounding the approach, design and overall effect of this work in depth :

     "We have a term, shosoku, which is about the feeling you have when you receive a letter from home. Even without an actual picture, you know something about your home, what people are doing there, or which flowers are blooming. That is shosoku. Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world—and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see a plum blossom, or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness."

LETTERS FROM THE VOID by MYSTERYSEVEN

ResetMechanism test results

     In the late 70's Professor W. E. Collins of PBS, a pioneering specialist in Pacemakers, approached the fledgling  MYSTERYSEVEN with a collaboration proposal: the challenge was to design what is essentially an Automated Self-Correction Device which will be made freely available and distributed to the public through local clinics and health care centres.

     At a press conference Prof. Collins expounds,  "Generally humans have a built-in mechanism that alerts us of physical imbalances, errors and potential danger. The alarm once triggered, sets off a series of automatic adjustments and commands necessary to correct the imbalance and consequently avert bodily harm."

     "Take, for example, touching a hot stove: the hand senses the sudden jump in temperature caused by intense heat, then sends an alert signal to the central nervous system, which in turn signals a command to immediately pull the hand away from the heat source; a burn is thus prevented, equilibrium is restored."

     "The same auto correction system, however, does not seem to exist when it comes to the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of our being; or if it does exist, then we seem to have lost all awareness or control of such an integral faculty.  It is our intention, therefore, to aid this deficiency by designing and fabricating an internal reset mechanism that can be self administered to restore internal equanimity instantaneously."

     A prototype model has since been built and is currently in beta testing.  Its usage has been limited to a select control group and a few experimental case studies, yielding promising results. Widespread distribution remains on hold, awaiting the final approval from the Regional Healthcare Assembly. Presented here is the complete recorded study of the Reset Mechanism in its 2nd edition, made publicly available for non-commercial research and reference study.

ResetMechanism by MYSTERYSEVEN

VIGILANCE ALERT!

     In 1982 MYSTERYSEVEN acquires their first educational instrument for their electrosonic studies program, the more commercially economical little brother of "the Prophet", the beloved Sequential Circuits Pro-One.

     Being made available to a wider public at a substantially more affordable price, the Pro One is quickly adopted by MYSTERYSEVEN as their primary tool for experimentation.

     Vigilance Alert! signifies MYSTERYSEVEN's initial breakthrough in the field of synthesized music architecture.  Continued experiments and testing with the Pro-One's basic and rather limited on-board sequencer has nevertheless yielded this rich, complex, yet satisfyingly RAW inter-locking pattern of tones and textures.

     In a quickly hand-written log book entry dated at the time of this initial discovery, the emphatic words "WAKE YO ASS UP!!!" tellingly sums up the overall feel and function of this wonderful piece.

     The controversy that ensued due to its seemingly unfinished and incomplete nature was immediately squashed when the piece was played in full splendour at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Planetarium; no further questions.

VigilanceAlert! by MYSTERYSEVEN

COMMENCE TRANSMISSION!

MYSTERYSEVEN Begins Operations

     In the summer of 1975, inspired by the pioneering work coming from such institutes as El Saturn Research, Kling Klang Studio, Manhattan Research Inc, and the Radiophonic Effects Committee, three long-time associates Noveloso, Ocampo and Yu set about establishing their own electro-psychoacoustic studies under the collective name MYSTERYSEVEN.

     Upon receiving their post-graduate degrees at the Eastern Subtropic University, the board of directors for the Internal Circuitry Studies (ICS) Program graciously grants the group access to an under-used 360 Sq Ft workroom (formerly the ICS Electro-Sonic Research Lab) for their continued research and testing.  It was to be in this very space that MYSTERYSEVEN would take root.

ICS Electro-Sonic Research Lab cicra 197x

     In spite of their academic education and scholastic working environment, MYSTERYSEVEN would always adhere to a neoplastic and largely intuitive approach to their studies, rather than a hard-edged intellectual system of theories and postulates.  They maintain their ethos of joyful discovery throughout, fueled by the very same Unknown towards which they are laboring to unravel through their sonic research.

     Overcoming limited funding and apparent anonymity, MYSTERYSEVEN continues to function and operate to this day.  "This work will span lifetimes", Noveloso reports, "but in the meantime we are most happy to share our current findings to those of empathic frequency signals". Boost your receptor channel capacity range, the Unknown is vast and transmolecular.