A musical trip for the mind, body and soul.

Since the early 1960s there has been an increase in interest and awareness in the west of ancient cultures,especially those of eastern origin.The main areas of exploration have been through spirituality and philosophy. Hand in hand with these two pillarsof existence have come health and exercise systems and regimes that look at the whole lifesyle, rather than fragmented aspects of it.The current UK yoga boom bears testament to this.

It was through an eastern healing system that i became interested in making music which had an application for health or well-being rather than for entertainment and, as with many people working within complementary health systems new and old,the catalyst was a crisis.

I worked as a session musician in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, and was lucky enough to get my big break in 1995 when i was asked to play the guitar with Gabrielle on the album that won her a Britpop Award,as well as help organise the band that toured and promoted the album.

Simultaneously i was also making experimental dance music with a band humorously called The Green Nuns of the revolution.The style aws psychedelic Trance and had originated from the groups of travellers putting on outdoor parties in Goa, India.

The scene was very hedonistic but at the heart of the music was an interest in the notion of Trance, of creating a change of consciousness by using repetitive cycles and patterns of rhythm over dramatic electronic soundscapes.

Because of the Indian association with this scene i was introduced to a way of looking at the human body through chakras or energy centres rather than just organs, and the idea of health being about balance and the movemebt of energy through the body.

As i come from a family of nurses this was quite a challenge to the conventions i had grown up with and it me aware of the arguments about allopathic healthcare versus the complementary/alternative ones that now command regular features in many broadsheet papers and magazines.

In 1998 my work with Gabrielle came to an end and The Green Nuns were booked for a tour of Australia and New Zealand.We played in Byron Bay and a couple of days after the party we decided to take a drive along the ominously named Broken Head Road having spent the previous day climbing the equally ominous Mount Warning. I'll cut to the chase;we had a car accident, which was both traumatic and sobering.

"When i returned to England i read into subjects such as cymatics, vibrational and sound healing, and formed a basic understanding of how differebt frequencies affect different parts of the body i.e deep bass frquencies can be felt in the belly and lower body, and high register sounds are experienced in the head."

Miraculously there were no serious injuries, but the shock was deep and i took it as a wake up call. We then went to New zealand and whilst i was there i emailed a masseuse friend of mine and told her what had happened and of the state of trauma that was affecting me.

She suggested i contact a Reiki master in Queensland that she had studied with. I did just that and for two weeks i walked the hills overlooking the lake and the rivers of Queenstown whilst learning about reiki with an engaging and inspiring woman called Ruth Anna Horton.

The experience was profound in the way it changed my outlook and understanding of the movement of energy, not just in the human body, but in all things.

Quantum physics for the spiritually minded is the way i can best describe it. The final session u had with Ruth was a full Reiki treatment and i dozed off half way through it. But i woke up with a very clear mission in my head, to get out of pop and dance music and make an album of music for Reiki and massage.

When i returned to England i read into subjects such as cymatics, vibrational and sound healing, and formed a basic understanding of how different frequencies affect different parts of the body i.e deep bass frequencies can be felt in the belly and lower body, and high register sounds are experienced in the head. Jonathan Goldman's Book. The Power Of Harmonics really opened up my mind, as well offering insights into the science and history of music as a healing tool and art form, as did Randall McClellan's The Healing Forves of Music and The Mozart Effect by Don Campbell.

Through this period of study i expanded my awareness of the emotional content of a musical work. The way that a march or anthem can induce stirring nationalistic pride, a lullaby prompts sleep or sadness, and the nostalgia that reverberates in many folk songs of unity and rebellion, comfort and redemption, excitement and abandon. Every human emotion can be accessed and awakened through music.

It is a simple step to realise that it is possible to induce a state coducive to healing through music as well. The obvious emotional state for healing is that of deep relaxation and it ocuured to me that the hypnotic rhythms and time signatures of the electronic dance i had been involved with could be used at slower tempos to tune the listener into that state.

I understood from my reading that frequencies and harmonic ratios of sound stimulate the auditory nervous system in more profound ways than mere sensory recognition, that music is energetic food for the brain.

Armed with this new knowledge i set about making my first album for deep relaxation and found it to be a surprisingly simple process.It took about three months in total, working from my home studio, fitting in sessions around TV soundtrack work.

Music for a busy Head Absolute Ambient Vol 1 is comprised of seven works, each written in a key which, according to some theorists of vibrational healing, resonates with the seven main chakras of the body. Chakra is the sanskrit word for wheel and the belief is that these wheels give and receive energy in accordance to our state of balance.

Each chakra has emotional and physical qualities and problems associated with it so by balancing the chakras a person reaches a state of equilibrium that prevents illness or enhances recovery. Different schools of thinking exist as to how a chakra balancing treatment should or does work, but i simply decided on an approach that i thought would benefit people whose minds run a little faster than their bodies. The album was created to put the listener into a sort of holding zone. Disengage the over-active mind to let the body get on with its various needs.

I remember performing in front of a packed house at Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium playing the guitar not sprinting i should add, but my mind was engaged in a race for three or four days afterwards.I found it impossible to sleep such was the impact of absorbing the audience's excitement and having my ego tweaked by seeing myself on a massive vedio screen and hearing myself on a trouser-flapping PA system.

It might seem normal to get a high from a crowd's reaction, btu it raises the question as to what energetic changes occur between performer and audience and therfore what are the other possibilities. David Byrne of the band The Talking Heads once commented on how in each concert he gave, there was a moment when the audience collectively lost their egos became unselfconscious and that was the best part of the gig. Liberation through music is not an original idea, but if the concept is focused and explored with the well-being of the listener in mind then the possibilities become exciting.

"The knowledge for using music as a healing art predates the use of music for entertainment".

Elemental Journey Absolute Ambient vol 2 is a more stimulating album in that it engages the listener with each of the five elements earth,water,fire,air and ether. It is a journey through the feelings associated with each one of these and is meant to help us reconnect with the natural elements around us.

I reached my point of exploration with music having journeyed through rock, pop,and dance music as a player,producer,TV soundtrack composer and wanna-be star. Iam still involved in all but the latter, my point being that isn't necessary to abandon all interests to create something new and that the type of people one might associate with an involvement with the healing arts are not necessarily dressed like Merlin and living the life of a shamanic hermit.

I'm just interested in where we're at with music and how perhaps some of its properties have been overlooked.As my first album begins to reach more and more people i have started to get offers of co-writing and producing other similar projects.My attention has been drawn back to the principles i explored during its conception.

Music is a powerful medium and one need only observe the sociological impact pf pop, rock, classical or any other widely listened to genre of music to realise the possibilities if the intent behind its composition or performance were different.After all,the knowledge for using music as a healing are predates the use of music for entertainment considerably.Look at the role of music in ancient cultures around the planet. The common denominators are social ritual and healing in some form.

Absolute Ambient.com, the label i started as a platform for my first album, is a vehicle for applied art. Music with a function if you like. The function in this case is to explore how it affects our consciousness in a positive way. I'm not saying that other forms of music dont have a positive effect, but that there is more potential to explore.

Matt Coldrick hosts the Absolute Ambient Music Show on Totally Radio.com Playing a selection of ambient, chill and healing sounds.