This episode of alternate realities features _blues matrix,~ a mix composed by ed-en. ed-en interprets the vernacular of the blues performer as a kaleidoscopic matrix; reflecting a ceremonial, interstitial space of sonic revelation and interconnected experience within the black ensemble.

Collage research assembled by ed-en.

“Work songs, group seculars, field hollers, sacred harmonies, proverbial wisdom, folk philosophy, political commentary, ribald humor, elegiac lament, and much more.”
Citing H.A. Baker Jr.’s – Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature;

Acknowledging notions of ritual and storytelling, ed-en invokes a subjugated knowledge and history, examining the black expressive sound and ‘post-human’ form as a subversive instrument and technology — a corporeal methodology of restoration and survival,

transcribing memory into palpable, improvised stories of movement and transit;
preservation, and resistance.

Untitled, ed-en. Courtesy of the artist.

Recalling the ancestral rhythm and cadence, ed-en maps an embodied site within the blues geography;

imagining sound and vibration as a transcendent shelter and womb, ~ mediating between the shores of exile and origin. Veiled within the bellow and release of the blues-black body, reveals a sacred conduit and code, shrouded in mystery and myth;

negotiating place, betwixt and between,

reconciling the body, immersed — forgotten and present.

~
ed-en acknowledges blues as an indigenous sound — a trans-plant, rooted and maternal; yielding many forms and tongues. A memorial marker of cultural history and creativity that has nurtured and carried the body to this present moment. ed-en has formerly participated and contributed to the black beyond collective soundscape ritual via dublab and its workshop series in collaboration with NAVEL LA.

alternate realities is a monthly segment hosted by black beyond

black beyond is a platform for experimental artists and activists to define alternate realities for Blackness. black beyond subverts space, allowing Black people and co-liberators to decolonize and re-indigenize social infrastructures. It interrogates understandings of Blackness outside the limitations imposed by the racist imaginary, through afro-pessimism, afro-nowism, and afro-futurism.

black beyond silences echo chambers and uplifts voices of the unheard. Allowing progressive topics which pertain to the ‘future’ to escape institutional corridors, becoming more accessible to the communities we intend to serve.