The Magic Circle: Sonic Substance in Psychedelic Music
by Trace Reddell
Part book release, part DJ set, part show - join us at Trident for an experience Dec 4th with author Trace Reddell and local psychedelic band Infinite Cousins.
About the Book:
In the mid-sixties, the Beatles abandoned live performance, complaining they could no longer hear themselves on stage. Obsessed with the latest records of Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson, and with imaginations fueled by weed and acid, they retired to the studio. With the help of their producers and engineers, the Beatles left a trail of novel recording practices, audio technologies, and records in their wake. But their realization that the act of listening to recorded sound was itself a means for altering consciousness may be the Beatles’ most significant, though largely unacknowledged, contribution to psychedelia. The records of subsequent groups such as the 13th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd, the Byrds, and Love further reveal how psychedelic music changes not just what we hear but how we listen.
In The Magic Circle, Trace Reddell threads accounts of his own psychedelic listening sessions into a hallucinatory tapestry of rock lore, drug literature, media studies, cognitive philosophy, and psychopharmacology. Proposing that the psychedelic record is a mind-manifesting drug, Reddell traces the effects of a magic circle—the feedback loop between the record and the listener—as it transforms culture, technology, and consciousness.
About the Author:
Trace Reddell is Professor of Art, Culture & Technology at the University of Denver. He is the author of The Sound of Things to Come, and his audiovisual performances and video works have screened at over thirty international venues.
About Infinite Cousins:
Drenched in melodies, birthed from dissonance and smoothed out with harmonious layers: Infinite Cousins is a frying pan of soaring synths, hypnotic baselines, ol' fuzzy guitars and locked in grooves. Conceived by multi-instrumentalist, Ted Stevens (Light Technics), the songs explore topics of social unrest, parallel timelines, dystopias and their utopic antidotes and space as a whole. The main band currently consists of Will Tyson (Ellie & The Alibis), Sam Moylan (Red Light Ritual), and Ryan Schlictman