Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

The problem is that the non-commercial stuff doesn't market itself well, so you have to know it's there.

dharmaseed.org

I use Meditation Studio now, good app, think it was $7 or something, but it's a 1 time fee not subscription

but in addition to the 8 million other decisions that I make every day that I'm informed are wrong and bad, good to know that the thing I use to breath for 5 minutes a day is bad and I should use some other thing that is good

I know this is simplistic and probably goes w/o saying for most who maintain a practice, but the game changer for me was accepting that the "right" way to meditate (in vipassana meditation anyway) is just to acknowlege that's it's not working e.g. "oh look, now I'm thinking about this instead" and it changed the experience for me—this idea that you can't fuck it up so long as you observe yourself fucking it up

Brad Warner’s ‘sit down and shut up’ advice eventually worked for me but it took some getting past notions of “am I sitting correctly.”

I know all the other resources exist but many of them are tied to a spiritual tradition people may not be interested in and the success of Calm (or etc.) is that it’s an app on the device you carry with you all the time and not a class you have to travel to. Short of convincing everyone there’s no wrong way to meditate, it lowers the barrier to entry - unfortunately for $$$.

Yeah I hadn't thought about explicit Buddhism being a barrier for some people, good point. Also I know nothing about Calm, not trying to knock it.

there was a great looking sorta cranky ebook I found on amazon once that seemed to focus on berating westerners for practicing mindfulness/meditation as a means to stress reduction/self help when they should just be doing it as a means to contemplate hell

now that I want a link to

what music can soundtrack a guided meditation on hell

Dark ambient?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTXXCmX3t1g

no way is hell ambient

i guess with Calm, they do the cultural appropriation for you? idk i deal with anxiety the American way by taking pharmaceuticals proscribed by a doctor and partially covered by my health insurance company ... not saying that's the "right way" making a joke mostly ... just that I don't understand this whole meditation / relaxation industry

You don’t need to meditate to be meditating maaaaan.

Revisiting this thread, reminded of more comfortable, more inconsequential, more moribund times

Real lol at this:

she's grifting live on the p4k IG right now:

"Grifting" should become common usage as a verb to describe somebody using a modular synth

beats "wiggling"

But surely one sketches on a music easel.

New track: https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/track/lagoon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpXOlcpoj1c

Every time I listen to this record I forget it's on until "Expanding Electricity" rolls around. Really poor first single to album quality ratio.

yeah, couldn't wait after listening to the preview, got the album off bandcamp and it was such a let down after that first release.

Still waiting for the vinyl from Bandcamp, which was ordered on the first bandcamp friday!

holy fuck, this new record……. my god

I saw Max Tundra bigging this up, and reports are that it's a whole new sound, so I'll chance a listen, even though she's done nothing but annoy me before

Nah, same stuff repackaged. Maybe a bit less ambient than before, and there's probably more variation, but so many of the vocal, melodic, timbral choices are purpose-built to infuriate me still. Track 7 is quite good though! There I said it etc.

it leaked?

it came out yesterday

saw it being described as hyperpop and am disappointed it didn't live up to that

Well an hour ago when I posted that the bandcamp still had it in pre-order status. Just checked again and the page has updated, how about that.

I've given the new one a couple of half listens, and it's really not connecting. It seems too disjointed, and not in a fun po-mo OPN kind of way. Just ideas clashing with one another, with no real conceptual basis.

I still adore EARS though, and Sunergy. Guess I'm more into the bubbling synth arpeggios and orchestration, and less into the vocals and attempts at subversive 'structure'. KAS is great at ambient textures, and not so hot at 'songs' imo.

She’s playing a free show in a couple weeks at the museum where I work - in LA

https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2023/kaitlyn-aurelia-smith