The Power of Hypnosis, Meditation and This Feeling is You
THIS IS UNDERGROUND’S Antoni Ripoll spoke about Desert, Jessica Boston, and This Feeling is You and all things hypnosis and meditation.
In a context where cultural consumption is increasingly dominated by immediacy, brevity and impact, for an artist to bet on the opposite (the extensive, the complex, the introspective) is a radical act. That is why when a record is designed for consumption other than the norm appears; intuition tells us that we should pay extra attention to it. This is the case of “This Feeling Is You”, the new album by the duo Desert, with cognitive hypnotherapist Jessica Boston and published on the young Barcelona label Passat Continu.
The LP, which has been conceived as an immersive experience, has been inspired by a wide range of disciplines, from the history of early ambient music to neuroscience or magical thinking. The design of the album went through two phases. In the first, Jessica Boston was in charge of writing the lyrics (spoken word), drawing inspiration from a large number of sources: from her knowledge of hypnotherapy to hallucinogenic medicine through mentalism and numerology. In a second phase, these ideas were interpreted in a meditative environmental suite by Desert, where Jessica's spoken word connects organically with the electronic chords of the Barcelona duo.
Through this repetition and this trance, we can begin to question "established truths" about our lives. “We wanted the album to cross the boundaries of what is meant by 'traditional hypnosis,” says Boston, “and by incorporating so many different elements, I feel like we've gotten to what I really believe is hypnosis, the point where art, science and magic meet ”.
Below you can find a detailed listening guide that tells you how you should listen to the album and what function each chapter has:
Chapter I: The Beginning asks you to open your mind as it builds magic and expectation for the journey ahead.
Chapter II: To The Magic Garden plays with timelessness, connects you to your body and guides you deeper into trance.
Chapter III: In The Magic Garden introduces the space in which most of your journey will take place. A physical place of trust within.
Chapter IV: – Negative – Minus – Less – transforms negative feelings into a tangible entity that becomes an ally.
Chapter V: + Positive + Plus + More + amplifies states you’ve identified as positive and want to experience more of.
Chapter VI: The Knowing connects you to an inner wisdom that lies under surface-level emotion. A metaphysical place of trust within.
Chapter VII: The Awakening connects you back to the collective unconscious, ready to put your experience and knowledge into action.
The seven tracks, each approximately eleven minutes long, take the listener on a metaphorical path through different states of thought and meditation. Sound and voice design have been used to highlight important concepts and generate dopamine in the listener's brain.