EYES IN ORBITS
Music
for tenor saxophone & baritone saxophone
Eyes in Orbits is a drone piece for tenor and baritone saxophone, performed through stacks of two bass and two guitar amplifiers. Inspired by La Monte Young’s Composition 1960 No. 7, the work is based on two sustained tones derived from the second and third partials of the overtone series — power chord 🤘. Both wind instruments sustain their respective tones continuously through circular breathing and are played without engaging any keys. Instead, the performers use their fingers to manipulate equalisers, distortion, phaser, delay and other effects units. The piece functions as a living feedback organism—sound feeding into body, body into sound—where time seems suspended in vibration. Eyes in Orbits invites the listener into a state of prolonged intensity, where continuous tone becomes both meditation and overload.
As a fun aside, the recording was also an attempt to break the official world record for the longest note ever held on a saxophone.
Eyes in Orbits has not yet been performed live with two reed players. Who wants?
Album Artwork
Photography by poet Ira Cohen (1969), used with permission from Ira Cohen Archive, LLC.
The album features one of Cohen’s iconic portraits: Bom Shankar, an ascetic of the Aghori. Ira Cohen was fascinated by sadhus, yogis, and fakirs — spiritual seekers he called “Spirit Warriors” — and captured their intensity and presence in a remarkable series of portraits and the film "Kings with Straw Mats".
As The Guardian notes (2011):
“Bom Shankar, an ascetic of the Aghori sect — The Aghori's somewhat taboo ritual worship practices involve some or all of the following: meat eating, alcohol drinking, consumption of beverages and foods with opiates, hallucinogens and cannabis products as key ingredients, cannibalism, residing in cremation grounds and tantric sex rituals. Licking the skull shows the Aghori's fearlessness in the face of death. Sadhus, yogis and fakirs fascinated Cohen and he amassed a sizeable portrait gallery of what he termed Spirit Warriors.”
Release
CD, 2020 Subcontinenal Records, Bangalore, India