Oceanic Day
by Tsyphur Zalan
Second Album in Tsyphur Zalan's TRIPTYCH ambient OCEANIC epic
The new album from composer Christopher Bono’s Tsyphur Zalan project, Oceanic Day, is the second in a three part series of contemplative, drone ambient albums described to friends as “music composed for airplane announcements”. The material was originally recorded as studies for two live immersive and audience interactive sound bath performances performed in 2018.
However, at the urging of friends, Bono realized there was enough material for a series of ambient albums. The music was all performed and mixed live in the studio, no overdubs no computers, all in one take.
All synthesizers and sounds were either analog or organic, which gives the album a classic character.
The album’s concept and intention are informed and influenced by Bono's 15 years of meditation practice, in particular a series of three 10-day silent meditation retreats attended in 2018. Bono also built the idea upon his personal practice of sound therapy and healing, a subject he spent two years intimately studying during the composition and first performance of his epic Orchestral Requiem BARDO.
Tsyphur Zalan - Oceanic Day [Digital Download]
Background
Tsyphur Zalan is the experimental, electronic side project of Christopher Bono. Bono, a prolific composer and producer, releases work through his artist run label Our Silent Canvas (OSC). Bono’s other critically acclaimed projects include his post/art rock project Ghost Against Ghost, improvisational ensemble NOUS, and Nous Alpha an electronic soundscape duo collaboration with Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Grizzly Bear, Can, Mogwai), as well as his solo compositional pieces best highlighted by the epic Orchestral conceptual Requiem, BARDO. 2020 will be a record year for Bono and Our Silent Canvas, as the artist is making a pledge to release 12 full length albums, one for each month of the year. The last few years have been an extremely busy era at the OSC studio in upstate New York, and the label has an impressive queue of music coming down the pipeline. These will include not only the 2 remaining Tsyphur Zalan ambient albums, but new music from NOUS, Nous Alpha, and the introduction of two new projects Gabbarein (Scandinavian Psych Folk recorded in the arctic circle in Norway), and Experimental Music Summer Camp (indie jam acid rock featuring members of Swans and special guests).
Bono: “The name "Tsyphur Zalan" came to me in 2002 within a fuzzy headed dream state while waking one college morning. At the time I had just begun playing and experimenting with music, forfeiting a professional baseball career in exchange for a now twenty-years of organizing intentional sound. I wrote the strange name in a journal that I kept at my bedside in anticipation of late-night inspiration. The name came to me exactly like the credits in Star Wars (without the orchestral music), floating sideways in a space like aura. It was kitschy and weird. But I always found it fascinating, considering it was such a bizarre name. I performed under the name for two years living in Boston, but soon pulled away from its exotic sounding nature.
Several years later, to break up the mundane routine of a longstanding studio project, I started working on some quick experimental electronic songs/tracks. As these started to pile up, I realized they could be released under that strange Tsyphur Zalan name. It seemed to fit.
So, in 2015, I released the first official Tsyphur album, Sink. It got a premiere at Vice’s Creator’s Project for the video I did with genius stop animation director Toby Stretch. I then did a single, “The Theatre is the Spectacle of the Sublime”. The single was a very dark, Halloween themed track that also turned into a video with Toby and received a premiere by Nowness.”
Oceanic Dawn, the first release in the tryptic Oceanic series was released in June of 2019. Oceanic Day will be the second album, and the final third album will be the darker and moodier Oceanic Dusk.
For the live performances of the Oceanic project Bono wrote an essay for the participants that provides a lot of detail about the “theory” behind intentional sound and ways to engage in the immersive experience of the performances. Click HERE to read.