Some years ago, I stumbled on an article in The New York Times about an extraordinary art exhibit. The exhibition featured art from the Living Museum, a center devoted to artistic production by patients at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, New York. I was taken by the depth of imagination inherent in the works, which left a haunting and indelible impression on me. During the summer of 2008, I heard an NPR interview with psychiatrist and Living Museum curator, Janos Marton. I was struck by a postulate Marton made in his interview, which opens The Art of Madness: "I think that creativity, and artistic production, is almost a symptom of mental illness." It is this provocative remark that prompted the composition, The Art of Madness.
The Art of Madness is a 56-minute, continuous cycle of songs, each based on a different manifestation of madness. The music tells the story of an ordinary man who, without warning, experiences a psychotic Ecstasy. The protagonist sees in the sky tears that turn to a light in which a vision of a new art and music appears to him. His psychotic episodes prompt a course of creative output in which the protagonist reproduces his flights of madness in the form of art and music. The artist endures several psychotic experiences that manifest as Panic, Fantasy, Dream, Delusion, Moon Mad, Despair, and Apparition. The artist then endures a Breakdown and Sedation. Finally, in a moment of Revelation, the artist apprehends that the burden of his madness is, in fact, a gift--the source of his exquisite creativity and artistic output. Rather than suffer his madness, the artist triumphantly embraces that which guides him through his extraordinary and distorted vision of the world.
The Art of Madness was composed and recorded in just three months during 2008. Almost all of the music on the recording was improvised. In other words, while recording, I would improvise the basic materials of the songs. I then elaborated on the ideas adding bass, drums, and other instruments. I added vocal tracks, often creating melodies and lyrics extemporaneously as the recording rolled. The Psychedelic Ensemble, therefore, is a one-man band. Although the compositional process is essentially improvisational, the work was carefully conceived. One finds, for example, recurring motives, themes, and harmonic ideas that unify the individual pieces. The work, therefore, is cyclic in design.
After completing the composition, I worked carefully with Janos Marton and Alexandra Serban. Together we carefully selected images produced by artists at the Living Museum that best represent the sensibility of each song. The order in which the images are presented in this booklet seems to directly parallel the story that is The Art of Madness.
I am indebted to Janos Marton for his cooperation and support of my request to incorporate images from the Living Museum with The Art of Madness. Also, I am grateful to Alexandra Serban who patiently assisted me in the selection of the artwork. Finally, I thank the artists at the Living Museum for granting permission to include their exquisite art with this CD.
Given the wonderful amount of info provided above, there is no need for me to go into detail. But I would like to say that I have listened to this album completely, several times over. When I first started listening to it.. I thought to myself..Wow! This is really weird and trippy! But the more I listened and started paying closer attention to it, I quickly became totally fascinated and completely overwhelmd with the enormous amount of feel and great depth of artistic expression. Each song has an indepth meaning, that is extremely intense and visually intoxicating. This album is much more than just music, it is a totally brilliant work of creative arts, that will blow your mind, while it takes you on a psychedelic journey full of genius imagination! I highly recommend this album to those looking for something different, that is really far out there!
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