Net of Indra: Peace Through Music Meets Primus

NET OF INDRA
Dean Evenson & Tim Alexander
Soundings of the Planet Music
Release date: Oc†ober 26th, 2018

Experience it on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon
Genres: World, Relaxation, Healing, Meditation/Relaxation, New Age, Contemporary Instrumental, Ambient/Atmospheres

Net of Indra is the latest release from independent music label Soundings of the Planet (Bellingham, WA, USA) featuring two innovators from opposite ends of the music spectrum. Award-winning, sound healing pioneer Dean Evenson presents this innovative collaboration with internationally acclaimed master drummer and percussionist Tim Alexander (Primus, A Perfect Circle).

This other-worldly instrumental journey, recorded at Soundings’ studio in Bellingham, engineered and mixed by Phil Heaven, takes flight on the gentle lilt of Evenson’s heart centric soothing flutes, overscoring atmospheric beds of synthesizer, and coalescing with the entrancing, grounding underscore of Alexander’s drums, singing bowls and gongs.

Listen to this sample from Net of Indra by Dean Evenson and Tim Alexander, from Soundings of the Planet.

Tim Alexander is perhaps best known as the drummer for rock band Primus, and was the original drummer for experimental rock supergroup A Perfect Circle. Renowned for his polyrhythmic chops and precision drumming, Alexander has played in many projects including stints with Blue Man Group; ska band Major Lingo; performed guitar live with the band Born Naked; and handling lead vocal duties for his own band, Laundry.

Tim continues to tour with Primus. I also have had the pleasure of seeing two of Alexander’s solo shows, where he brings to life his dense, exotic musical soundscapes built upon layers of looped live samples, and featuring his massive drum set and array of gongs, bells and bowls.

In July of 2014, Tim had a heart attack, and it was during his healing process of utilizing meditation techniques, and just slowing down in general as part of his recuperative process, that Alexander discovered Dean Evenson’s peaceful Earth music that literally and figuratively became instrumental in his recovery.

Coincidentally, Alexander has moved his family to the Bellingham, Washington area, which is a wonderfully tight and supportive music community, and it didn’t take very long to meet Dean and Dudley Evenson, founders of Soundings of the Planet, based in Bellingham.

Soundings of the Planet, the critically acclaimed New Age music label founded in 1979 by husband and wife Dean and Dudley Evenson, is known for its soothing, gentle and healing acoustic music, often accompanied by nature sounds that Dean himself records.

Net of Indra follows the contemplative formula. The musical pairing of flute and drums—taken together are arguably the oldest of all instruments—is fittingly primal. Alexander’s drumming lays forth an atmosphere of depth, substance and warm resonance. Both elemental and tribal, there is a grounded, reverberant bedrock of calm permeating the mixes. Gentle rays of synth weave together this epic aural landscape centered in the peaceful, grounded world Dean and Tim have created.

Net of Indra features two vanguard artists of starkly different genres, yet similarly versed and capable of crafting musical journeys and experiences. Together, Evenson and Alexander have forged a unique musical foray to a resplendently transcendent space; melding the dancing breath of Dean’s flute with the deep pulse of Tim’s relentlessly calm, steady and atmospheric rhythms.

Peace Through Music Meets Primus: Dean Meets Tim

The pairing of flutist/keyboardist Dean “Peace Through Music” Evenson, one of the founders of New Age Music—with world-renowned Tim Alexander, he of alt-metal/alt-rock/experimental drummer renown—seems an unlikely one.

The answer to how this union came to be is both obvious—and fortuitously circumstantial.

In 2014, Alexander had a heart attach and open heart surgery. As part of his recovery utilizing meditation and centering techniques, he discovered Evenson’s peaceful music. And loves it! Its such a contrast to the high energy music he performs in many of his musical projects. An example of recognizing the benefit and completeness of achieving balance in one’s life. A good health and meditation practice will give you more life and energy to go about your life.

The coincidence came about when Alexander moved his family to the Bellingham area, which is where the Evensons have lived since 1989, when they moved their family to the area from Tucson, Arizona. Evenson and Alexander met shortly after Tim had moved to the area in 2016.  While Dean and Tim were recording “Net of Indra”, Alexander performed a solo show at the Wild Buffalo House of Music in Bellingham, in 2017, where Evenson played a half-set with Alexander live, a completely improvisational performance.

Tim Alexander opened for the band Dirtwire at the Wild Buffalo House of Music (Bellingham WA) on March 11th, 2017. Dean Evenson joined him for a portion of his set; here is exclusive footage from that evening.

Video captured by Bob Paltrow, March 11th, 2017 at Wild Buffalo House of Music, Bellingham WA

This Musical Journey

There is a stately, processional quality to some of the pieces. I can visualize the feeling of sunlight streaming through a colorful, gently careening desert caravan. An ancient, regal parade drawn by camels and elephants, gilded and adorned; fine fabrics flowing with the exotic scent of incense filling the air; colorful dancers and jugglers and performers; a procession of peace moving through the golden gates of an ancient city, bringing tidings of good will and peace.

“Net of Indra” has a confident calm: Tim’s subtly epic deep drum beats are gracefully accented with the lightest touch of bells, cymbals and bowls. Dean’s flute sings the melody guiding the journey while synths hold down the far horizon in this musical landscape Evenson and Alexander created. Welcome to the world they’ve created for you:

Net of Indra from Soundings of the Planet.

About The Net of Indra . . .

The Net of Indra is a metaphor, whose origin is ascribed to an ancient Buddhist Tu-Shun (6th Century B.C.), that illustrates the interconnectedness of all things in the Universe. We imagine an endless net, like a spider web, that extends infinitely across the universe in all directions and all dimensions. At the intersection of each strand in the web, there hangs a fine, polished jewel. If we select one of these jewels and inspect its reflective surface, we will see that all the jewels in the net, infinite in number, are mirrored. Furthermore, if we select any of the jewels strung along the infinite web, we will see the reflections of all the other jewels, infinite in number, in the limitless web.

The Hua’yen school of Buddhism espouses this metaphor as symbolizing the infinite, interconnectedness of all things in the universe: mind, body, and spirit; cause and effect; science and theology; the form and the formless; universal origins and converging endpoints.

The Net of Indra resonates with other theories of reality, including the Big Bang theory which describes a single event origin, which by extension, suggests that all matter in the universe shares a single, unifying origin. All roads lead back.

Similarly, the mathematician Benoit Mandlebrot, famous for his development of fractal geometry, developed a theory of “roughness and self-similarity” in nature, which suggests that if we increasingly look within certain self-similar objects in nature—like ferns, Romanesco Broccoli, cauliflower or even coastlines on a map—we will observe they contain exact, or nearly exact, replications of itself at infinite sizes and scales. Mandlebrot was able to illustrate this phenomenon with his famous Mandlebot fractals, where one can zoom in or out visually at infinite scales, and seeing exact replications both at the microcosm and macrocosm.

Music itself can be seen as a metaphor for the Net of Indra. With no preconceptions, and no limit in form—structured or ambient; electronic or acoustic; uplifting or contemplative—the infinite manifestations of sound, melody, rhythm, time and space converge as the one universal language we recognize as music. Music very much that vast net that interconnects, integrates and reflects infinite expressions and manifestations, unbound by language, culture, structure, form or preconceptions.