[RICH] When I read your words on METANET I am mesmerized by the holographic way they intertwine. Your transmitted information is encoded multidimensional spaces. However since we are friends who met via the internet I only know you by your ASCII data streams. Can you tell me a little personal biographical information? For example, how long have you been a musician and DJ? What do you do when you are not guiding the masses through portals into higher realms? Obviously you are a full on cyber shaman, when did you first realize this? Who is the being called Ray Castle?
[RAY] The existential quest is a theme which runs thru my life. The arts have provided a metaphorical vehicle for me to communicate some of my discoveries which relates to collective consciousness and each individual's personal dharma. Art is a symbolic, sensoria language, which has the potential to reach the transpersonal psyche and reconnect us with the creative source. I use my creations and other people's work to orchestrate a hybrid medium, within a dance party context, to bring about psycho-emotional transformations. Rhythms and frequencies and sounds catalyse enzymes and chemistry in the brain and body-mind. I don't see myself as a conventional musician or DJ, I am more of a sound therapist, an infonaunt, a cybernetic surgeon stitching together a contemporary mosaic of music and sonic geometry which takes the participants on a journey within themselves and interpersonally. I am not sure who Ray Castle is. I am finding out what I am here to do. Life is an unending journey of self discovery. I do feel as though my work is about being a communications conduit for universal consciousness. Working through ego and power-lust, control issues, to be a clear channel. Manipulation drives are a complex for DJs to wrestle with, or anyone holding the power to direct people.
[RICH] In your mind meld with DJKRUSTY you mentioned how drugs can be good for opening doors - but that there is a danger of getting stuck in the door. What are some steps - yoga's - meditation techniques offers for opening up and expanding? How does one naturally break down the boundries, when the lines are being drawn and redrawn by society? How can everyone link up and generate the critical mass to transform ourselves and the rest of the planet?
[RAY] Getting high is not being free. Altered state realities can usher in traumatic, shocking awakenings, and also take us back to the womb, where we felt at one with cosmos, and didn't have to suffer the angst of being in a separate state. It is a fact of life, that humans are born into suffering. Its not easy living in a body, with a mind and dealing with emotions. There is karma dealing with this stuff. Agendas from family or past lives etc. I believe we bring baggage with us that we have chosen, on a soul level, to process. The pain and psychological stress of life deepens our wisdom and spiritual maturity. Drugs or soma are a psychic tool. When used habitually, as a quick escape from difficult feelings, we want to rise above or avoid, it somehow limits our growth. Its like jumping back into the Edenic womb, to be comfortable and cosey. Avoidance of our psychosis, which we don't want to deal with, by fixating on the drug experience, stilts us in our process of journeying deeper into ourself, and potentially, fuller spiritual living. In the West, we tend to use drugs for recreational purposes, to alleviate boredom, stress and pain relief, rather than sacramental or genuine healing purposes. Drugs have a manic/depressive pendulum swing. After inflation you have depression. Yoga, initially, requires more discipline, than consuming a drug to reach euphoric states of being. Yoga has the potential to bring you into your centre, via a concentration on the breath and putting the body in asana postures, which reintegrates the energy flow in the body, thus bringing about a wholistic alignment, with the various chakra centres. Society has its Saturnian boundaries, the same as the spirit has with being in the gross mass of a body. The collective is chained to belief systems and reality myths which are heavily fear based in their religious and corporate morality. Altered state consciousness, either thru soma (psychedelics) or meditation, or near death experiences, including deep orgasms, give us a kind of inner or expanded vision. Its a temporary flight or transcendence. In the processing of such visionary awakenings and insights it can facilitate fuller integration of our whole selves. We are constantly in processes of self becoming, and our own individual agendas are locked in with the greater cosmic evolution of the species. Divine discontent drives us to seek out religious experiences or escape from the mundane to unite with something otherwordly, exotic or spiritual. Which brings us back to a union with the creative source, which is deep within us. Along the way we have to confront our dysfunctionalisms and wounding related to bonding and experiencing love on the personal and transpersonal level. Love is the most powerful emanating emotion we humans know. If we don't fulfill this biological/psychological need, we go into neurotic sublimation of one kind or another, including violence and blind consumerism.
[RICH] What do you think about the current state of the global dance scene? How is it evolving? Is it loosing it's innocence? And do you notice any major new and up and coming trends in music?
[RAY] Dance has always been here. There is a great deal of social implication in the role that dance serves. The fashion and style that is hung on this medium is multitudinal. Music and rhythms are inherent to the vibrational nature of life. Music and dance culture reflects whats going on in society and in the cosmos. Techno has finally come into the mainstream and is headed for corporate comodification like what happened to rock music, which is now a kind of classical form, like jazz or blues. But all that has gone is embedded in the current form. Technology has greatly influenced the sound and music of our time, plus the definition of being a musician, or artist. Now the whole studio is an instrument. Techno and the tribal role of DJs has eclipsed the hierarchical staged-centred rock style show, with the audience all facing one way, forcused on being entertained by mythical gods. Midi programing, soft ware, virtual synth architecture and drum machines have fractalised polyrhythms. All the various sub-genres of dance music, are like sub sects of a greater cult. This year and even more, next year, the styles are and will break down and will cross over further. Psychedelic trance has come out of Euro techno and disco with its 4/4 marching doof beat. And urban hip hop break beats have been speed up and mutated into jungle and drum and bass. Art is always a syntax of ideas and forms. Computors have enhanced our capacity to creat grooves, manipulate wave forms and cut and paste compositional structures. It would be impossible for a drummer to play the rapid 160 bpm patterns of drum and bass. The full power stomping beat of trance is good to a point, but its regimented 16th-patterned form is starting to become quite stale. Its always the hybrid that is fascinating. What has been of uplifting value with psy trance is that it has brought more spiritual, extraterrestrial vibe into dance music, its not strictly sex, or urban club music, like house, or jungle, or the urban angst of hip hop. The more cosmic frequencies of Psy trance work well outdoors with the light play in nature, and the longer journey type dance party. But rhythmically some of the drum n bass percussion programing is very progressive and cyber. There is a different dynamic than 4/4 structures. Here you have this rapid 160 bpm snare polyrhythm attack underpinned by a half speed 80 bpm kick and bass groove. Its a fresh, invigorating, timing formula, which creats a more sensual sway, rather than a full pounding, fixed, marching, doof beat. A lot of the atmospheres and moods in typical breakbeat and drum and bass are still quite austere and minimal, or too cheesy for me, but it has much psychedelic potential. You can paint different ambient washes in the back, which you can't do with riffy, regimented, trance. Its all to do with gaps in space and time. There has been very fixed camps, especially the polarisation of black music -- primarily funky hip hop, jungle -- versus -- white cerebral techno styles. With the corresponding crowds these different genres and scenes attract. Youth culture, especially, projects so much of its identity on to it. I don't see very many black people coming to psy trance parties. They seem more centred in earthy, funky, sexy, beats. Psy trance is more resonating with a state of ascension and astral gliding on galactic gated wavelengths. It all seems to run in cycles, with the whites re-interpreting the black funk. I can see this with tech step, a darker version of urban jungle and with break trance. The last two tunes I have done have pushed all this to the max. Fresh territory. Where trance and drum and bass go on a phantasmagoria whirly gig into another dimension of body-groove-gestalt. If I send these tracks to typical trance labels or typical drum and bass labels, they would all have a freakbeat fit, it doesn't fit comfortably into their tight categories. But when the labels make a fixed fashion concept out of their stable, they trap the music, and it eventually must break down again to move forward. New carriers and springboard publishers will emerge to herald and forge the zeitgeist paradigm pulse. That's why the underground always regenerates itself like a groove compost heep.
[RICH] For those of us who have never been to real outside TRIBADELIC pagan-like parties can you describe what they are like? How and when does the evening start? What music do you play at first? How does the evening evolve and the mood/vibe morph? What happens at dawn?
[RAY] The system is set up in a circle (4 stacks of speakers) and often there are 4 totem poles for the 4 elements and 4 cardinal points. Prior to the music starting there is a group meditation in a circle of all the facilitating participants. Frankencense (a kind of incense) is used to clear and purify the space. Often the first sounds are chanting or acoustic drumming or didgeridoo. Gradually organic ambient sounds come in followed by slower techno beats. Ideally, this progression of rhythmic moods builds slower, with the very easy accessable beats coming earlier in the night prior to midnite. After which the pulse quickens to a more pithy, full power, punchy beat which loosens up the musculature and primes people for the full cathartic fireworks in the middle of the night. There are ebbs and flows, and peak climaxes, which eventually culminates with the light arriving and the journey goes into a religious kind of ecstasy in the soft glow of dawn. The faces of the dancers start to emerge like photographic paper in a darkroom. Dancing thru the night is more of an inner journey but still feeling the psychic aura of those around you, who are locked into the same wavelength, syncopated rhythms. In the morning, there is a sense of oneness and unity, being together on the dancefloor. A feeling of inseparable timelessness. A kind of ancient rite of passage back to the source with the first sun rise. As the blooming rays of dawn hit your body there is a resurgence of energy and a renewed flight occurs. This is augmented by ascending, angelic-like, reverential, morning music. As apposed to the more deeper, chaotic, hektec-night-atmospheres, in the music.
[RICH] Who are some of your favorite recording artists right now? What other DJ's are in resonance with you?
[RAY] What bothers me about dance music is that it has a short life. Its very transient. The more you slow it down the longer is lasts. If you take all the beats out, it becomes timeless. It won't be long until we will be composing musical works which change each time you listen to them. An evolving ecology of intuitive circuits. I can't say I have one particular favorite recording artist. To make a top 10, is too limiting. Its constantly changing. For sure there are always pieces being made that are stunning and very contemporary and speak of the spirit of the time. But it is hard for any one artist or group to stay vitally hot on the vibe, consistently. Artists tend to peak. Mostly, if they have some commercial success, they tend to cling on to the formulas that gave them visibility. Fashion is an undulating tide, and the more enduring creative innovators can interpret the constant shifts, reinventing themselves, as they rock with the waves. The job of a DJ is to take individual tunes out of the collective whirlpool, data flow, and creat an information chain-reaction-statement out of it. And when the artists hear their music reinterpreted in a mix, their tunes take on a life of their own. One tune can have magnificent bearing and influence upon the direction of a collective movement. Then other tunes come which mirror that one back, which creates the evolution. Its more than any one artist. Its greater than one. All we really can be is a clear vehicle, or channel, to allow something much greater and universal to flow thru, without attaching too much personality or ego identification to it. Then it comes down to the fundamental role -- pop, fashion, art, culture or spirituality -- serves for society's psychic health.
[RICH] Have you been creating any new sonic artworks? Where can we hear them? Are there any plans for a full album in the future? Or maybe a DJ mix compilation?
[RAY] Yes there are some new pieces, both dance and slower contemplative ones, with the umbrella names of Insectoid, Higher Spin States and Exotic Matter. You will only hear them at underground parties, because only some of it is released. There will be an album of Insectoid, and Exotic Matter material out before too long, and also some new works from Mantaray, plus I will be curating a compilation of psychotropic techno from Oz. In regards DJ mixes, some it has a journey quality, but hearing the mix of a party is like looking at photos of the event, it is devoid of the spirit and electrical charge which created the, here and now, bio-feedback experience -- cum -- party -- cum -- ritual.
[DAWN] Going into the next millennia, how do you think Saturn's transit will affect an already rule oriented world?
[RAY] Saturn does symbolise authority, structures, boundaries. Last year it started a whole new cycle, when it entered Aries, where it is presently. It has brought into focus patriarchal military governments and rule by force politics. These oppressive regimes with their inherent human rights abuses are not being tolerated by the world community. Deep collective wounds related to racial and religious persecution are being addressed, as well as sexual abuse issues in the family. Mars is the ruler of Aries, which is the first sign and is the significator of primitive instincts. Blood and gore and sex. Rules and regulations are set in place by society's standards and values. Typically, the highest voice of authority has been a religious, moral, one. But many of our priests have fallen from grace and less and less people go to church these days. A hierarchy has preserved its position thru law and order, and now there are gross imbalances of wealth in the world. We have to address this now, because we realise through such phenomena, like greenhouse warming, that all parts affect the whole. And the money system is contrived and manipulated toward a consumer concept of productivity and exploitive big business. There will be major shake-ups when Saturn, an earth planet, goes into the sign of money, Tuarus, an earth sign, next June.
[DAWN] C. G. Jung claimed that the medieval myth of the holy grail raised all the issues that now confront our civilization. In the story, the water element which is symbolized by the lost holy grail denotes the lack of feeling or repression of the feminine principle in western civilization, in favor of rational scientific intellect. Do you foresee our civilization ever reconnecting with the element of water and fulfilling the myth?
[RAY] The planet Neptune rules the water sign Pisces, and its archetypal themes are very much to do with being on a vision quest seeking the holy grail thru a spiritual experience and compassion. In January Neptune joins Uranus in Aquarius and in Febuary 2012 it goes into its home sign Pisces. It would seem to indicate that the collective is seeking a more liberated, individualised, experience of 'truth', rather than an institutionalised dogmatic religion. It also suggests a spiritualising of science and technology. Music and art are going to move in radical new directions, and will mirror global consciousness in a far reaching egalitarian medium. Since Uranus entered its home sign of Aquarius, we have seen a rapid escalation of the applications of the internet to shrink the geographical and idealogical borders of the world, with free access to life-enhancing information. Its going to get more refined, sophisticated and powerful as a communications central nervous system. Its definitely going to have major impacts on the music industry and its info-marfia-like distribution systems.
[DAWN] Where do you think the world's current preoccupation with Mars will lead us?
[RAY] Concurrent with these outer planets transiting thru the universal signs of Aquarius and Pisces, space exploration has the high likelyhood of revealing profound understanding of human society's roots of evolution and place in the greater cosmic picture. Perhaps this also relates to Saturn being in Aries, with Saturn co-ruling scientific, hi-tech, Aquarius. Putting a robot on Mars is a poignant achievement of this. Thus, thru investigating Mars, we will, potentially, get some insight into the primordal nature of our universe and an understanding of the origin of our planet. But in contrast, we are still in the dark ages. Mars is the archetypal war god. There is still so much unabated carnage going down on earth. Optimistically, the humanising influences of compassionate, suffering Neptune and consciousness--awakening Uranous will bring a healing redemption of humanity's deepest wounds, fears, insecurities and hatefulness. Which is the root of our sickness. Be it aides, cancer or lack of love.
.