Ami Shavit: In Alpha Mood Vinyl LP

"The music of this record was stimulated by the theory and practice of biofeedback. It is aimed to create a calm, relaxed and meditative mood associated with alpha brain waves." That is what Ami Shavit - a reclusive Israeli multimedia artist with a fascination in philosophy, technology, and sound - intended with In Alpha Mood. To today's ear, the sounds contained bring to mind New Age ideology, but this was only an accidental outcome of Shavit's experiments in sound. The album was crafted using synthesizer technology of the late 60's and 70's to go along with Professor Shavit's personally developed meditative technique called Alpha Mood. From Finders Keepers - "Seeking to combine his love of electronic music acts like Tangerine Dream and Philip Glass and this new synthesizer technology with his fascination for the relatively new technique of biofeedback – a process in which technology is used to relay information about the body’s functions enabling a change in physiological activity in order to manipulate them. Combined with his understanding of alpha brainwaves (primarily attributed to a function of the brain that deals with relaxation), Ami embarked on an experiment with what he coined Alpha Mood – a state in which the brain is working in relaxation and in which he used music as a means of helping induce his own meditative state. With practically no formal musical training and working in complete isolation of the Tel Aviv music scene – with the exception of allowing cult prog men Zingale and a handful of close friends to use his private studio – over the next two years he recorded hours and hours of experimental improvised music, or “sounds” as he prefers to call it." Eventually, Shavit would press just 500 copies of the album to be sold at a local Tel Aviv record shop called Mango, making it an incredibly rare and obscure find. Props to Finders Keepers for bringing these experimental sounds back to the surface.

• music label: Amis Records 1977 / Finders Keepers Records 2015

reviewed by TKB 11/2015