I am listening to my cd of ‘Le Voyage…’ by Pierre Henry through my bluetooth headphones… sorry I’ve got to turn it off for a moment so I can concentrate on writing, bear with me for a tick…

Back in the 1960s I ‘inherited’ from my brother Tony an lp of The Voyage from the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Pierre Henry, a French composer of ‘Musique Concrete’ or what most people would term ‘a bloody awful noise’. It was early electronic music, before synthesizers etc were invented, mostly played by manipulating sound generators and processing feedback on multiple tapes. A glorious sound so sublime and evocative in my humble opinion. (evocative of what I’m not sure but it’s wonderful whatever it is.)

My favourite way of listening to it was by putting my stereo on the floor, placing the speakers a headwidth apart then laying there between them as the lovely tunes echoed and reverberated INSIDE my head. I truly believe that this was one of the reasons I never got into drugtaking, the sounds took me to a place of sheer, almost psychdelic, bliss (Listening to those sounds like that also took me to a world of deafness but I don’t mind, it was worth it!)

Over the years I have tried to find people who also like this style of music and ‘Le Voyage’ in particular but without any luck even among Avant Garde electronic and Industrial music afficianados there ain’t no-one who likes this stuff like what I do.

When I get to Heaven God’s public address system will be playing ‘Le Voyage’, Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’ and Brian Eno’s ‘Swastika Girls’ on an endless loop. I will love it, it wouldn’t be Heaven without it, but I reckon I will be in a lonely and remote corner of Heaven where no-one else can hear what is going on!

‘Nuff said, Headphones back on.

Think about it!