US Instrumental Progressive/Math Post-Rock band After Nations unveil the official teaser for the new album “The Endless Mountain” out on July 22, 2022. Stream the teaser video through the YouTube player below:
“The Endless Mountain” is a concept album that traces a path through secular Buddhism. It explores the effectiveness of some lines of Buddhist thought and philosophy to reflect the nature and meaning of existence – separated from institutional dogma, cults of personality, or conceits of proscriptive means towards truth. It is an exploration and attempt to musically express my worldview, beliefs, and experiences, and to share those with anyone open to listening.
It begins with Mons, The Mountain, a metaphor for approaching and experiencing hardship, struggle, and change, in the pursuit of greater understanding. The challenge of ascent and awakening, the summit, is not the goal or destination. It is the means to practicing a different way of being.
On our ascent, we enter a cave, where we sit, and wait – to come into contact with Féin, the ego. The awakening to an awareness of ego as one of many aspects of Self, and recognizing and suspending the illusion of the ego as the true Self. It is a journey through the transformation of death and rebirth – into an integrated, harmonious Self. Questions arise: Who is experiencing this? Who is having this thought? Where is this feeling coming from? The illusion of separateness is broken.
The journey up the mountain has become a journey inwards. This new sense of Self and connection unfolds along a path leads to Aon, the awareness of the essence of unity and interconnectedness. It is the sound of a joyous, rapturous sense and knowing – that you are not alone in this existence. Not separate from or alienated away from life, but a part of it, always. And in that interconnectivity, there is a bittersweet, painful awareness of both the joy and suffering that is present in all life. It is the sense that signals how profoundly all existence is interwoven.
Cae – the concept of the sky – an empty, endless space. It is the vessel for awareness. It is the space from which our thoughts, sense of self, and our very existence arise. Emptiness is the container of ego, Self, everything. In asking the questions, “from where do thoughts and awareness emerge?”, we find the answer. They arise on their own, from emptiness. When we recognize the nature of existence as rising from emptiness, we more clearly see who we are, and what life is.
Our inward journey takes us then to Esmé, the essence of life. At its core, the processes of change and transformation are eternal. As we touch down into emptiness, into never-ending openness, we witness all things come into existence, and fade from it. Thoughts, lives, species, continents, planets, stars, galaxies. Everything.
Even further down, resting beneath and permeating throughout emptiness, our path guides us to another essential truth of existence. To Širdis, the heart of compassion. Sitting quietly, listening intently, observing openly, we touch an ancient way of knowing, feeling, and relating to all things: Compassion.
At last we arrive at the summit, where we come to Jūra – the vast sea that surrounds the mountain. Like the mountain and sky, the sea becomes a metaphor for the vastness of compassion. We begin to know compassion as an infinite sea. It is the intelligence that naturally rises from all things. Even when covered up by the wounds and trauma of life. Fear and anger too – know compassion. Though their presence reveals the delusion of separateness, fear and anger vigilantly seek to protect the thing they believe is separate. With or without understanding and clarity, beneath everything is compassion. It is the underlying awareness that feels, senses, and interconnects everything. It rests ever present, an eternal home and place of belonging within each of us – even as we arise, change, and fade.
We then seek to descend the mountain, carrying our insights. The path both up and down reminds us that – through all things – we are a part of existence. That we are a part of the universe experiencing itself. That change, emptiness, and compassion are inseparable and immutable. To awaken, to see more clearly the nature of all things, to both climb and descend in order to return to our awareness, and bring our understanding into dailiness. To repeat the process, over and again, as one changes, as life changes – all to be in step with what is. It is an endless practice.
Inspired by The Wise Heart (Jack Kornfield), Start Where You Are (Pema Chödrön), The Neurobiology of ‘We’ (Daniel Siegel), You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting for (Richard Schwartz), music, and the courageous, curious, and compassionate people I’ve been gifted to meet and share life with.
Purchase the album on Bandcamp: https://afternations.bandcamp.com/album/the-endless-mountain
Tracklist:
- Mons (5:10)
- ) (1:01)
- Féin (4:33)
- )) (1:02)
- Aon (4:12)
- ))) (1:07)
- Cae (5:10)
- } (1:04)
- Esmé (4:11)
- }} (1:05)
- Širdis (5:22)
- }}} (0:45)
- Jūra (4:14)
- ) (1:04)
Lineup:
Andrew Elliott / Guitars
Travis Baker / Drums
Zack Krishtalka / Bass