Cosmic Surveillance – Smile and Surrender
I’m a long time fan of Joel Shanahan’s work, so I was excited to ask him to contribute a song for Source Foray. After speaking, he was excited to have been considered, but had some reservations. He wasn’t sure if he could make the deadline due to health concerns.
Not being one to pry, but knowing his work would be a great contribution, I gingerly asked about the source of his ailments to see if there might be a way I could help. Joel, in his typical open manner, told me he was plagued by IBD. He simply couldn’t stay out of the bathroom and in front of his gear for long enough to finish any serious work.
Having dealt with GI issues, I knew how torturous it could be, and I thumbed through my Rolodex to find someone to help Joel. I explained the conundrum to a trusted research gastroenterologist I met in 2018 who I knew could appreciate the levity of an artist such as Joel not being able to employ his talents. I could see in the doctor’s face that she was holding back an idea. I pushed, and she reluctantly told me about a colleague that had been conducting unconventional experiments in sound therapy for bowel health.
It appeared that the perfect solution had materialized, and I quickly got Joel on board. The label agreed to sponsor a case study with Dr. Erebos Stark-Colón in his lab on the Mediterranean island Fluxus Ventris. He listened to some of Joel’s music and decided that his ambient work as Cosmic Surveillance fit the bill perfectly. He brought out a contraption straight from a Cronenberg set. The control station was topped with inverted glass jars, some filled with opaque fluids and some empty, surrounded by flexible tubes and a stainless enclosure covered with levers, knobs, and buttons, each labeled in some alien script. But the centerpiece was an adult-sized diaper filled with sensors and biofeedback devices harnessed to the controls by a bundle of thin wires.
Dr. Colón–as he requested to be addressed once comfortable with us–instructed Joel to don the diaper apparatus and begin work in a makeshift studio he had arranged. Joel obliged, and was soon beginning a composition. The main output of the mixer was connected directly into the diaper control unit. Oddly though, he had neither monitors nor headphones, and we could hear nothing he was doing. Dr. Colón lit up, and began feverishly rubbing his palms together.
Joel soon lit up too. He felt relief for the first time in years. The diaper was transmitting the music through his body. Though we couldn’t hear it, we could clearly see the effects Joel’s knob-tweaking was having. It appeared that the more hyper-focused he became on his composition, the more relief he felt. The positive feedback loop of Dr. Colón’s device gave Joel the strength he needed to get back to his art, healed his gut, and made medical and musical history.
Dr. Colón was highly protective of the resulting audio, which was–luckily–recorded to two-track tape by his assistant in the lab’s control room. Joel and I had to sign mountains of paperwork to limit the doctor’s liability, but there was no way I was leaving that lab without the master tape. Not only is Joel’s condition in remission, but Somnambulant Drift has this lovely, mystifying song to remind us that music heals all.
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