Mystery Sea and Pregnancy: Part II

Well, another order of albums from afar came my way about a week ago, and dang if I am not totally stoked. Despite all the amazing music I got, I had a secret affinity to first listen to the two Mystery Sea selections that were amongst the lot.

The one that easily stood out was Umbilicus Maris by a one-woman act named Gydja. Self-describing her music as "dark ambience for dark goddesses" I immediately pictured Drea collecting herself at the bottom of the ocean, her dark hair swimming every which way as she slowly turns into coral, inhabited by a plentitude of fish and polyps.

Being as it is on Mystery Sea, it has the unfortunate fate of being limited to 100 copies. It really is quite lovely. The good part is that Gydja (Norwegian for "Priestess") does make other albums. There's a new one on Gears of Sand called Machina Mundi. It apparently evokes weather and plant life, unlike the album I have, which is clearly a holy bioluminescent existence in an undersea cave. Actually, I specifically imagined being in the underground rivers and lakes in Mexico underneath the pyramids on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Umbilicus Maris truly is the perfect imaginary soundtrack to aquatic spelunking in Mexico. It's "dark" only in that you can't see that well, but the tones and the nature of the disc is really quite warm. Underground rivers on the Yucatán maintain a temperature of 76 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) year-round. I'm not saying that Abby Helasdottir, the woman from New Zealand who is Gydja, was going for 76-degree water with this recording, but even if you're staring into the dark abyss, it's much more comfortable if the water is warm. The disc is akin to drifting underground and discovering a plethora of iridescent petroglyphs that animate in a slow dancing story of an unrecorded civilization. Gurgling swaths of reverb use the water's reflection to paint images on the cave's ceiling, while prismatic droplets drip from glowing stalactites with beating hearts from an ice age still encased inside.

Then the serpent designs on the walls start to rotate and glide, sprouting wings, cascading symmetrically creating four-dimensional objects in a non-threatening manner. This gives way to a procession of whale sized coffins floating overhead, presumably containing the bodies of various banished gods of Mayan lore. The drones inhale and exhale with many shades of the same overseeing voice, a plenitude of awareness oozing from the water and the overmind into my own. Drea once dictated to me, "When you sing or use your voice in any way, you are co-creating the Universe."

Basically, this sounds like the Universe singing along with our efforts. Very nice. Might be a bit subterranean as a soundtrack to our home birth, but maybe Julia will feel extra Earthy that day. Considering we're doing a water birth, this might fit in nicely with the ambiance, as there is an endless supply of drips and ripples aiding the airy bellows of Umbilicus Maris. I reserve the right to believe that she'll only put up with Stars of the Lid, though. I just have that feeling. Gydja does the patient sonic "breathing" that SOTL do, but it definitely has a darker cumbustion to it.

Gydja's myspace page also has something fun to say, and I share this sentiment:
"Please do not send an Add Request if you already have several thousand friends for no conceivable reason; your only contact with women is the porn stars you've added as your top friends; your style of music requires that your band appear in photos in a single line wearing black t-shirts with indicipherable white logos on them; or you just seem an odd fit for Gydja's themes and music. If it seems like you come under any of these categories and would still like to be added as a friend, perhaps an explanatory private message to coincide with the Add Request is in order."

Follow this link to hear her music.