Meditating On The 24 Meditations
Breaking Down the Inspiration and Moments of Unique Creation
I created this project from the personal desire to make something ambient, but also utilitarian. I worked closely with brand owners to really understand the types of music they drift towards in the music they like to utilize on social media. After seeing the “pop-ambience” that is taking off right now, and the utilization across multiple avenues of social engagement, I thought “Why not myself?” (More accurately: I could do this better), and began the process of contemplating what a collection of utilitarian ambient tracks could look like.
I enjoy thinking of music as utility. I like to think of myself as an ice cream parlor that creates a variety of flavors, each with their own different color and taste. You’re in the mood for mint? I’ve got the best mint chocolate chip right here. Some pistachio? Some mango sorbet? I’ve got them all. It fulfills something within myself to satisfy a desire of categorical functionality in my music. Each album has a purpose, a flavor, and if you’re in the mood for it it’s right there.
I always enjoy hearing about the ways people interact with my music. Whether it’s being played in a DJ set, being utilized in a film sequence, or being used as background music when writing, driving, coding, whatever tasks are present in someone’s day-to-day.
I wanted to hit another flavor in the parlor with this record. Something ambient and relaxing, healing even, but also inspiring. Deep down information that informed this project were thoughts like: Would brands utilize this? Can people cut to this? Would people play this to relax? This process of mental iteration lead to the creation of many tracks, but also the removal of tracks that did not fit that criteria.
I personally see myself less as an individual hoarding individual pieces of music and more as an infinite cobblestone generator of music. You feed me the information and I can spit out the music. Music is effortless to me, it’s like breathing, and I’m not just saying that to sound pretentious or high strung. The music is just the consequents of whatever idea or concept I want to fulfill, I serve as merely the vessel that points the beam of light in a direction.
Some information about each track and background about their creation:
I. Death - I wrote this in my studio with the windows open and wind blowing in at daytime, trees and leaves outside my windows rustling in the breeze. I recorded everything in one take and let it be.
II. Wake - I wrote this at my friend Nick’s apartment working on the score for his video-game we colloquially refer to as “Ship Game.” I had brought my keyboard and a set of mobile speakers to set up while I was there. While he was in the bathroom I stumbled on this idea that I liked, and quickly recorded it down before he got out.
III. Kite - Wrote this during a work session with Brandon on my left, as I was still feeling the energy of the idea of the meditations project, and I wanted to just make music as quickly as possible. The melody proved to be catchy amongst friends.
IV. Basalt - Wrote this at night time at Drake’s apartment while he and his fiance Katherine were working on Ly Teblu branding materials, in addition to Brandon and John chatting and working on their own creative projects. Drake said it gave very Legend of Zelda vibes so I stuck with the idea.
V. Sea Breeze - Wrote this in my studio reflecting on imagery of lighthouses, ocean waves, and the childhood feeling of hearing an ice cream truck in the distance. Also thought about a smiley face drawn in red sharpie on a white surface.
VI. Halcyon - Wrote this while Brandon and I were first diving into the material from the SORTIE brand film, and we wanted to capture something that felt emotional and isolated right then and there. I was riffing and recorded my improvisational.
VII. Decay - A repurposed score from a project my friend Eric had me do the score for titled “Life.” The original project was abstract and dark, and the second half of the piece was the first version of this score. I always wanted to extend the track into something larger and did so, elongating the other musical elements as they each come in.
VIII. Dawn - Composed during an editing session in my studio between Brandon and I. We were discussing and thinking about the Ly Teblu project in addition to others, and I wanted to make something playful in that moment.
IX. Sanctum - Composed in a sudden burst at day time in my studio. I wanted something dark and moody going in. Stumbled upon other sounds I liked in the process. I was told by others that it gave Silksong vibes, which felt correct.
X. Vesper - Composed in one fell swoop during a work session between Brandon and I. The intensity of the bass drew a lot of remarks from friends.
XI. Wind Glade - I repurposed a demo I had made in 2022 experimenting in sound design and other plugins I had recently acquired. I was reflecting on the need for something that captured a bit more worldbuilding and a unique outdoors meditation feeling. I’ve always wanted to make something with wind chimes blowing in the wind.
XII. Stillness - Composed during a work session between Brandon and I. Still fresh off the concept of the Meditations record and wanting to make anything as quick as possible. I came up with this while altering a serum patch, something simple that ended up becoming exceptionally effective.
XIII. Efêmero - Composed while sitting beside Brandon while he edited his short film ‘El Ephemero El Eterno.’ He was looking at these low-res shots of Alan and Krismar, and I was noodling on the keyboard whilst viewing these shots. Felt like I was witnessing something about lost or captured youth and wanted to translate that audibly, with my hands moving on their own.
XIV. Atelier - Composed while on the road with my mom to an Easter family gathering in San Diego. She was listening to a true crime podcast discussing missing persons and unsolved cases. Felt that emotion coming through as I was making the track in the passenger seat.
XV. Centering Stone - I composed this while alone at Drake’s apartment and messing around with samples on Ableton Live. Accidentally came up with something I thought was really cool and expanded it in different sessions. I really like the sound of bells and gongs, and I believe I’ve gotten into it more since discovering Nicholas Snyder’s scores and compositions.
XVI. Icon - I composed this for an original suite of musical ideas for Ly Teblu’s brand usage commissioned by Alexine. I had composed a set of around 15 short ideas, but this one always stuck with me. It was expanded into a longer track for this project
XVII. Tempest - I composed this at Drake’s apartment while John, Brandon, and Katherine were all present. I was reflecting upon my lack of success in the field of music. My mind was going through instances where I had put hope into something and had it not fulfilled. I was entertaining the notion of just giving everything up. My hands moved on their own while I ruminated in the corner, and I came up with this track in the instance.
XVIII Dusk - The 2nd to last track I composed for the 24 Meditations collection. I was running low on steam from this project’s idea and constant energy devotion, and I knew I wanted something with electric piano; something that gives similar energy to Floating Point’s ‘Elaenia’ . I recorded the a take of a simple idea I had, and decided that the project had reached the completion of it’s ideas then and there.
XIX. Vessel - Third to last track composed for this collection. I knew I wanted something a bit more on the granular and ambient atmospheric style. I was on the tail end of energy from committing to this project, and in 30 minute burst before meeting my friend Daniel at Jackson Market, I whipped this up. On the drive to Jackson I was surprisingly pleased with what I had made.
XX. Credo - I composed this at my mobile workstation in my apartment. I had recently found my older midi keyboard, and set up a station with an additional set of speakers to practice performance or potentially record interactive content for social media. While messing around in that setup, I came up with this track. I also wanted to experiment with ambient guitar, which I hear so often in this niche. I realized much later on in the process of this track that I wanted it to sound like Hotline Miami music. This track gave me the most trouble, and was close to scrapping it days before I was meant to submit it. I didn’t like how the guitar as so freeform, but ended up realizing that it made the track special.
XXI. Vanishing Point - The last track I composed for the meditations record. Created while I was at my mom’s watching videos on complete desolate areas in America. I realized that I wanted to create a track that encompassed that energy, something stark, gray, washed out, dystopian. I created this track, unofficial name “Desolation,” quickly thereafter, sampling phone conversations I found on sound effect websites. I wanted it to almost sound like Half Life 2 muffled speech.
XXII. Ashes - One of the earlier meditations. Composed during a work session with Brandon. I wasn’t particularly taken aback by this piece at first, but the response I got from friends really seemed to resonate with this piece the most.
XXIII. Transfiguration - Composed late at night in my studio. I was in the mood to jam and I wanted to capture that energy. I wanted to make something with the vibe of a club track, but without a kick drum. There exists another version of this track with typical club progressions, but I didn’t like it as much.
XXIV. Beloved - Composed at my home studio in a random session, just wanting to live in the meditations project some more in it’s early stages. Didn’t think anything too crazy of it until I heard it aloud at Ly Teblu studios. Many people turned their heads. Made me think of a rocketship going up into space, zoomed in as you see the fire bursting from its engine.
Some rule sets that were used in the construction of this record:
No kick drums. I could use percussion only insofar as it served texturally and in an ambient setting. Some of the tracks I thought I wanted to break the rule, but had to revert because I didn’t like the result. The desired ambience I was going for (SAW II style) necessitated more of a textural and meditative approach to any percussive elements
Another rule: Sometimes it’s better for a track to exist in its ambience rather than develop into a progression. I kept trying to expand certain tracks, grow them into a larger structure; more instruments, a new bass progression, new chords, etc. This did not feel right. As Brandon and I are currently editing the brand film for SORTIE, something that has come up is that changing the length of some of the shots by a mere 2 seconds allows the viewer to sink further into that shot’s depth. It’s something I haven’t consciously considered that much. 24 Med. has challenged that approach, forcing me to restrain the desire to turn each piece into these crazy showcases of prowess and chord structure. That’s reserved for other tracks in the works.
The number’s don’t matter as much as the placement of the track in relation to the album’s flow, and in relation to each other. Over time the numbers really grew on me, and I knew all the associations of the tracks with their corresponding numbers, with the numbers themselves taking on the feelings of the tracks they contained, but what really mattered was how the record flowed. At the start I was literally naming random tracks random numbers. Some of those numbers remained, but as time went on I started to see a progression I wanted to emphasize.
I hope you enjoyed this breakdown. I’m looking forward to engage with more ideas and expand the ice cream shop some more.
You can listen to the project here:
https://www.submithub.com/link/chictapi-24-meditations
Thanks for reading,
Adam Schmieder
5.22.26