Listening to Music by Sean
22 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago -Listening to Music by Sean is a podcast about meaning, wonder, connection and loss sounded out through music one song at a time. Each episode introduces an original piece of music revealing the conceptual and production context in which it was created. In the days of mixtapes, I would also sometimes record a single original song and send it to a friend. This podcast continues that project started over half a lifetime ago. All music and sounds are original and produced using analogue synthesis, sequences, samples and my voice.
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Episodes
I So Believe In Love
January 03, 2022 22:00 - 4 minutes - 3.07 MBI So Believe In Love is a song about big, simple, love. What gives you confidence? What makes you feel strong? My best answer is loving someone who loves you back. In the song I So Believe in Love, I explore the unblushing joy one feels at love's first arrival and the strength of heart one knows after sharing love for thousands and thousands of days. This is a song of celebration. I So Believe In Love (words and music by Sean Riley) Is it true? I hope it's true. What they sometimes ...
I Dream Concentric
April 25, 2021 18:00 - 5 minutes - 3.96 MBI dream concentric is a song about awakenings. Have you ever dreamt you were dreaming and woke only to find you where still asleep? Some thinkers suggest our experience of life and the world is merely a construct aggregated from our senses: A dream created for survival through prediction. I like to think that our experiencing mind is created for meaning, and with that mind, we are continually invited to awake into a next grander dream. To listen to more music by Sean go to seanriley.com...
God Beware
April 14, 2021 19:00 - 4 minutes - 3.07 MBGod Beware is a song about not letting go. Would you resurrect a departed love, performing spells of reanimation while pulling sinews and bone from covering clay? If you could, what consequence would such a dark act also deliver? It's true some partings seem impossible to reconcile, but continuing to court the past, even in thought, leads to the greater casualty of hope. To hear more music by Sean, go to seanriley.com/music/. What past have you not laid to rest? God Beware (words and...
Always Darkest
February 10, 2021 19:00 - 5 minutes - 3.67 MBAlways Darkest is a song about the endurance of hope. Many would lessen hope to childish and rosy magical thinking that view the world as it is not. Yet, hope allows us the vision to conceive things as they could be. Hope assumes a future making space for possibilities. It is brave to hope out loud and not sink under dark waters. Well founded optimism is contagious and is what we all need, especially in the Always Darkest last moment of night. Thank you for listening to music by sean. T...
She Said Yes
December 17, 2020 23:00 - 3 minutes - 2.5 MBShe Said Yes is a song about Love's arch. Does love at first sight exist? Do we ever really really know anyone? Imagine if at a glance we understood what an entire life with that person would be. Would we choose better? Or, is the best of love what happens once plans fail. If you'd like to hear more music by Sean, please visit seanriley.com/music. For what question did you most want to hear the answer "yes"? She Said Yes (Music and Lyrics by Sean Riley) Please stay awhile. She s...
Roll Big
December 09, 2020 19:00 - 5 minutes - 3.78 MBRoll Big is a song about those times when you just got to dance. We've felt it, the irresistible desire to dance. There are times when the body follows its own kinetic potential, submitting to a rhythm's unremitting mandate. At a more basic part of us resides a language of movement which resinates and flourishes when we dance together. This primordial logic is legacy programming from a more ancient time . . . even before the 70s. If you would like to hear other music by Sean please go ...
Let the Wolf
November 17, 2020 18:00 - 4 minutes - 3.34 MBLet the Wolf is a song about finding courage after disappointment. Sometimes simply our breath is the best and most comforting companion when we are defeated. Because breathing is both conscious and unconscious, it can bridge between a specific disappointment and greater potential possibilities. Breathe to let the Wolf in and sit with its wild discomfort. Breathe to hear what a loss is inviting us to become. If you would like to hear just the music in this episode or any other music b...
Untethered
September 25, 2020 19:00 - 4 minutes - 2.9 MBUntethered is an instrumental song suggesting the trust needed in letting go. Imagine spacewalking miles over the rotating earth and needing to untether yourself to float into the arms of safety. Or consider swinging on a trapeze five stories high in the air, only to let go, trusting the net will catch you. Letting go of what feels secure can be paralyzing, but trusting in yourself provides the power to move and grow. To download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music....
Abeyance
September 17, 2020 05:00 - 4 minutes - 2.85 MBAbeyance is a song about returning what's past. Do the dead speak to us? Can they hear our whispered incantations. In the song Abeyance, I invite the hollowed stillness that thins what separates our time from all time so that what's past can be present, what's forgotten remembered, and what's lost can still be loved. If you like to download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music. What beautiful secret would you like to her from someone who's past? Abeyance (Music a...
I Don't Know My Name
September 10, 2020 00:00 - 4 minutes - 3.44 MBI don't Know My Name is a song about what happens after the end of the world. Is there life after ruin? Can one return from disaster? It's been said despair is the last refuge for those whose world has been dashed. It is despair that provides a moment of frozen numbness to choose between continuing to wish for what was, or stand up and transform into something new. To download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music. Do you have a life after the end of the world story...
Into Light
September 01, 2020 16:00 - 4 minutes - 3.2 MBInto Light is a song about the third option. If, as the many-worlds theory may suggest, every choice creates a new universe, then there is always another option. Ancient Irish lore celebrates the Tuatha De Danann people who avoided a hopeless battle by simply disappearing into light right before their enemy's charge. It is rumored they flourish today, just not exactly in our world. Story or not, the advice holds that we sometimes win not through battle but by simply choosing to create a b...
Stain
August 25, 2020 15:00 - 4 minutes - 2.88 MBStain is a song about un-acknowledge culpability. How do you right a wrong? How do you heal the transgressed? Some injustices violate so profoundly they can stain the heart of a generation erasing all optimism. Observers of atrocity reconciliation claim only a truthful acknowledgment of the crime can initiate healing and peace. However, giving statement is both uncomfortable and unwelcome, but without it the Stain will remain. To download just the music in this episode go to seanriley...
Anatomical
August 19, 2020 05:00 - 4 minutes - 3.19 MBAnatomical is a song about brevity. What is the half-life of a moment? How many moments span a life? The average human lives roughly 30,000 days. 30,000 days to grow, learn, work, live, love, and give. Currently, I have just over 10,000 days left. This feels abundant. So many moments, cups of coffee, glasses of wine, books to read, times to say "I love you", Sunday mornings to sleep in, and countless meals shared with people dear to me. And against all of that, just one last day. To ...
80s Leather Pants
August 12, 2020 06:00 - 4 minutes - 3.44 MB80s Leather Pants is a song about possessing a Talisman. Do you possess an object that makes you feel young or powerful? Do you believe luck can be gifted? In myth, a Talisman is a magical device such as a ring endowed with mystic energy to bless a life. At the beginning of an adventure, the elder would give the hero such an object that would soon prove crucial. Myth is not restrained to just the old tales but lives today in the stories we tell ourselves of who we are. What do you hold ...
Underground
August 05, 2020 06:00 - 4 minutes - 3.22 MBUnderground is a song about depth. Myth paints the deep underground as a place of divine insight and spiritual transformation. Only in the starless black of the underworld do our heroes find truth's light. Such brave voyages can also occur in our everyday lives through the emotional labor of generous and meaningful interaction. We exist in conversation: with ourselves, the world, and most importantly with those we love. The brave ones go deep by committing to the genius of the moment. ...
Cross the Horizon
July 29, 2020 00:00 - 6 minutes - 4.38 MBCross the Horizon is a song about choice. Do we have free will? Maybe less than we like: Try deciding what your next thought will be. Do we have choice? Maybe more than we believe. Some choices are like event horizons, once taken all other options collapse, leaving only one inexorable path. So is love a choice we decide, or is it something that is decided for us? To download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music. Do we choose love or does it choose us. Let me know...
Hold Me
July 22, 2020 05:00 - 4 minutes - 3.33 MBHold Me is about reckless appeal. And your listening to Music by Sean. They say fear is an aphrodisiac, that we are most alive when dying, most attracted while trusting someone untrue. Near drowning victims speak of a clarity and stillness appearing just after the struggle just as inequitable liaisons provide glimpses of obsidian solace. In Hold Me, the singer offers no caution or heightened perspective, there isn't even a chorus in this song to lift us from the prostrate submission. T...
I'm Falling
July 14, 2020 20:00 - 4 minutes - 3.26 MBI'm Falling is a love note to the song Space Oddity. Can you grow up loving a song? Can life have a soundtrack? Much of my childhood accompanied Bowie's song Space Oddity. I believed in a world of space flight and science fiction whose evolved astronauts had the freedom to not be precisely defined. In the song I'm Falling, I replay a space explorer's uncertain descent. I may not have the stars, but love is always worth falling for. To download just the music in this episode go to se...
Machine of Change
July 07, 2020 20:00 - 3 minutes - 2.69 MBMachine of Change is a song about remaking the world. How do you change the world? How do you change your mind? In the song Machine of Change, I work though how such remaking starts with just a single spark of vulnerability invited not through force but by loving kindness. Believing in someone's potential is contagious and can chain-react, changing everything. In this production, I primarily use monophonic synthesizer patches and keyboard envelope percussion sourcing from a pink nois...
Little Light
July 03, 2020 22:00 - 5 minutes - 3.52 MBLittle Light is a song about the light we sometimes see. Have you ever closed your eyes and seen a light? Not the subtle shimmering we all notice behind our eyelids, but a moment of pronounced light? Have you ever met someone new and had the sudden recognition that you two will be great friends, feeling this recognition as a brightening of the air around you? In the song Little Light, I work to understand how such light mark moments as true. I know such dazzling light can be attributed...
Shine
June 23, 2020 20:00 - 5 minutes - 3.67 MBShine is a song about transformation. I am inspired by the brave ones who live an authentic life out-loud. I am so heartened by those who are dealt a difficult path yet find their way. In the song Shine, I consider discontinuity and transformation through percussion loops and tape-based echo effects. We've all felt out of step, but when that syncopation is rooted in the core truth of one's identity, that is NOT a misstep, it's a dance, a dance that let's us all shine. To download jus...
Green Flash at Sunset
June 16, 2020 20:00 - 4 minutes - 3.25 MBGreen Flash at Sunset, a song about doing nothing. Who would you be if you had nothing to do? No problems to solve, questions to answer, or worries to resolve? Who would you be if the voice in your head continually telling the story of what is good or bad grew comfortably still. Who would we be? In the song Green Flash at Sunset, I explore this idea. How does spending time doing nothing reminds us of why we chose each other in the first place. Here, time is luxury and abundance resi...