beforemanmusic, Cirquelectroexotica, and the Cycle of Pain
Hi! My name is Brian, and I’m a white, cis, he/him, hetero, defacto privileged, currently unemployed creator!
I’m a musician, writer, composer, lyricist, poet, producer, DJ, engineer, educator, editor, folk artist, and am in my happy place when I’m dooding all over some space.
I am relentlessly enraptured by audio and vibes in general and love doing stuff and things with them. I believe that kindness, compassion, active listening, and empathy are essential for our species to survive this century.
I am a sensitive empath and fierce emotional/psychological wellness advocate and believe that therapy and quality health care overall should be seen as rights, not luxuries.
b e f o r e m a n m u s i c
The moniker “beforeman,” which is simply an amalgamation of my first two initials and surname, is nevertheless evocative of a pre-human universe, or perhaps the quality of being presented to humankind. My creations, no matter what medium or combination thereof, stem from an innate, fervent desire to commune with the metaphysical background of the world by weaving golden threads of curiosity into something transformed.
b e f o r e m a n m u s i c is intended to be the first step toward a gradual open-sourcing of my creative process.
At the time of this writing, we are in month… 10 (?) of a global pandemic, and SHIT SUCKS! Who woulda thot we’d reach Idiocracy status 485 years earlier than proposed?
Consequently, more people are sitting on their asses at home now than in decades, or perhaps ever, so now seems to be as good a time as any to thrust myself into a sharing phase with this concept I’ve been toying with in my mind for years.
This website will gradually evolve into a comprehensive repository of all my beforemandeavors, and if you want to be among the first to know about all the sounds and doods as they develop, click here, enter your name and email, and strap in for some weird, wild, whimsical, dark, scary, depressing, colorful, dense, radical, cynical, sarcastic, nonsensical, puntastic, emotional, intricate, and all around confusing bullshit.
You should probably prepare yourself for an ass mass of vulgar dad jokes as well.
Read on for a preview of a few of the concepts that will develop during this expanding adventure.
b 4 l o g
You are currently reading the fourth installment in what is intended to be a running log of all my important processes, projects, moods, and musings from now until the end comes.
You may have already experienced Cirquelectroexotica chapters 1-3, but if not, I encourage you to go three steps back in the b 4 l o g and take about 25 minutes of your time to catch up on “smilesxstripes,” “grandchasm,” and “oneeyeopen,” which together comprise Cirquelectroexotica Part I : SmokeClouds. I can guarantee that you will experience something remarkable by listening, looking, and reading.
Over the the next two weeks, Chapters 4-6 (“seasons,” “jungleman,” and “lostflight”– known collectively as Part II : StagNation– shall be revealed to the public here and will be available for purchase/download on my Bandcamp page. A proper, “official” release of StagNation as a cohesive unit on Spotify, iTunes (sucks), and other streaming/retail platforms will follow later this year, likely in mid October, if not December.
I also plan to include lengthy musings on the b 4 l o g about subjects I care deeply and am passionate or curious about, probably in a meandering, cerebral, convoluted way meant to provoke thoughts/feelings through expounding about a topic or vibe rather than try to prove any particular point.
Here are some examples of what these planned posts will cover:
Detailed, vulnerable accounts of mental health struggles and triumphs.
Radical, ever-shifting, potentially incendiary perspectives on sex work, gun violence, monogamy, America, hegemony, religion, capitalism, porn, marriage, angry lonely straight men, harassment, war, polyamory, sexual violence, divorce, racism, and connecting the dots between them.
Knowledge gleaned, joys and horrors experienced, and lessons learned through voyages psychonautical, with emphases on gratitude, reflection, introspection, and harm reduction.
Extensive, effusive, wide-ranging reviews of selected works and/or overall catalogs of artists I’ve been obsessed with or am currently excited about. Here’s just a taste of what’s planned on the music side:
Tool - Fear Inoculum
Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Twenty Øne Piløts - Trench, Blurryface, Vessel
Trentemøller - Lost
Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns
J.Views - 401 Days, Rivers and Homes, Muse Breaks
Mudvayne - The End of All Things to Come
Alien Ant Farm - TruANT
Vanessa Carlton - Harmonium
Neil Peart & Rush
** N.B. these will not be restricted to just music artists! **
H 4 N D S
H 4 N D S (pronounced “hands”) will be a DJ buddy b2b podcast.
Those who have seen more than one beforeman DJ set know that I generally go for something completely different every single time. I consider all sonic territory my material for DJing and I’m perpetually stoked and inspired by the staggering talent and diversity of music taste among all my DJ friends.
One of the dialogues that runs around in my head when I hear all my friends’ dope beats may include such thots as:
Ooh, I’d love to drop a track like THIS some time, got dam!
AHHHH this is FIRE! Better run to the booth to peep that track ID or Shazam for later or SOMETHIN
OH FUCK this is good! What if I mixed it with THIS random thing?? I hope it’s in the same key or a complimentary one!
Goodness, wouldja just LOOK at she/him/them throwin down… what (a) badass(es)! I hope we can get together and jam with this kinda shit someday!
So what I want to do is create a periodic live-streamed DJ mix-cast where I can get together with my friends to share a diverse range of tunes, banter, and do impromptu live streamed DJ sets together.
With the current reality of Big Daddy Covid spanking our American asses into submission, this idea now has the added intention of being a means to gently ease back into in-person social interaction and reconnecting with friends once (if?) existing gets a little less messy and nihilistic.
To all my DJ friends of any experience level: hit me up if you wanna b2b w/ me for an episode!
b 4 s t r m
This is what I will be calling my regular solo streams, which for now will be hosted on my Twitch channel, and then maybe simultaneously on YouTube, and then maybe add more or move around different platforms til I find one that feels right. Fukkit, we’ll just see what sticks. Twitch kinda sucks even tho their party vibe is unmatched. They also are pretty despicable in how their Affiliate contract is set up to fuck over small-timers, but we’ll save that rant for a different b 4 l o g post.
There is so much I want to play around with and share in the live streaming domain! Not just DJ sets, which are still illegal on Twitch (must… resist… rant… for now!), but workshops, tutorials, live mixing sessions, live performances, roundtable/feel-good/story time sessions, mental health support and advocacy… who knows what’s in store. I love collaborating and featuring my friends; let’s do dope things on the internet together!
b4strm.001 is set for TONIGHT, Tuesday September 15, 2020, starts at 8:08 (is great) PM Pacific time, and will include a deep dive into SmokeClouds (remember those?) as well as the premiere of my new tune “seasons.” Don’t worry if you miss it, it’ll be recorded and saved to my Twitch channel for viewing at your leisure, although I do hope you will join in! I’ll be approaching the entirety of the stream AMA-style, so whatever questions and comments pop up, I will make a point to engage with them!
c i r q u e l e c t r o e x o t i c a
Wut?
All together now!
“SERK-elle-ECK-trowe-eggs-OTT-ick-ahhhhhh”
Those are eight syllables you’ll probably have a hard time pronouncing for the rest of your life.
You can abbreviate it Cirque (“ÇERK”) if you want, I won’t judge. In fact, Cirque is what I call the project when I’m trying to sound cool and not ridiculous or lack the time and patience to say or write out the whole thing.
As the name suggests, what we are dealing with here is a circus of the electronic and exotic. To quote myself from the 2013 cirquelectroexotica promo video (which David Aguilar so graciously and masterfully helped me produce!),
“Cirquelectroexotica is a world fusion electronic epic that was born out of an intense love and passion for unique and exotic sounds that ha(ve) fascinated me since I was a child.”
It can still be viewed here.
Featured in this video, to whom I am forever grateful for their fearless participation in that slap-dash of an insane recital, are (in order of appearance): Saba Alizadeh, Darian Smith, Jackie Owens, Tomás Canseco III, Amir Oosman, Dan Ogrodnik, Will Marsh, Vineet Vyas, Steven Van Betten, Jamal Moore, Tony Gennaro, Sean Fitzpatrick, Matthew Clough-Hunter, Carol Simon, Ryan Bancroft, Jessica Evans, Katarina Gleicher, Kerri Shak, Ben Cohn, Anthony Al-Rifai, and John Choi. Let’s hear it for ‘em! #cheerforcalartians
The phrase “world fusion” makes me cringe these days, as does the fact that this video claims the album would be coming “Fall 2013,” but this lil intro nevertheless includes glimpses of all 9 tracks of Cirquelectroexotica in their initial, live form (well, all of them except the one you’ll hear tonight), and puts faces, instruments, and voices to some of the names and sounds on this record.
Cirque was conceived in Fall 2012 when I drew the first sketch of what came to be known as Omshantigaea. I won’t post it here because for some reason I can’t figure out how to embed some got dam media in blog posts using this template today, but you can do some digging on my Insta and find it.
This is how I described Omshantigaea back in 2013 (with some minor edits because come on, Brian of seven years ago):
“Designed and constructed with close friend and longtime collaborator David Aguilar, the Omshantigaea is a combination of three elements deeply connected to the concept behind Cirquelectroexotica: Om (mystical sound of Sanskrit/Hindu origin said to represent the primordial ‘quintessence’ of sound), the ancient Sanskrit/Karuna Reiki symbol for Shanti (peace), and the Sun Cross (used commonly as the astrological symbol for Earth). The structure as a whole represents the message I hope to convey through my music— that through my chosen medium (sound, represented by Om), I can be a beacon of peace (Shanti) to the Earth (Gaea), through encouraging cultural exchange and communication. The live, integrated, projection-mapped visuals help to support the overall aesthetic of the piece. The Omshantigaea was inspired by large-scale projection-mapped structures such as Zebbler’s Shpongletron and Amon Tobin’s ISAM Live setup.”
This description still holds true and all three of these elements are indeed deeply connected to the entirety of Cirque as a body of work in ways both obvious and inexplicable. The physical structure has evolved over time and since transformed into a true folk art piece with much deeper significance and meaning for a greater number of people, so I’ve decided to give its name a refresh moving forward into this new phase– out with the Omshantigaea, in with the Tellusomshanti. I’ll get into that story some other day.
p a r a l l e l e m e n t s
In its current, mature structure, Cirquelectroexotica is actually comprised of four distinct components– the music, the lyrics, the artwork, and the story. Each tells its own unique tale in parallel with the others, but all four are derived from the same core vibes, so they nevertheless affect and influence one another. A “multimedia multiverse,” if you will.
Confused and exhausted by just the thought of that? Then you should probably leave now. No, no, no, please stay! Or go. You do you.
The music is an electro-organic transmutation of anything and everything that has excited me aurally since 2008, and the original version was thrown together in less than a year for my MFA grad recital at CalArts. It is an audaciously psychedelic gumbo of maximalist mayhem that has been my battleground for developing and refining my skills as a synthesist, sound designer, recording/mixing engineer, and producer for the better part of a decade.
The lyrics tell a heady, abstract, autobiographical tale of my life from Fall 2008 through Spring of 2013. The titles of the first six tracks (Parts I & II) are derived from six journals I kept during the first portion of that time frame. If you want to know more about all that, just ask!
The artwork supports the communion of the other three components. Elements of it are influenced by aspects of each other component, and these elements interact and combine to form new visual themes and meanings.
The story came to me suddenly and vividly in the form of a vision last summer, and has been the final piece of the puzzle in making this cryptic conglomerate feel whole.
o u r s t o r y s o f a r
Each Part of Cirquelectroexotica is told from the limited, first-person perspective of one of three characters with interlocking storylines, and unfolds non-linearily.
If you read/listen through SmokeClouds carefully without a guide, you’ll likely still have absolutely no idea what is really going on in the physical world of this narrative, and you sure as hell won’t have the same interpretation as me. This is because the story of SmokeClouds is told by the tortured inner voice of a very sad boi, which often drifts into reminiscence, preventing him from being very present with his surroundings at all.
I am here to help you make a bit more sense of it.
The scene opens on this very sad boi sitting on a windy hillside, anxious and apprehensive. He turns around and walks toward a tiny shed-like structure. He opens the door and steps instead into a massive, cavernous, subterranean, tunnel-ish space where a sensory assault of a performance is happening. The female ring leader of the psychedelic freak show, whom he dubs the Mistress, treats him to a tour of all the bizarre spectacle therein, before one performer’s particularly daring feat of skill stops them in their tracks.
Later, we find the Mistress whispering sweet nothings in his ear before leading him to her quarters, where they have an… encounter.
Two weeks after he first showed up at the shed, this very sad boi wakes up somewhere in the adjacent woods and can’t remember shit from the experience, but he sure can remember some other shit, and maybe he can actually remember some of the other shit?
StagNation is the Mistress’s tale.
t h e c y c l e o f p a i n
Just a few more things to blow your mind and then I’ll stop.
Cirquelectroexotica is the first electro-organic epic concept album I am seeing through to the finish line, but it’s actually the second album I’ve written.
Recognaissance was the first, meticulously notated in Finale over the course of 2007-2009, frantically programmed with primitive Ableton sounds right after I bought the software for the first time, and performed once with Tomás Canseco III, Brian “Theory” Hargrove, John Schroeder and Jack Kovacs in 2010 right before we graduated from USC. It also helped me get into the CalArts’ MFA Performer-Composer program that was so explosively transformative for me.
My romantic partner at the time hated Recognaissance because a great deal of it was about an ex, so I eventually locked it away and didn’t look back until after that relationship dissolved. Those who have been with me since the beginning might be delighted to know I will be reviving it once Cirque is complete to do it its due justice.
“Everything in due time” is a mantra I repeat to myself frequently to counterbalance the guilt I feel at rarely meeting the absurdly unreasonable mental goals, deadlines, and expectations I set for myself, and Cirque and Recog collectively have been the greatest affirmation of its truth and power.
If I had forced myself to finish and release Recognaissance at any point between 2010-2011, I would not be proud of it today. As I look forward to reconnecting with that angsty, reckless, shellshocked, disarmed, heartbroken 18-21 year old version of me at some point in the next year or two, and think about the ambitious and unique way I plan to approach the production on it (in particular with the drums), I get a big ol Brian art energy boner.
Fuck off, “you’re taking too long!”-ers. I’m sure George R.R. Martin would agree. PLEASE don’t die any time soon tho! Stay in that cabin.
Ah yes, I almost forgot to mention– Recognaissnace is prog rock! Fukouttahere with that hippie woo woo flower child bullshit!
For many years I saw both albums as two entirely separate projects. In fact, I’ve used my full name (Brian E Foreman) as the artist name for Recognaissance when describing it in the past. However, as both works have matured as compositions, aided by the convenient fact that both came from my twisted head, I’ve come to find many parallel themes and connected elements between it and Cirque, almost as if the two were parallel multiverses of vibes within the same multi-multiverse… “Multiverse-ception,” if you can dig it.
What I’ve come to find within myself as I’ve pondered this possibility is that there is a third epic brewing, and it will be weirder, darker, scarier, heavier, deeper, and even more challenging than its predecessors. A whooooooole lotta life has been lived between 2013 and now, I tell you hwat.
Ansamaskaharata is the name of the third volume that will ultimately round out what I am now officially calling beforeman’s Cycle of Pain.
An inconvenient truth about my brain’s default mode that I first had to learn to accept and forgive, and with which I am currently striving towards symbiosis, is that emotional anguish can come out of nowhere at any time and there’s nothing I can do to control how it feels. My art derives its inspiration from thousands of sources but this is really at the crux of it all.
“Art is Pain,” someone said… but that doesn’t really feel like me. Musicking and arting are more like my coping mechanisms for channeling the pyrotechnics felt within my mind-body into something tangible.
I invite you to share in the catharsis.