Borges Music: High Mountain Tempel

High Mountain Tempel is a California duo consisting of Eric Nielsen and Keith Boyd. Having played together in a college group called Blueberry Jam, they went their own separate ways for a spell, with Nielsen playing in Maquiladora, a psyche band that occasionally toured with Acid Mothers Temple, the masters of Japanese space rock. In 2007 they reconnected at an Acid Mothers Temple gig and decided to form a new band, High Mountain Tempel.

Described by Boyd as “ritualistic soundscapes for seekers, the sound of golden ashes from a dream,” the music of High Mountain Tempel defies categorization, a hazy fusion of psychedelia, ambient industrial, noise, space rock, and a kind of improvised ritual music descended from Father Yod and the Source Family. Obviously Acid Mothers Temple is an inspiration, but the spelling of their name points to Krautrock, particularly the more exotic flavors such as Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, and the early work of Tangerine Dream.

Dark, dreamy, and droning, the music of HMT evokes hidden interiors: forbidden monasteries of cold bronze and bloodstained stone; secret gardens where hashashim are rewarded, houris smiling through coils of opium smoke; the still-rumbling engine room of an abandoned flying saucer. And yet, there’s something curiously inviting about these soundscapes. While their vibe can be menacing, this isn’t haunted house music; there’s a constant feeling that submission brings peace—Rosemary cradling her baby, or a soundtrack for Shadow Over Innsmouth. Neither of these allusions is unwarranted: the occult, horror, and science fiction are important influences on HMT, especially the apocalyptic mythologies of H.P. Lovecraft, William S. Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, and Frank Herbert.

Eastern mysticism also plays an important role, as do home-grown cults, particularly the more benign varieties such as the Summit Lighthouse or the Source Family. The group blends these inspirations with a gleeful eclecticism and a deadpan sense of humor—they describe their San Diego studio as “The High Mountain Tempel Oceanic Lodge and the Leper Colonies of Arrakis.” High Mountain Tempel’s albums often pay homage to cult literature, their titles a game of “spot the reference.” Their first album, Pacific Sky Burial (Axaxaxas mlö) borrows a Tlönish phrase from Borges; their second, A Screaming Comes Across the Sky, takes its name from Thomas Pynchon; and their third is named after Herman Hesse’s science fiction fable, The Glass Bead Game.

After releasing three albums as a duo, High Mountain Tempel expanded their lineup for their 2014 album, Gnosis. More traditionally psychedelic than their previous work, Gnosis includes some of the musical figures most inspirational to the group: Kawabata Makoto and Hiroshi Higashi from Acid Mothers Temple, and Isis Aquarian from Father Yod’s infamous Source Family.

Borges-Related Works

Released in 2007, Pacific Sky Burial (Axaxaxas mlö) is High Mountain Tempel’s first LP. A collection of instrumentals connected by segments of chanting—largely sampled from Buddhist and Hindu sources—the album draws considerable inspiration from Tibetan mysticism. Nevertheless, the album’s Borgesian subtitle points to a more surreal approach, an embrace of Tlönian unreality that signals a subtle merging of fact and fiction. To quote a contemporary reviewer, “the overall effect results in the kind of music Eno would make for a Philip K. Dick film set in Tibet.”

That’s not a bad description, but the music on Pacific Sky Burial is darker and more atonal than Eno’s ethereal ambience. Filled with subterranean rumblings, industrial drones, and oscillating electronics, Pacific Sky Burial is decidedly experimental, falling somewhere between the sonic rituals of LaMonte Young and the electronic meditations of Tangerine Dream’s “Pink Years.”

We begin the ceremony with “Doha.” The word denotes a form of Indian poetry, usually a self-contained couplet. It’s translated in the liner notes as “spontaneous songs sung upon enlightenment,” a more spiritual take that aligns with Tibetan mysticism, Sufism, and Tantric practices. Like all the samples on Pacific Sky Burial, the voices on “Doha” are presented without origin or source, giving the chanting an abstract quality, a dreamy cloud rising above a murmuring drone. This musical incense is dispelled by intermittent blasts from a presumably gigantic horn—deep, resounding peals that evoke the slow time of Himalayan temples.

We step outside the sanctum for “Tempel Walk,” an atmospheric instrumental illuminated by twittering birds and the soft clang of bronze bells. A tranquil stroll through tree-canopied Xanadu via the Peninsular Ranges outside San Diego, “Tempel Walk” meanders lazily over zithered strings and humming electronics, and wouldn’t feel out of place on Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma. Our stroll ends with “Throat Ornament,” a short interlude of chanting unfolding over a husky drone.

Next comes “Harkonen Veda.” The longest—and darkest—track on the album, “Harkonen Veda” cheekily combines the sci-fi universe of Frank Herbert’s Dune with ancient Sanskrit texts: in a world populated by Jesuit witches and Orange Catholic Bibles, a “Harkonen Veda” is a nice touch! (Though like the Tacoma hardcore band of the same name, HMT alters the spelling—a wariness over copyright infringement?) The piece is restless and somewhat unnerving, a collage of metallic sounds assembled amidst chittering electronics, spacey whistles, and a corrosive creep of distortion. While “Harkonen” suggests the mechanized world of Geidi Prime, like all HMT’s music, there’s beauty in the dissonance, a sense of some spiritual past buried beneath corruption and decay.

This is followed by “Terma.” Another word from Tibetan Buddhism, a terma is an esoteric secret buried like hidden treasure, revealed only upon discovery by individuals called tertöns—all in all, not an un-Borgesian concept! Like the interludes preceding it, “Terma” finds us back in the temple sanctuary, sampled prayers woven into a muted drone.

Next up is “drugsmeditationhypnosis.” Its seamless title suggests these three pathways to inner consciousness are one and the same, a fusion of John C. Lily, Alan Watt, and George Gurdjieff. The track’s centerpiece is a heavily-distorted electric guitar, a hard edge recalling the ambient industrial of Zoviet France, Ramleh, and Burning Star Core. The track features long-time Nielsen collaborator Bruce McKenzie of Maquiladora and Buzz or Howl, credited here with “subharmonic bass waves,” which sound exactly as you’d expect.

A slow fadeout delivers us to “The Great Transmigration of Souls.” At five minutes, it’s the longest interlude, a slow-bubbling trance embedded in a warbling electric groove. There’s echoes of the Grateful Dead’s “Space” here, rippling planks of sound texturing the silence into strange new architectures. As “Transmigration” devolves into squealing electronics, a trainlike rattle ushers in “Feast of the Preta.” Another Sanskrit word, preta are the famed “hungry ghosts” of Eastern legend, restless spirits fixated on some form of earthly—and frequently loathsome—fetish. While the track is subterranean in feel, it’s no Lustmord-like excursion into “dark ambient.” Constructed around a restless, gnawing motif encircled by waves of expanding synth, “Feast” adopts a more neutral tone, almost clinical in detachment: a soundtrack to cell division, or a pack of rats swarming a carcass.

The album concludes with “Pacific Tempel Light.” Although the title suggests we’ve emerged from the underworld back to West Coast daylight, the shrill, buzzing chorus is more Pazuzu than Pacific. Or perhaps it’s not sunshine at all, but rather an upward moondling beyond the tempeling?

Oh, and one final word about Pacific Sky Burial (Axaxaxas mlö)—the CD itself is black, dead black, Starless and Bible black, black on both sides! It’s a little thing, but makes the physical disc worth owning; a small piece of art in itself. Copies are shipped from Lotushouse Records, individually hand-numbered.