This track is a brief and intense regard to light and dark, life and death, the joyous highs and emotional depths that life demands we experience, both individually and as One. SW reflects on the wild and on civilization. It reflects on discernment that can at times distort to confusion, chaos or desperation on where to start at any given time. On how we survive. And what will be our end. On coming in close to life to hear its hush. What we learn, discover, create and how we grow and love in the space of it all. How we navigate.

SW is the most brief, lyrically as well, and perhaps the least ‘accessible’ song on NAVIGATE. I share thoughts and inspiration in an attempt to bridge chasm. The composition was incited by an experience while camping alone for the first time in Joshua Tree, CA, October 2014. Joshua Tree tends to impart profound moments for most who visit. In this case, I watched the sun set both a fire and pale softness and I later fell asleep listening to music in my headphones. I woke in an early hour to Syro by Aphex Twin playing. The song, XMAS_EVET10 [120][thanaton3 mix], was relentless to my sleep at that hour. I shut off my headphones and fell back to sleep in silence. It seemed almost immediate when I woke again to what sounded like the erupting cheer of a stadium crowd. Reason took hold, sounds crystallized and it became clear that it was animal.

Coyotes, I imagine, celebrating their kill. It sounded as though it took place right at my head, only the thin veil of my tent covering me from the visual experience. The desert plays sonic tricks and I trusted the wild was in force at a safe distance. It was an incredible cacophony of ascending and descending reverberated wails amidst high pitch staccato yelps. Dissonance created in a pack. Then there was a rich, deep moan. Their kill. They had gone for something big. Its moan weaved itself in contrast through the crazed pitch of the coyotes – strong and steady at first until it wavered into a hush at its end. Just after the low moan subsided, the cacophony of coyotes slowly sounded out, one by one. Again, silence. The intense beat of my heart then took my awareness. I was entirely in tension. I wish I knew what time the exchange took place and for how long. I wish I knew what animal lost its life that morning. I wish I had a chance to record it because I will never experience it again. Perhaps I felt more compelled to honor it in this way because it was so fleeting. The loss and the gain in the wild and the creative force it incited in me.

XOVT - Kristin Sidorak