“Surrender to the void” is the message translated by these ears from the music of the BROOKLYN RAGA ASSOCIATION – music freely made, and music made freely available to all who wish to receive it.
It’s a message that takes some effort – just as the Brooklyn Raga Association have put effort toward their quest to sonically capture the elements – earth, water, air, fire and spirit – in effort to “produce a stereo-phonically balanced audio recording that leaves the listener aware of their place in the universe and beyond.” We stand to applaud their effort – the splendor of their sound, the purity of their intent.
Download “Earth” by the Brooklyn Raga Association.
Listen: I remain uncertain of my place in the universe and beyond. I’ve never done much more than drive through Brooklyn. I would be hard pressed to offer you anything more than a dilettante’s definition of raga. And if I have any association with any association, it’s admiration for those six witty and inventive men who call themselves The Association. Confusion reigns, and the call to “surrender to the void” – regardless of whether coming from the Brooklyn Raga Association, John “Get a job, Julian!” Lennon or from text read by some guy who was in the Army – is difficult for me to digest, to understand, to say and feel without at least thinking of my dreams being policed or rockets engines burning fuel so fast. And we’re all just soldiers in the army of the beyond (is beyond … is beyond).
Surrender to the void. It’s hard – you know that. Brooklyn Raga Association make it easier.
“I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still.” – Albert “Can-fan” Camus, “The Stranger”
Original Brooklyn Raga Association photo by Chris Becker
Revolt of the Apes 
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