artwork [ink drawing] Benjamin Hierro
artwork, design, sleeve Gordon Mackinnon
mastered by James Savage
photography Jon Keliehor
producer, performer, written-by Jon Keliehor
recorded by, mixed by Jon Keliehor
500 copies pressed

Inner sleeve has on one side a poem by Jon Keliehor, ink drawing by Benjamin Hierro and quote from Hermes Trismegistus.

The other side of the inner sleeve has a photograph with sleeve notes as follows:

The Beginning

In one sense the music of The Beginning of Time appears as a real-time soundscape that unfolds within different landscapes of nature. Yet here time and space seem altered, stretched into complexes of sonic layers, sound horizons and ever-widening boundaries. Curled-up and unfolding shapes in this domain suggest symbolic meanings yet language has been surpassed. The music is a reminder of ritual significance, shamanic journey, binding relationships between humans, nature and planet. While the question of Time and its beginning can offer a discussion on the nature of origin, perhaps even on the rise of humanity, words become inadequate. Instead we are directed to look at the magnetism of our own nature, the mythology surrounding Time. When did we actually begin?

During these recordings music has been made directly in response to the sounds of nature. I see these field recordings as elements that are integral to the music itself. Here nature sets the pace. Rhythmic and tonal aspects of rivers, ocean waves and nature-life guide and shape the music elements. Nature’s vitality and motion provide impulses and signals not different from those of human biology, micro-molecular patterns, cells sending messages to other cells. These ambient source recordings have come from widely diverse nature and industrial locations. I have hoped to reconcile the balance and harmony that music has with nature, listening for chance interactions, investigating relationships between primitive and refined attributes in sound, as well as these qualities in instruments themselves. The music instruments used are primarily acoustic

It is a unique challenge to combine live and often primitive instruments such as those heard on these recordings into the mysterious wholeness of music. Yet with all the inconsistencies and imperfections of sound that acoustic instruments have, we find a relief from the perfectly sampled music sounds and repetitive loops in much of today’s music. Now it becomes possible to enter the more fluid world of subtle acoustic tones, to discover the living ambiences and spatial coordinates that exist around sounds, and see the performer's ability to engage in these aspects.

Encounters in Nature: Pacific Ocean, Scottish Rivers, Hoh Rainforest, Venezuelan Rainforest, Auric telemetry fields.

Rainforest Creatures: Frogs, Toads, Peepers, Hieroglyphic and Lyric cicada, and many types of crickets.

Instruments: Burmese, Javanese and Chinese gongs, Wind Gongs, Antique bell sets from Turkey, China, America & India, Rattle bells, African log drums, Frame drums, Darbouka, Roto Toms, Venezuelan bell plates, Balinese Guntang and Suling, Noah Bells, Nepalese Kyezee, Berimbau, Ektara, Bowed cymbals and metals, Tibetan bowl sets, Roulette Wheels, Tension wires, Bumblebee hummers, Miniature Harmonicas, Spring Can, Glass tones, Plastic horns, Animal flutes, Whistles, Acoustic Harp, Marimba, Zithers