The blue beach

Even though only one of you could have put up the image on the main page (the group leader, I presume), there are almost 400 of you, so hopefully someone here appreciates its significance.

As you can probably tell by my handle, I have an interest in images like that one, and, as you might be able to tell by my activity, music is not my primary reason for coming to this site. For me, music is a means to an end, with the end usually being some hard-to-describe but very powerful atmosphere, an atmosphere which usually leaves me scratching my head regarding why it feels as powerful, as familiar, and as impossibly old as it does. I have a small but fairly accurate description of what I mean by 'atmosphere' on my page, but considering the nature of this group, I'm sure at least some of you will have a decent idea of what I'm referring to.

But one place has a particularly powerful atmosphere to it, and is significant to me for other reasons, too. On top of feeling as amazing, as prehistoric, as desolate, and as distant as it does, the blue world depicted in my profile image is something I seemingly made up all by myself circa November of 2005 while working on a novel about an alternate dimension in which a man from modern-day Earth finds himself alone and absolutely confused (in a good way, although in his confusion, he also can never tell if minutes or years have passed) about where he is.

Why did I choose to focus on a calm, desolate, dark blue world devoid of life -- and a beach in particular? I still don't know. To make things even more interesting, circa November of 2008, a friend of mine told me about a dream he had had in either 2004 or 2005 about the exact same place. He also made note of its implications, including the idea that it felt eternal, timeless, and millions of light-years from Earth. He was even able to coincidentally identify the same ambient sounds in music reminiscent of its atmosphere (think the echoing sound in Aphex Twin's "Blue Calx" specifically) that I had.

If you care enough to read more, here's my description of 'the blue beach': http://thebluebeach.blogspot.com/

...and here's my friend's description of his dream, which is equally as important to his life: http://thebluebeach.livejournal.com/

The reason I'm coming to you today is twofold: certain pieces of music ("Blue Calx" as mentioned above, other Aphex Twin tracks like "Tree," "Domino," and "Radiator," and some stuff from Biosphere's "Substrata" album) immediately make me feel like I'm on this lifeless, calm world; and both your group description and the near-perfect (except for the sky, maybe, but I'm not entirely sure of that) representation of the blue beach in your image make me think that there might be others out there who've experienced this place for themselves.

Ambient music that taps into specific atmospheres and places or that takes me on some kind of cosmic journey is certainly important to me, but I don't much like the idea of going about life getting song recommendations from others and then leaving it at that. It's hard for me to accept the idea that I and my friend -- whose description of the blue beach is more or less identical to mine -- both coincidentally stumbled upon this world on our own, with there being nothing more to it than that. If there are others out there who know what we're talking about, that'd make our case for caring about it much stronger.

I'm not saying that such a place actually exists, but talking about it and similar places seems a lot more worthy of my time than using people to the end of finding more music. I have all the music I could ever need for tapping into this stuff, and am not interested in the indefinite desire-chasing that turns people into neurotic consumers, forever trapped in the cycle of downloading and buying without considering the possibility of actually getting out of here.

I know this is a bit long and probably way too serious in tone, but still, does anyone else know what we're talking about? If so, reply here, leave a message on our profile page, e-mail us, whatever. Please note, however, that you should only do so if you're serious about this, and spend a considerable amount of time absorbing the atmosphere of/thinking about the blue world. If you just think the main picture here looks neat/pretty or that atmospheric music in itself is all that matters, no offense, but don't bother. I would like to hear personal experiences, and if you want to tie them in with music, all the better, but please don't do the "Here's a huge list of bands that have nothing to do with what you're talking about" thing.

Thank you.