In Summer 2015, I decided to renounce my lifetime of averting my calling as a digital composer/performer. Totem was incepted into existence. With inspiration drawn from native elders of many different indigenous walks, Great Spirit, the animal creatures, the infinitely varied expression of our Mother nature, an insatiable fascination with digital composition, sound design and synthesis technology, Totem Muzik came to be.
There is no shortage of grief to document from country to country, culture to culture. In fact, every single indigenous tribe the world-over has a story. And that story is Shockingly similar to one another and that generally is this: We once lived in a state of peace on the land and with the creatures, then Colonizers came and stole our lands and resources. We all today are living in the fallout of varying forms of cultural genocide that are exterminating our most precious tie to our history: language. Most indigenous forms of history are aural. For example, the old-kahunas(priests) of Hawaii retain an 'ancient chant' that takes three days and three nights to recite, the contents of which contain 4,000 generations of Hawaiian existence called the Kumulipu. Similarly, most native peoples of North America, Sioux/Lakota, hold many of their stories and parables aurally. However, their language has been severely threatened by the Native American Boarding School Programs that swept across our Nation during the Civil War an after, and still is being threatened by cultural assimilation. Without this knowledge, key insights into pre-history are lost along with much more.
This is a large defining purpose for why I feel called to catalogue a life of sound. To retain the stories of the native people of this planet, that have been subjects of such oppression for so long, to shed light upon their truths that they may absolve the madness of our discourse as a species. These are the stories that ended when supposed History began. And as such, should be treated with antiquity of the Holy Grail of Knowledge: Our Creation Story As a Humanity