Guided Meditation Of A 'Diary Of An Artist In Love' By The Muse Frequency (Review & Interview)

The Muse Frequency suggests the use of headphones for what can only be described as a guided meditation on the topics of love. Spoken word performance poetry by an artist collaborating with a composer for the aural backdrop. Listeners who chase the ASMR (tickling sensations of autonomous sensory meridian response) dragon, might satisfy their urges with Diary of an Artist in Love. Those who listen to podcasts and ambient music can easily imagine combining the two for a meditative experience. Points of reference made are the late philosopher and lecturer Jiddu Krishnamurti and the 13th-century poet Rumi. I am most curious about their citing of influence by Anais Nin who for a short period of time I was curious about their work. That they reference her here, ignites my curiosity again and with it, a different perspective,

Guided Meditation Through The Pursuit Of A 'Diary Of An Artist In Love'

The foundation of this work follows the format of guided meditation because, as mentioned, the Muse Frequency suggests headphones with your eyes closed. You let this artist's contemplation of love roll over you, asking you to submit to it. As someone who has a brief history of failing at relationships, I'm willing to learn what I can about love from someone who is willing to descend into those depths. I value whatever artifacts they come back with.

While the album release is 22 minutes of this performance, the audible book is uncut at an hour and 6 minutes which follows the book. All of these formats are recommended for every reason you can think of. The music and the way the poetry is performed could be anything but they settled for a familiar trigger of mine. Julee Cruise (R.I.P.) and Angelo Badalamenti (R.I.P.), are best known for their work on the Twin Peaks soundtracks and their own work.

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The "Love Is" pieces where we hear about what love is float on an instrumental theme they revisit throughout, where the air is filled with minimal pulses of bass and washed-out keyboards creating a dense sonic atmosphere. After each of these interludes, the artist continues to ponder love in different states in life and subjective experiences with the artist. To be guided through this meditation immerses the listener as it should and more so with the audiobook.

You'll hear in our interview at the end of this article, that this project originally began as an idea for a live performance. The interview turned into more of a brainstorming session which started with me describing what this work reminded me of. I think what I ended up picturing is very much the woods before the Black Lodge. As I said, there's that whole David Lynch thing I referenced earlier. It doesn't necessarily have to go there but, is the woods a good place to start or am I just looking for a reason to reference one of my favorite cults?

The Anais Nin Connection

Back when I used to browse bookstores and libraries to discover what philosopher I should follow, I encountered the writings of Anais Nin. It wasn't anything that I stuck to because, in the end, I ended up following the existentialists. With the Muse Frequency referring to her, I had to recall what I missed out on. Here's some of what the Muse Frequency has initially put out there about her as an influence.

"Diary of an Artist in Love was initially inspired by the published diaries of Anais Nin. There's an allure to reading personal thoughts on love and what it means to fall in love. And then there's the experience of having those thoughts read to you. I began Diary of an Artist in Love with the idea of quietly reading my thoughts on love and the nature of relationships to someone who was sitting very close to me, like a personal performance. Diary of an Artist in Love, by The Muse Frequency, is designed to create a meditative state through the intimate experience of being told a story on love for an audience of one."

In the interview, I talk about her diaries which were published to follow her from the 1920s into the 1970s before her death. I get emotional to think about the fact that so many decades of someone's life were documented in such a way that you can resurrect them just by reading diaries. It's a commitment that is scary in what it captures, subjectively and objectively. It's something we discuss in our interview as well as loneliness and overall, isolation. I felt that we fed off of each other in our discussion, and energized each other with ideas no matter where they came from to look at Diary of an Artist In Love in an interesting way. I don't doubt that Nin wrote in her diaries to convince you of her views and I could only imagine this work was Anais Nin in her own voice and words offering a kind of guided meditation when I close my eyes.

The actual book...

...and the album!

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