ZenZone’s journey towards the realms of spirituality was not an overnight event. A fiercely atheist upbringing led to an ironically dogmatic view of traditional spiritualism, which was cemented by voluntarily attending a Catholic high school. However, in stark contrast to this, from a relatively young age music was very much his religion.
A keen guitarist, ZenZone was heavily involved in various bands from the age of 14, ranging from indie, funk, and even rock and metal. The highlight of this particular era was performing on the Greenpeace stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2008, although in the years running up to that particular event, he had started to fall for a new musical medium - solo music production.
Attracted by the ability to just make music without collaboration and the associated pros and cons that come with working with others, over a 12 year period ZenZone went on to release multiple records under various aliases. This included a number of vinyl releases, and the music was very much inspired by and embedded in the club culture of UK and Europe. This meant he was lucky enough to DJ around the world, from Ibiza to Tokyo. However, during this time, he experienced a change in how he viewed the spiritual world.
After reading a book about near death experiences (“NDE’s”), ZenZone started to question his previously unshakeable views on spirituality, and indeed the universe. How could these stories of travelling to ethereal realms, meeting long dead relatives (some that were previously unknown to the “deceased” until their NDE) tally with his previously steadfast belief that what the eye could see was all there was to the world? This was quite the paradigm shift in terms of how he had thought about the world up until this point. While he didn’t believe that there was a heaven in the traditional sense of the word, it was starting to seem like there were clearly different levels of reality - whether that be consciousness, or even something related to quantum mechanics - that were not recognised by the general population. If we are all energy, and the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed but only converted, then where does our energy go when it leaves the physical body? What is it converted to? Do we transcend the physical realm and rejoin the mass consciousness of the Universe, as most who experience an NDE seem to proclaim? Are we all just the Universe experiencing itself in the physical form? Do we continue to be reincarnated in perpetuity? Inevitably, this took him down a rabbit hole of exploration, culminating in an affinity to the practice of mindfulness meditation, which in turn opened up some of the principles of buddhism and, ultimately, taught him about the most important force in the universe - compassion.
Compassion is truly the most powerful energy in the universe, and ZenZone has tried to learn to be compassionate at all times, even when it feels counterintuitive or even impossible. This level of compassion can lead to a profound effect on those around you, and ZenZone is a fervent believer that a lot of what is going on in the world would be much more manageable if people in general demonstrated even just a small amount of compassion towards each other. Indeed, even on a physical level, the act of showing compassion can release oxytocin, which aside from it’s mental benefits has also been shown to help with blood pressure and heart health.
Spirituality and music clearly go hand in hand - vibration and frequency are very important factors that determine many facets of our life, even if we don’t realise it. There are (often “fringe”) views regarding ancient civilizations' ability to harness the power of vibration and use it as almost a technology of sorts, perhaps most famously with the Great Pyramids of Giza. It is supposed that to build the pyramids, built with blocks of stone of such mass that even modern technology would struggle to replicate their workmanship, some sort of vibrational technique was used to move such massive objects. Indeed, many researchers believe the Great Pyramid is actually “tuned” to a certain frequency - F#. More specifically, F# Major. Some believe this enabled the pyramid to resonate with the Earth’s natural harmonics, and even act as a source of free energy for the ancient civilizations.
Water molecules also have vibrational properties, which again correspond to F# (as well as A# and C#). When you consider that it is estimated that around 70% of the human body is made up of water, clearly vibration and frequency has an intrinsic link to our physiological makeup (at the very least). Water is an undeniably significant and important feature of our planet, affecting everything from the weather to the continuation of life as we know it. If vibration is such a powerful medium and is so prevalent throughout our world, how can we best harness the power of it to benefit ourselves and the planet itself? Suddenly, ZenZone’s innate love of music and sound made sense, and the spirituality aspect was now staring him firmly in the face. So naturally, ZenZone started to ponder how to combine the two.
Following a loss of interest in electronic music and DJ’ing, around 3 years ago the ZenZone YouTube channel was created. This was a space for ZenZone to express his new found spirituality through his favourite medium: music. Wanting to create pieces that would help others when meditating, relaxing, sleeping, or even doing yoga, he set about writing as much music as possible, and uploading it to the channel for people to use for free. A selection of the pieces are available to download as an album - Sounds of ZenZone Vol.1 - over on Bandcamp, and there are many more pieces available on the ZenZone YouTube channel. The pieces are usually inspired by nature, often featuring piano, strings, and even synthesisers as the listener is encouraged to explore the sonic space presented to them, with the idea being that they can utilise it however they see fit. While not always specifically centred around F#, there was a clear intent to create a vibrational zone which resonates with people on a spiritual level, even if perhaps they did not themselves realise it whilst listening. ZenZone is just as happy if people are using his music for relaxing as he is if they are using it to meditate - all that matters is that they enjoy it.