Photographs by Graham Clark, Brian Young, Danielle Ezzo, and Derek Rush

Electronic music in the 21st century is an ever-expanding, mutating, multi-genre, artform that seems to embrace a freedom and an inclusive ideal. After all, these days anyone with a computer can have a go. We think of pioneers of the genre such the Prodigy, Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk and, at the more relaxing end of the spectrum, Air, The Orb, Flying Lotus, and Nightmares on Wax.

But what place does spirituality have in electronic music?

Rarely, if ever, do you hear these artists talk about faith or religion. In fact, it has almost become anathema to mention such a thing in the electronic realm. Publications such as Noisey have gleefully mocked some Christian artists’ attempts to appropriate EDM. Perhaps this is fair comment on simple brazen opportunism. Perhaps also this is due to the anti-establishment sensibilities of electronic music. The birth of electronic music is usually linked to a sense of hedonism, free from such ‘confines’ as religion and this can be seen in its most celebrated clubs - the likes of Berlin’s Berghain and, in the past, New York’s Studio 54, revered because they are seen as places of freedom - from work, from worries, from normal life. Not only that, they are places where pleasure is indulged and often done so to excess.

So what happens when a pair of experimental electronic artists of real substance emerges, offering a unique and immersive experience into the spiritual realm? Should they be dismissed, or embraced, or neither? In our previous special feature ‘Synapse’ which examined the psychology behind our love affair with music, we raised the question of whether mapping out a formula for music-making, for Artificial Intelligence to replicate, is destroying the final bastion of what makes humans special. Here we look at the opposite viewpoint - that music is a way of connecting to a higher power and re-establishing some of the mysticism.

In this immersive feature we meet Ariadne, an audio/visual experimental electronic music duo based in New York, who are attempting something completely original - serious spiritual electronic music. We invite you to experience the music and visuals which make up their evocative live show and try to figure out the dimensions, nature and origin of this new form of music.