Music, Cannabis & Beyond
- tplsolutions
- Jan 17, 2023
- 5 min read
Breaking out of the 4/4, bridging the gap with fungus, THC, visuals, and music production
Recently I have come across music and compositions, that aren’t typically played on the radio, and there is a whole different mindset regarding some of the styles of music and sounds, like hyperglitch, and these new binaural beat infused songs. And as you know, everything sounds better after consuming cannabis, so I used some of them to expand my cannabis experience and meditate with. On my journeys I came across an artist that not only uses cannabis as part of the process, but the use of psychedelics is the main foundation for music production and visual creation, extremely stimulating works both visually, audibly, and spiritually.
Let me introduce Girl No. III, a visual artist, music producer and record label owner from Toronto, ON. Girl No. III makes psychedelic art as well as a combination of progressive electro-psy-jazz-fusion, IDM and neoclassical.
Girl No. III has been playing music since eight, taking piano lessons which continued till the age 16. Girl No. III played the bagpipes from age 12 till 16. Took trombone in school from grade seven to grade 12, and casually played drums. Girl No. III even did a little bit of jazz band practices a few times at the school. But that conflicted too much with sports. So, Girl No. III was never able to play an actual concert with them. Girl No. III still played with them, and other bands and musicians at every available opportunity, it was a lot of fun. Girl No. III is a self-taught bass guitar player started around the age 16. And since then, Girl No. III started dabbling a little bit in music production around the age of 19, just for fun, and didn't really think of doing it any further. Girl III said,
“I wasn't great at it, honestly, at first, and after I moved to Toronto two or three years ago, I started doing session music, I was a session musician for live bands, did a lot of jamming there just improv sort of floating between like jazz, Neo Soul, that sort of stuff”.
After a finger injury, Girl No. III kept going at it, and still wanted to keep doing music. But with the limited hand mobility, it forced Girl No. III to go deeper into music production, and just kept chipping away at learning to use a DAW program (Digital Audio Workstation), and eventually got better at it, to the point where Girl III was doing Album releases confidently, Girl No.
I asked Girl III, “who are your major influences?”
“Frank Zappa is easily far and away my biggest inspiration the person I'm trying to emulate hands down. Just his, his style of music, his philosophy of music, his approach everything there, apart from his attitude towards psychedelics, I'm trying to mirror. One of the biggest things that I took away from Frank Zappa is just let the song turn out how it's going to be. Don't try and put any kind of constraints on it. Don't try and force it to be something just let it be. So, Frank Zappa is a huge, huge, huge influence. Koji Kondo is as well, he's the composer for a lot of the Mario and Zelda soundtracks. And Junichi Masuda. On that note, he did the Pokémon soundtracks. So, there's a lot of video game influence in my stuff, as well as bands like Weather Report, who did a kind of combination of progressive jazz and psychedelic rock. Really like their stuff. Clown core is huge for me. A cool experimental jazz band. Shrek is Love is just off the wall. They're incredible. Another interesting jazz fusion group. I mean, I can go on there is so many!”
Even though Frank Zappa was an inspiration to Girl No. III, implementing stimulants to the creative process or even doing a performance was the total opposite. Frank Zappa had a no-nonsense approach to psychedelics. For Girl No. III, psychedelics play a huge part of the inspiration process, and only writes on them. And then uses cannabis to arrange and sort the sounds of the song after completing the creative process.
Girl No. III - 5/8 Album
Girl No. III is planning new projects as we speak right now, and there is a huge amount of creation in multiple directions. We are talking 9 new albums over this and next year, releasing 4 albums last year.
And not only will Girl No. III be producing the music, and doing all the Album cover art, but working on collaborations with other artists and remixing song from selected albums. A vocal mix album of all Girl No. III instrumental tracks and a 24-hour live stream which is going to be converted into an album. It typically takes Girl III three to seven days to write enough compositions to fill an album but accepts the challenge.
Man, I have done 8-hour DJ/Performance sets, but recording an album live and streaming it for 24 hours, better stay away from any indica!
I had the privilege to be blessed with Girl No. III visual talents that I have used for one of my music videos, and time shift with some of his tunes. Above is a teaser of Girl No. III visuals with my track "Inner Voice".
Here is where you can find Girl No. III
Closing remarks from Girl No. III:
“I would just kind of go off basically, the notes of my last album, the last track “Obama's Nations Abominations”. It's basically an open letter to the US and world at large. And my last album was called “No More Four/Four”. I'm encouraging as many people as I can, to stop listening to stuff in 4/4, start creating and listening to stuff outside of 4/4.
It might seem a little bit of a reach, but I'm pretty sure that's a big part of where the powers that be, are keeping us in the sort of uncreative box. Because they're keeping us in this place where, like, if you think about it, five, four, is a rhythmic ratio of 1.25, and four over four is a rhythmic ratio of one. And, I mean, it's cute and all the adding in 1,2,3. But it's a little bit harder to be going 1.25, 2.5, 3.75. Like, and your brain must work a little harder.
Sure, it's easier to count in ratios of one, but that's not going to get us anywhere. And it's going to keep us further down if we keep being content in simplicity, not engaging your brain. That's sort of what's keeping us in a place, a reality of illusions and distractions, and we don’t even realize the elites are taking advantage of us, we are being locked in an unnuanced box, keeping us complicit. And I think the root of it starts at all the record labels in the 60s, and on not accepting anything outside of 4/4. I want to push back very much against that. Hopefully, that will be the start of the revolution we need but requires the efforts of more than one. So that would be the message I'm trying to get out right now!”
I need to take a huge haul after that one, because I know and totally understand what Girl No. III is saying, I am awake, hope you are too.
Keep er lit!
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