Below, I've added to some comments I made on the album long ago:
It was with Frusciante's own recommendation of listening to this album that I first played it, loud through surround-sound speakers, in a dark living room without distractions. Far beyond just expanding your auditory experience, The Empyrean aims to expand your mind itself. A truly psychedelic sounds contrasts a calming and somehow humbling effect, in long tracks such as ‘Before The Beginning’ and ‘Dark/Light’, while Frusciante’s guitar-playing mastery shines throughout. An unparalleled set of songs both in terms of careful choice of sound and simple elegance, The Empyrean is an album that simply cannot be overlooked. I have always been inspired by the reverberation and depth of each piece, and the slow build-up of beats and melodies Frusciante frequently uses.
Whether creating music or not, I feel that any audio piece can benefit from the non-verbal advice given to us by The Empyrean. Frusciante has clearly spent a lot of time refining the sound into perfect harmonies, and in doing so provides a lesson in sound design itself.
In a broader sense, each piece of music immerses the listener in a soundscape that takes them away from their actual location to a space elsewhere; the details of what space this might be are left for you to decide. In doing so the listener is provided with their own plethora of images and associations, creating a truly inspiring environment in which the images we hold onto in our minds are projected into the music, and likewise new images are formed in our heads.
I am fascinated by the way The Empyrean creates a sense of space, and will attempt to explore some of the same dimensions in my own audio project as Frusciante does so effectively throughout this album.
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