Arrival on the Bardo Plane

Arrival on the Bardo Plane marked the beginning of a longer sequence of conceptual and technical explorations in Joey Largent’s work. The piece consisted of two closely mic’d cymbals recorded at high gain, where even the lightest contact produced dense and shifting overtone fields. Through this process, harmonic complexity emerged not through force or density, but through attentiveness and restraint.

The realization that subtle cymbal interactions could yield expansive harmonic color led directly to subsequent experiments with amplified cymbals, forming the basis for later long-form and site-specific projects.

The recording was made while Largent was living at a lake house in Monte Ne, Arkansas, in the months preceding his move to Seattle. Ryan Cockerham supported the recording process, mastered the track, and released it through his label at the time, Double Dream Records. Largent later made a small self-release of the work on his imprint Apophyllite Recordings.

The images below associated with the piece were captured during an earlier experiment that inspired the recording, when Largent traveled to a remote section of the Indian Creek Trail near Ponca, Arkansas. There, he recorded cymbal resonance test inside a small cave near the Eye of the Needle formation, beginning the exploration that evolved into this work. The cymbal pictured is the primary cymbal used for all his cymbal works to date: Below Diorite Waters, Basaltic Void Dervishes, and Moonlight Void Dervishes.