"An algorithm is a finite set of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task which, given an initial state, will terminate in a corresponding recognizable end-state."

Algorhythmic Redemption , the final installment of this trilogy, recognizes the role of music and how it can be a catalyst to incite meaningful debate. This may or may not lead to one acting on his or her social intuition but it will at least open the possibility for debate.   Through studying the interpersonal relations between oneself and these broad political dilemmas, one can find a therapeutic release of this toxic accumulation within the individual.   In this case, an algorhythm (a pseudo-scientific and musical convergence) is what drives this album's lyrical and musical exposition.   I have tried to include myself in every honest observation and condemnation.   The culmination, which manifests itself as this album, is where my own road to redemption lies and it may or may not be suitable for others to follow.   It is a personal choice for one to acknowledge that the problems addressed in Phantasmatrash's music are in fact real and are going to soon affect our lives in a very drastic way.  

The 1 billion people who reside below the poverty line are most vulnerable and aware of these problems and some may have already reached a point of maximum toxic accumulation.   They cannot hide from these realities because they not only influence their daily lives, but in some cases they dictate it.   Ironically, the ones at the top of the economic food chain too have reached maximum toxic accumulation (extraordinarily evident in their schemes to deny these very realities from existing) and our focus should also fixate on their situations.   Extreme poverty and extraordinary wealth most exemplify the human toll of this perplexing social pathology, as do we all.

Algorhythmic Redemption , like its mathematical counterpart, provides a finite end to my efforts of a diagnosis to this growing disease.   I can look no further into myself to bring this long hidden history into the light.   And it saddens me that this discourse will most likely be found preaching to the converted.   Although on a more positive note, I am proud to have my voice playing a miniscule part in a growing symphony of organizations and individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded venue.   I am not unique in my endeavors; in fact, I was inspired and educated by many other men and women of action.   By reading volumes of inspiring written word and by truly taking the time to introspect how this growing social pathology affects those around me, I've gained a more informed perspective but it is very far from where it could be.   Everyone I know, including myself, embodies a very unique and complex part of this growing pathology. This arcane, global epiphany has rendered me with many sleepless nights.

This trilogy served as an emotional sanctuary that provided me with a safe haven for these past few years.   I lost myself in these albums.   I tried to unselfconsciously pen the lyrics (if that's possible) and without refinement performed them with an improvised zeal of raw, unfettered emotion.   Through vulnerability and anxiety this application of self-guided therapy overpowered me.   The resulting compassion I felt for others overtook me.   So many wellsprings of personal pain are locked up in this omni-consuming pathology.   Through the continuous experiencing of the antithesis of what this pandemic culture has to offer, I recognized that I am too a free-market sociopath.   Like the blood soaked politicians and mafiosi who can rationalize their committed atrocities for personal gain, I too made peace with my own complicit blood money to survive, to enjoy and to live life.  

Without an ounce of cynicism or defeatism, I can offer this music and writing as my fingerprint to help expose the ruthlessness of this culture and how it has personally changed, and in some cases ruined, the lives of those so close to me.   No manipulative endgame exists here in this quasi-musical world of therapeutic, free flowing artistic expression.   By recognizing that I am a victim and I am an aggressor, I truly grasped that this paradox is what perpetuates and complicates this pathology exponentially.   It's not just America, personal greed, or capitalism, although some could argue they are some of the most visible symptoms of the disease.   It's something bigger, deeper, and a million times more potent than plutonium.   Why does this culture and its "tangle of pathologies" (to borrow one politician's glib assessment of the affairs of the oppressed) make itself so available to these truly anti-social values?   Why are they so concentrated into a form of destructive power that is psychically, spiritually, physically, and mentally consuming us all in so many ways?   Is this alarmist propaganda or are we to truly question that notion like we should question the dishonest, unequal, and exploitative tenets of our economic system?  

To think America, a consistent beacon of hypocrisy, is the leader of the free world yet we have the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.   We are a peace-loving nation yet we spend more on our military than almost the rest of the world combined.   We are the wealthiest nation in the world while some of our cities' infant mortality rates rival some of the poorest nations in the world.   We all somehow share in this system and the ones who stand to benefit from it most are the most diseased and deluded.   Their humanity is constantly being degraded in a more tacit way than the ones who stand to benefit the least from it.  

In widespread famine and vicious poverty, the culprits tend to be pretty self-evident, but for the disease and how it ravages the super-wealthy, that is something much deeper and there are serious repercussions to cast a stone into that glass household.   Litigation and good old-fashioned threats tend to be the first lines of defense.   The poor and starving usually offer a more liberal defense and in that there is always room for one's own conscripted submission to the forces of necessary prostitution.   One must eat or one will die.

Oppression requires both parties to submit and that dirty little maxim is a touchstone in the erosion of humanity.   True liberation, unlike the kind exported to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, requires all to become equal.   That kind of equality is more dangerous than any weapon of mass destruction.   In fact, that IS a weapon of mass destruction from the vantage of the overarching power structures.  

With equality there is accountability.   With accountability there is a chance at healing.   If we were all part of a panoramic truth commission where all internalized war stories of repression, poverty, and warfare could be revealed and collectively taken responsibility for our roles in perpetuating this pathology will soon be diminished.   Imagine the strides in healing and the dismantling of oppression at its very core.  

Unlike the popular stance of the US Government, we can only begin to focus on this at home and not by beginning at the invasion of other countries, expecting them to abide by a lifestyle we do not ourselves practice.   Like therapists who have to remind their patients to not transfer and project their inner problems onto external targets, we must take this universal healing gravely serious and recognize that we are all projecting and externalizing unconsciously.   This may sound like some unattainable, utopian ideal but if we all begin to slowly release that which alienates us; it will disallow us to carry on in our own self-destruction.

The way we can expedite our healing is by abandoning a culture and a disease hell-bent on keeping us sick and divided.   Like a victim of abuse in recovery, we slowly will need to begin to talk about the haunting tragedies that have left us scarred, insecure, paranoid, and unstable. A culture that profits from our innermost fears and neuroses and turns them into profitable bottom lines isn't a healthy bi-product of a society that's OK.   We are not OK.  

Accepting this means that this kind of revolution has an entropy all its own because it's a rational voice in a very irrational world we all inadvertently share.   This together can be our collective algorhythmic redemption.   It is up to the individual to find his or her own stride.  

Mine was through music and writing, another's could be through filmmaking, painting, teaching, and speaking publicly or privately, or by embracing one's child.   It can also be achieved through organizing a movement, reading, or simply just thinking deeply about these issues and how they may affect him or her.  

One thing is clear--there is a finite end to all of our existences here and these kinds of problems transcend our years on this planet so it is of utmost importance to maximize our own and our brothers and sisters comfort here.   It is too heavy of a burden to all take this kind of guilt and suffering to our deathbeds.   Let our legacies nourish, not inhibit.

Direct your comments to politics@geoclan.com