A Look Behind The Curtain With Denver’s Avant-Mystical Musical Collective itchy-0 (Dev Diary)

Take an exclusive peek behind the mask as itchy-O, the bold iconic 57-member avant-mystical maximalist performance collective, opens up about the magic behind their immersive work. Metaphor, altered states, the primal power of modern ritual, and cutting edge-science all go into the interactive spectacle that is an itchy-0 experience.

This NoPro Dev Diary surfs the turbulent currents between the collective dreaming up their dream project — the Tetrapolar Purification Ceremony, an ecstatic, synaesthetic assault on mundane consciousness — and its ultimate manifestation at Denver’s legendary Fillmore auditorium on July 16th, 2022.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Thank you for this opportunity to share one of the most pivotal stories of our twelve-year-strong evolution. We offer this account in the hope that readers might glean something of value from the process, perseverance, and resilience that brought our groundbreaking Tetrapolar Purification Ritual to life.

We are usually reticent to reveal too much from behind the curtain, not only because the work should stand or fall on its own merits, but also because silence is often key to our strategic use of mystery. We deliver our performances as a masked collective, limiting attachment to individual artistry, identity, or ego. Players maintain anonymity in the press and social media but are credited in all published works. Our work grows out of a rich substrate of mythology–which we allude to through signs, symbols, music, and other signifiers priming the imaginations of the Āoth–those who bear witness. We provide pieces so that they can fit the puzzle together.

We feed our fans enough to fly, but not so much that they get too full.

The meaning of the myth is its interpretation.

But even oblivious itchy-O virgins can’t help but get swept up in the atmosphere that permeates our performances. At our most recent event, our first Tetrapolar Ceremony, one fresh-faced itchy-O convert panted, “It was incredible! You had everyone swaying in a kind of trance…and then… everything just exploded into celebration!”

As immersive artists, we draw from a deep well.

It’s easy to intuit immersion as akin to the element of water. When we talk about being immersed in work, play, or art, we call that the flow state. But the metaphor goes so much deeper. The ocean–with its fickle tides, currents, and uncharted depths teeming with mystery–provides a natural symbol for the unconscious, churning away beyond the superficial surface of the individual ego. We have always been as drawn to the depths as to the starry heavens they reflect. But even “astronauts” on space “ships” allude to our ancient relationship with the waters from which we emerged, which sustain us, and which engulf our collective imagination.

The image of immersion as transformation is such a deep part of our heritage that early Christians adopted the rite of baptism from a more ancient initiation; the literal symbolic drowning of the Self, to be born again into the waking world bearing gifts of spirit.

This primal process of elemental immersion, ecstatic liberation, and rebirth was with us as we reflected on the depths of stress, sadness, and isolation in the wake of recent physio- and sociological ills.

Then, in the darkness, an epiphany as the pieces came together in a shining vision; the antidote to the mayasmatic malaise.

An elemental baptism, a mass exorcism, and a reorienting of the collective soul-compass. A liberating ritual exciting ex-stasis in the collective, dissolving body-bound egos into the timeless tides of trance from which all possibilities emerge.

As modern rationals, we share an ingrained taboo against superstition; a conviction that if it ain’t science, it’s woo, and if it’s woo, it ain’t real. Anyone familiar with our work recognizes the extent to which science and technology are as integral to the itchy-O experience as esoteric symbolism and total sensory overload. At the same time, we cannot deny that there are ineffable realms beyond the grasp of human language. Ecstatic realms where shines the fire of the gods. If we were to try to summarize the essence of our work, it would lie somewhere along the lines of dissolving boundaries to clear the way for manifesting ever-greater possibilities.

Passion for the cutting edge has always been essential to our ethos, and in 2019 we started researching and experimenting with frequency entrainment. Building on decades of global research into the effects of binaural beats and brain entrainment, we envisioned a new art form; one in which the brains of the audience co-create the experience, engulfing the gathering in a synced-up sea of immersive ecstasy. A full-blown, quantifiable, out-of-the-closet, science-based spiritual experience.

In 2020, the early stages of that research manifested in a guided Noise Bath Meditation exclusive for our Patreon supporters.

With these tools, techniques, and research in our arsenal, we optimized our two-plus hour Tetrapolar Purification Ceremony set-list to blend a physical yoga of mystical gestures with a sonic progression that would wash through the gathering’s networked neurology like a force of nature.

We would utilize oscillating audio and visual dynamics in tandem with frequencies shifting in and out of harmonic focus — a kinestheo-auditory parallax effect — creating a compress-and-release response, climaxing in a collective synesthetic, synergetic, syncretic, ecstatic catharsis.

PREPARING THE CEREMONY

In preparation for our most ambitious ritual to date, we scoured esoteric sources from ancient Vedic texts, to medieval Hermetic teachings, through late nineteenth-century mystics like Rudolph Steiner and Franz Bardon, and we distilled the tetrapolar principles down to three metaphysical elements: Air, Water, and Fire.

For the philosophers, all phenomena were present in this metaphor; imagine a bar magnet, fiery and expansive pole held in dynamic, vibrating tension with its ever-condensing watery opposite by the neutral, stabilizing influence of elemental air.

Thesis and antithesis finding harmony in synthesis.

An astute student of the esoteric will note that this accounts for three poles, and may wonder why we christened the event a Tetrapolar rather than a Tripolar Purification Ceremony. “What gives?” they might ask, “Where is the missing fourth element?”

The fourth pole symbolizes the densest dance of the elements, the physical world of matter made manifest; the unique providence of the living, breathing, sweating, swaying, dancing, praying, gathering of the Āoth; grounding the energies of the rite through the interplay of movement and stillness.

We, itchy-O are not separate from the Āoth — our hive-community of extraordinary fans, friends, and family, as integral to our work as we are to their experience. We see ourselves as one emergent organism with a single distributed nervous system. ‘Brains entrain,’ and entrainment is rhythm. Something special happens when a gathering shares an ecstatic experience. A deep reorienting. In rhythm, we become one.

In the process of bringing this piece to life, not only did we dive deeper into the underpinnings of music than we ever had, and develop radical technology, but we also forged unique alliances in unexpected places.

THE SÖM SÄPTÄLAHN

Our vision revealed an other-worldly instrument impossible to build by existent means.

This need provided the impetus for an unlikely collaboration with the prestigious and innovative Colorado School of Mines, which proved pivotal in designing and implementing the SÖM SÄPTÄLAHN, a massive gamelan-like percussion instrument on a previously inconceivable scale.

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To meet our precise specifications, this fifty-plus-piece behemoth would require over six hundred pounds of cymbal bronze. Finding that much copper-tin alloy would be a problem, but it was enthusiastically solved when we initiated a Denver Area Broken Cymbal Drive. Like the happy ending of a Hollywood classic, fans and community rallied. Drummers, studios, and academic institutions answered the call, adorning donations with sharpie-scrawled doodles, sigils, and well-wishes — all headed for the crucible.

The horde of cracked and broken cymbals was secured, melted down, and forged anew into our own seven-tone-scaled custom instrument, unique to either Eastern or Western canon.

Even in the forging, wizardry was at work in the fusion of art and science.

A gamelan would ordinarily take a year or more to craft, but this ceremony wouldn’t wait that long.

The mathematical masterminds at the School of Mining were able to calculate the dimensions of the gongs and metallophones with preternatural precision — innovating on millennia of gong-making technology — and produce the percussion battery in a striking four months.

MEOW WOLF: THE SHOW THAT ALMOST WAS

Once the need, means, and vision for the show were clear, we began working with immersive entertainment titans Meow Wolf on a three night engagement at their new Denver location. We were all absolutely thrilled about returning to Meow Wolf, a venue many considered a “milk and cookies” meta-explosive-immersive experience.

We made our Meow Wolf debut at their flagship House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, where we rocked the house so hard that the late, truly great visionary Matt King intimated to us in one of our many ‘backstage’ areas immediately after the show that they had “built Fancy Town for itchy-O without knowing it.”

Months later, when we returned to perform our own annual flagship Hallowmass event, we were gratified to hear people still talking about how transformative the experience had proven. Even years later fans still reminisce about our performances within their walls — and outside in their parking lot. And when they opened the doors to Convergence Station in Denver last year, itchy-O was back inside, again rocking their exhibits from the Swamp to the Cathedral.

Once word was out that we were returning to play Meow Wolf again, the Āoth, swarmed into action, driving a strong wave of pre-ordered tickets.

Unfortunately, soon after announcing, we mutually recognized our technical requirements for Tetrapolar Ceremony were beyond the scope of the venue. As a mobile performance group, we had planned to integrate some of our set into the exhibit space as we had in the past. This was no longer feasible. Their sensitive 3-D mapping projectors would also limit our ability to implement some additional effects we had planned. We would have had to compromise, sacrificing much of the immersivity at the soul of the ceremonial performance, including the climactic conflagration of pyrotechnics in the parking lot, designed to send the gathering home with a literal bang.

It became apparent to us all that we would not be able to deliver a conventional itchy-O experience there, let alone the grand production we envisioned.

It was with a heavy heart that we wrestled with the reality that, sometimes maximalist “milk and cookies” require a bigger bowl. In a complete cold panic, we started searching for a venue better-equipped for the magnitude of the revelation we were so eager to unleash.

MYSTICAL MUDRAS FOR MASS IMMERSION

As if by miracle, the gods–along with Eric Perrit and Geoff Brent at Live Nation–were able to secure us one night at Colorado’s largest, most storied, and prestigious venue; the Fillmore Auditorium. But, because nothing about this gig could be easy, we found ourselves with only a one-month gap to refund tickets, move and overhaul the event.

The costly delay turned out to be a blessing since we were able to utilize those weeks to hone the show and refine the initiatory ceremonial homework we gave the Patreon supporters of the Āoth, to learn, perform, and meditate on in preparation for the show.

The preparatory guidance was designed to add a subjective psycho-physiological level to the ritual. The worksheet featured mystical hand seals which would anchor brain states and bring the audience even deeper into participation. During the performance the Āoth were prompted to activate the gestures in sync with the performers, thus contributing to our objective; a quantifiable increase in community well-being.

We were unsure how many would engage with the mudras, since the cues would be non-verbal and participation was voluntary. So finally seeing a sea of hundreds of strangers embracing the practice with zeal was a real “IT’S ALIVE!” moment.

THE DREAM VENUE

Unfortunately, the Fillmore’s legendary status came with a cost; a lack of time in the space. The popularity of the esteemed venue meant that we only had the day of the show to load in, set up for this massive production, tech, test, and go.

We are always eager to unleash our Zuesaphone, a keyboard-operated tesla coil that hovers over the space like a buzzing, crackling, semi-sentient, alien chandelier. All went smoothly in rehearsal, but when we rigged it up thirty feet above the floor of the Fillmore we saw some small out-of-place arcs and made the last-minute call to cut it. While it would have contributed much to the show’s overall effect, memorability and effectiveness, we maintain a low threshold where safety is concerned. Our aim is to uplift the audience, and it’s hard to do that if there’s a chance of someone getting hurt. The Horlwn, itchy-O’s choir of engineers, are working diligently to see that the coil is up and running for Hallowmass 2022 at the Summit in Denver on October 28th and 29th.

CONCLUSION: EVERYTHING I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED

Not only did Tetrapolar advance the playing field, but it also inspired us to delve even deeper into the spiritual territories at the interface of art and science.

Over the last few decades, we have watched concert culture degrade into an ineffectual parody of its transcendental potential. We consider it our mission to challenge unhealthy systems and fulfill our purpose; to restore the flame that is our shared human legacy and uplift by providing a soul-healing, boundary-breaking, mind-altering experience that only a live, immersive, epic event can deliver.

At base, itchy-O wants people to come away from our events more connected to themselves, our communities, and our common human legacy, pulsating with hope and joy so contagious that it can’t be contained.

If we had to boil this journey down to a simple lesson, the moral might be ‘do the work, then trust the universe.’ While we can’t say that the Tetrapolar Purification Ritual came off without a hitch, it certainly came off like magic.

Or, as another first-time itchy-O initiate put it as they exited the confetti-strewn Fillmore at night’s end, “Holy shit — I just experienced everything I didn’t know I needed.”

About itchy-O

Itchy-O is a 57-member strong and growing avant-garde music and performance collective based in Denver, Colorado. Noted for their intense, dense, delicately-layered, crowd-pleasing, immersive spectacles, the group consists of a drum-corps, taiko drummers, a gargantuan original gamalan-inspired percussion ensemble, pyrotechnics, giant puppets, an arsenal of electronics, and crowd-roving provocateurs dedicated to elevating performance by defying the limits of possibility.

Next up for itchy-O: the kick-off of Austin’s Fantastic Fest on Sep. 22nd and 23rd at Far Out. Hallowmass 2022 at the Summit in Denver on October 28th and 29th.

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