In the booklet notes of an album that I'm not broadcasting today, David Hykes writes: "I have had just one real aim: to seek out a true, symbolic musical language, simple and universal, which could express the quest for contact with a level of being higher than oneself." This language "[emanates] from this most basic music universal – the harmonic series – present in all vocal or instrumental sound."

(Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku says "the universe is a symphony of vibrating strings." How plausible is this analogy? Do vibrating cosmic strings behave in a manner akin to vibrating catgut?)

You can orient yourselves for contact with that higher realm in various ways, Listeners: physiologically, cognitively, spiritually... not in some hokey, New Age sense, but in what the Germans call Geistesentwicklung (lit. "spirit development"), usually translated less punchily as "development of mental faculties."

Tune in for the same this Wednesday from 8-11am CT on 101.5 in Winnipeg, http://www.umfm.com/ in the stream. You don't want to suffer from Geistesentwicklungslosigkeitsgefahr, do you?

Set #1 - 8:00am - 10:00am

1. Richard Burdick: Waves (2010)

Richard Burdick - French horn

I Ching Music, CD 28

38:39

(A warning: "This music is tuned very carefully, but it is not tuned to the equal temperament that we so often hear." Richard Burdick composes with microtonal scales based on the 64 harmonics in the seventh octave above the fundamental. He writes: "I believe this to be an important tool to aid in our evolution; waking the brain to new sound waves." Played here on six horns overlayed.)

2. Udo Kasemets: Timetrip to Big Bang, Big Bang & Back (1990-93)

Adele Armin - RAAD electric violin, Chris Devonshire - electronics, Susan Layard - voice, Marc Sabat - ZETA electric violin, Rick Sacks - percussion

Artifact Music, ART 010

77:19

(I once gave Udo Kasemets a bad review which is probably still online. A "musical-poetic mapping of some of the phases of the evolutionary process set into motion by the Big Bang" — a grand music of the spheres.)

Set #2 - 10:00am - 11:00am

3. Howard Bashaw: Seven Spheres (1996, rev. 1998)

The Saint Crispin's Chamber Ensemble: Don Ross - conductor, Martin Riseley - violin, Colin Ryan - cello, Allison Storochuk - clarinet, David Quinn, - bass clarinet, Russell Whitehead - trumpet, Trevor Brandenburg - percussion, Roger Admiral - piano

Arktos Recordings, 2039/40 CD

19:34

("Each movement of Seven Spheres is an adventure in the organization of musical time." Movements bear phantasmagoric titles: "Tempo Collage: Scalar Wisps & the Five Unisons" and "Celestarium: The Coruscate Prism" among others.)

4. Alex Shapiro: Chakra Suite (2005)

Thakur Chakrapani Singh - veena, Mr. Jitendra - tabla, Alex Shapiro - guitar & electronics

Activist Music, download

10:38

(East-meets-West collaboration.)

Where to buy CDs featured on today's show:

Rick Burdick - CDBaby

Udo Kasemets - Canadian Music Centre

Howard Bashaw - Canadian Music Centre

Alex Shapiro - Activist Music