Constance Demby - New Sounds for the New Age

Extravagant, impetuous, elusive: Constance Demby's music is a mirror of its creator. A daughter of the sixties who craved uncharted languages and hungered for a spirituality that wouldn't be shackled by any Creed, the American composer, born in 1939, is unanimously regarded, alongside colleagues Steven Halpern and Iasos, as the foremost representative of so-called new age music.

While her milestone remains that 200,000-selling "Novus Magnificat" (1986), which much of the specialist press still ranks today among the genre's essential albums, it's her lesser-known releases that truly reveal her greatness. Take her debut "Skies Above Skies" ('78), which theorizes a mysticism that reduces the listener to tears of joy; or "Sacred Spaced Music" ('81), where the dulcimer is reinvented for a use that is simply otherworldly (just listen to the 36 minutes of "The Longing"); or her final studio effort, 2011's "Ambrosial Waves", which confirmed her vision even within the ambient realm.

An inventor of musical instruments for Higher Powers, a guru to thousands of fans who trustingly look to music for a less bitter life, Demby remains an eclectic, unresolvable figure, poised between an impulse toward Truth and a naive drift. Her legacy? A body of work faithful to humanity's irrational impulse toward transcendence, an invisible force she sought to make manifest through sounds arriving from some mysterious elsewhere.

N.B. The following interview, dated 2017, has remained unpublished until today; Demby did not answer two of the questions I considered most significant for unlocking the meaning of her aesthetic, so I chose to shelve the piece rather than publish it. The composer's death, on March 20, 2021, broke down my resolve, so that today readers can freely form their own opinion through her answers, terse and direct, given in reference to herself using the first person plural.

Constance, what makes you happy?

Generally, we tend to dwell in a calm state, one of peace and tranquility. If something disrupts that balance, we deal with it, and then return to the initial stillness.

The need to arrive at new sounds to manifest your visions led you to invent the Space Bass.

As a musician and composer, but also as a painter and sculptor, experimentation has always been our focal point. At the time we were working on a stainless steel sculpture; we were on the verge of cutting a sheet of metal, but its accidental rippling produced a sound so powerful and wonderful that we stopped. And that's how the Sonic Steel Space Bass was born, which some have nicknamed a "transdimensional communication device".

Technically speaking, what is it exactly?

It's a mirror-finished stainless steel sheet about 10 feet long, to which steel and brass rods are attached, reaching a range of 5 octaves. These rods can be used in various ways, struck or bowed, to produce series of overlapping harmonics, just as the sheet metal itself can yield different kinds of effects. The Space Bass emits deep, primordial resonances with such archetypal implications that they invariably put the listener into an altered perceptual state. An acoustics specialist once calculated that the sound waves of the Space Bass's lowest notes reach a wavelength of approximately 30 feet.

Where has it found its best use?

It's the main instrument on "Sonic Immersion", a 2004 album where sound serves a therapeutic function and where the seven chakras are worked on with penetrating subsonic frequencies, a work responsible for some impressive healings.

The work you're best known for is "Novus Magnificat", one of the most complex albums new age has ever produced.

The first thing we came up with was the main theme, a simple descending minor triad. From that moment on, we were wrapped in a constant stream of inspiration; it was as if an enormous channel had opened up, carrying music down to us from the Higher Realms. An extraordinary experience that would later become our best-selling and most award-winning album.

What do you think of Steven Halpern's healing music?

We believe that certain specialized critics consider Halpern, Demby and Iasos to be the originators of new age music.

If I'm not mistaken, you actually run "healing" courses through music.

These workshops are a "journey" through the chakras using, precisely, the frequencies of the Space Bass — occasions where many people have experienced extraordinary healing experiences. On our official website, these sessions are described as "a therapeutic immersion that cleanses, heals and restores balance, using subsonic frequencies, colors, lights and the power of Intention."

Where do you stand on music tuned to A=432 Hz?

An intriguing question we should look into further. But we have to admit that, so far, whenever we've listened to music at 432 Hz, we haven't noticed anything significant in our perceptions.

Analog gear versus digital gear: does the battle make sense?

It's just one of the topics most hotly debated right now in the world of music, but also in film and the media in general.

Are there spiritual guides present in your life?

Sant Ajaib Singh Ji, a truly enlightened Indian master, initiated us into the practice of Sant Mat, the yoga of Light and Sound ("Surat Shabd Yoga"). The frequencies and energy that came from that initiation opened our inner ear to the sound current in which everything flows, and from then on, music began pouring into us in a completely different way than before. Surat Shabd Yoga can be translated as "Union of the Soul with the Essence of the Supreme Being," but it also means "Journey of the Soul" or "Yoga of the flowing sound." The Sanskrit term "Shabda" indeed has multiple meanings: "sacred song," "word," "voice," "hymn," "flowing sound," "the audible stream of Life."

Another significant experience in your artistic journey was the one with Central Maine Power Music Company.

The group of artists that made up the CMPMC took their multimedia show all along the East Coast in the early 1970s. For those who took part in it, it was an important experience that, once it came to an end, spurred us on to keep going in the world of music.

You play the dulcimer in a truly distinctive way.

We fell in love with it through a friend of ours, the musician Dorothy Carter, who had a hammered dulcimer. The one we play was designed and customized according to some of our own specifications, above all the addition of the bass strings, which make it a much larger model than the traditional one. It's an instrument that has already been present in various countries of the Near East for about 5,000 years; its name comes from Latin and Greek: "dulce" and "melos," meaning, precisely, a "sweet melody."

With the massive spread of synths in the 1980s, did any composers emerge that you're passionate about?

Let's say rather that, when the synthesizer was born, it gave many musicians the chance to discover a completely new way of composing. On top of that, it was also, as a consequence, a turning point for the music industry.

Your first synth?

The one we used to play "Novus Magnificat", namely the Emulator II, one of the first to allow the import and digital sampling of symphonic instrument sounds, choirs and other effects, all controllable directly from the keyboard.

Does commercial music intrigue you?

We don't normally listen to it. But since it's present in practically every film at the cinema, every TV programme and every radio broadcast, well, let's say no one is exempt from hearing it.

Any new music on the horizon?

Our label, Valley Entertainment, will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of "Novus Magnificat" in July with the release of a remastered, two-CD edition. So alongside the original album, there will be bonus live versions.

Most of your tracks are characterised by long running times. What's the reason?

We never plan out our tracks, they're channelled through us, and so each one has a length we're not personally responsible for. Once we begin the composing process, we surrender to inspiration, and it's as if the music creates itself, so its length will be determined by whatever is being channelled in that moment

When you compose, do you think about the audience?

Neither when we compose, nor when we perform.

The future of the music industry?

Partly thanks to the evolving situation you're asking about, we'll increasingly discover how everything is, ultimately, part of a transitory process.

Just one topical question: the new president, Trump?

A dangerous man, whose ideas we do not share.

What's the most extraordinary aspect of being an artist?

Being a creative person is one of the greatest blessings that can happen to anyone. When an artist manages to immerse themselves totally in the creative process for long stretches of time, they are enjoying a priceless gift. There is nothing we know of, on this planet, that surpasses a condition like that.

Ride the wave of great music

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