Ben Neill’s new album Amalgam Sphere explores the fusion of musical creativity, technology, and collaboration. Each track emerges from the interaction of human performance and digital processes, with Neill’s Mutantrumpet® at the center of the work. Together, these elements create music that blends rich ambient textures, transformed vocal material, and evolving rhythmic structures, all shaped and controlled live through Neill’s invented instrument.
Collaboration is central to Amalgam Sphere, both conceptually and sonically. The album opens and closes with two versions of “Morphic Resonance,” created with British psychedelic philosopher and evolutionary biologist Rupert Sheldrake. “Nefasphere” is a collaboration with Ethiopian producer Mikael Seifu, a former student of Neill’s at Ramapo College; “Nature Loves Courage” is based on the words of psychedelic pioneer and author Terence McKenna, with whom Neill worked on an unfinished multimedia project, and “Free Runner” was created with French visual artist/writer Chrystel Egal for her short film of the same name. The album resonates with themes from Neill’s recently published book Diffusing Music, addressing the importance of collaboration in today’s context of superabundant music.
In the Sheldrake and McKenna tracks, their words are transformed into music through a custom software application that maps letters to musical notes, generating shifting harmonic structures from the Mutantrumpet’s live sampled sounds. “Morphic Resonance” includes the voice of Sheldrake himself, drawn from a lecture and transformed into an otherworldly, electronic tenor. “Breaking Point” uses voice samples from Apocalypse Now to address the current political crisis in the US. AI-based programs help to shape intricate grooves throughout the album, further blurring the boundaries between human and machine creativity.
In live performances of Amalgam Sphere, Neill expands the work into a visual dimension, triggering and manipulating interactive video of spherical forms created in collaboration with chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, digital artist Carl van Brunt, and Chrystel Egal.
Echoing themes from Neill’s recent book Diffusing Music, Amalgam Sphere reflects on artistic creation in an era of musical superabundance, emphasizing collaboration as both method and meaning. Through its balance of atmospheric depth, rhythmic momentum, and interconnected voices, the album invites listeners into a sonic world that continues to reveal new details with each encounter.