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My ambient interpretation of Across the Universe reimagines the Lennon & McCartney classic as a radiant, slow-moving soundscape. The track is a recording of a single take performance on my Mutantrumpet and live electronics which unfolds with a meditative flow. The recording incorporates low-frequency electromagnetic tones captured in space by the Voyager spacecraft, blurring the boundary between inner reflection and outer cosmos. The Mutantrumpet’s elongated melody morphs and emerges from this cosmic backdrop, as if it were echoing back to Earth from outer space. The resulting ambient textures evoke a distant presence born from breath, but extending to infinity.
I was inspired to revisit the song after seeing Deva Premal at Town Hall in New York City. Premal performs versions of Hindu chants accompanied with Western instrumental backgrounds. At first, I found the music overly simplistic and was somewhat dismissive. But as the evening progressed, I was struck by the way the audience engaged with the performance in a deeply focused way. After the concert, I kept thinking about it and began challenging myself to create something as simple as possible—maybe stripped down to a single melody. It reminded me of something my creative mentor Jon Hassell told me when I first met him: “You’re a sculptor, chipping away at the stone. You think there’s nothing left to remove, but then you come back the next day and see you can still take more away.” His view of creativity as a subtractive process stayed with me. It all made me decide to revisit a version of “Across the Universe” I had performed 4 years ago.
I first created my version of “Across the Universe” in 2021 for a benefit concert for Teen Cancer America at the Cutting Room in New York City that focused on the Beatles’ music. Prior to the event, I had been immersed in my Trove project, recording and releasing two pure ambient Mutantrumpet pieces each week for a year. My approach to “Across the Universe” was colored by that simple approach in which the only sounds used are from the Mutantrumpet itself. A few weeks ago, I returned to the track and recorded a new version.
Some research about the song revealed that Lennon’s spiritual inspiration for it was drawn from his engagement with Transcendental Meditation, thus the inclusion of a Sanskrit mantra, which connected it with the experience I had with Deva Premal. In recording it, I also drew on my studies of Indian music with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and Pandit Pran Nath, and my recent performances of Indian music blended with blues in Young’s Theater of Eternal Music Ensemble.
The song also feels deeply connected to the moment we are living in. Given Lennon’s outspoken activism during the Vietnam War and his commitment to progressive causes, I find myself wondering what he would be doing if he were here today, as the United States edges closer toward authoritarian rule every day. The idea of this song descending to Earth from space, carrying a message that is both beautiful and grim—”nothing’s gonna change my world”—feels hauntingly apt for this time.
After recording the piece, I began experimenting with vocal treatments. I had found an a cappella version of Lennon’s vocal online and began stretching it into a textural layer, similar to what I had done with Rupert Sheldrake’s voice in Morphic Resonance. The vocal timbre and phrasing that emerge through the time-stretching are reminiscent of chanting, subtly echoing the spirit of the mantra-like section “Jai guru deva” in the original song. Not wanting to sample Lennon directly, I recorded myself singing the part, replaced my vocal with a stock AI voice, and then applied the same extreme time-stretching. The result is microtonal glissandi that magnify a few vocal gestures, appearing later in the track as a ghostly, wordless presence.
