BEN NEILL RELEASES “NATURE LOVES COURAGE” — A TRIBUTE TO TERENCE MCKENNA
Out November 21, 2025

Composer, performer, and Mutantrumpet inventor Ben Neill announces the release of Nature Loves Courage, a new work inspired by visionary thinker Terence McKenna. The title comes from words McKenna inscribed in Neill’s copy of one of his books in 1999 — a message that has echoed through Neill’s life and art ever since.

The piece opens as an ambient soundscape that gradually evolves into an insistent, pulsating rhythm, embodying McKenna’s message that nature rewards boldness and transformation. The rhythmic energy becomes a metaphor for emergence — courage as motion, pattern, and growth.

Nature Loves Courage is composed entirely from live-sampled Mutantrumpet sounds; no synthesizers or tone generators were used. The melodic material originated from software that translates letters into musical tones — the phrase “nature loves courage” itself generated the melodies. These were developed using fractal numerical structures and a rhythm based on the Fibonacci series, reflecting the natural geometries that McKenna so often celebrated.

The release also completes a creative circle for Neill, who had been planning a multimedia collaboration with McKenna based on The Invisible Landscape before McKenna’s death in 2000. The philosopher’s ideas feature prominently in Neill’s 2024 book Diffusing Music. Having previously collaborated with McKenna’s close colleagues Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abraham, Neill sees this work as the final link connecting all three thinkers who profoundly shaped his creative vision.