Arjan Miranda
Portland mystical composer Arjan Miranda shares a visualization for the supernatural awakening title track featured off Miranda’s album Spiritual America released recently over the summer via the artist’s imprint The Wild Unknown Records. An album dedicated to the restless mystic within us all, the album confronts the realities of the material world with a fervent hope of renewal to create a nirvana on earth now. With visual cover & video artwork conveived/created by Miranda’s creative partner/spouse Kim Krans, a host of intuitive epiphanies span the record’s cycles of “Endlessly”, “The Leaves”, “Golden Hair”, “Poltergeist”, “Fire & Ice”, where elemental assemblages of tones & calming cadences indicate an ever shifting evolution of worlds & wondrous atmospheres that ponder a wandering stream of thought.
The full creation/adaptation of Arjan Miranda’s “Spiritual America” materializes in fully realized form created by one mass incredible undertaking. Featuring the artwork by Kim Krans, Stacey Rozich, Elena Stonaker, Lori Damiano combined with animation provided by Dave Kiehl, Luis Mayorga, Matt Butler, Sunmin Park, Katie Schade; the symbols & characters from the outer & under realms are brought to life. Featuring edited by Carl D. Schumacher, cinematography courtesy of Travis Auclair exhibited under the auspices of Sam Macon’s direction—everyone in concert offers a wild take on illustrations inspired by the life & death continuum carried out by artists-as-specters are brought to life like something beyond sci-fi veneer that strikes at the savage heart of American spirituality in the modern age. The electro symphony thrusts the throttle into the red RPMS as we see our artist quartet transformed into actual ghosts that float about their former haunts of what has become a post-apocalyptic wasteland of scorched earth. Transcending the grave & the mortal limitations of the flesh; our ghost quad squad makes a rich mandala that completes the spinning cycles of life, antagonists, angels, demons & cryptic things that extend our limited knowledge of existences outside our experience within the mortal coil. Arjan Miranda penned the following exclusive insights about the conceptual aesthetics at work behind the audio/visual curations:
When I was a teenager I was obsessed with proto-metal, psychedelia and epicness if only my fifteen year old self could have seen this music video. “Spiritual America” is an honest seeking of something better than society has to offer, better than the government. It is about approaching the esoteric and utopian with an honest, open and skeptical mind. I have visualized purple light descending from space with the Aetherius Society in Los Angeles, I’ve walked on fire while chanting yes with Tony Robbins and 14,000 people in a parking lot in Jersey. I have personally found radical transformation existing in the fringes of American Culture and it is weird, scary and awesome.
This video was conceived and art directed by my wife Kim Krans. Upon exploring the theme of apocalypse to transcendence, we thought it would be so badass to have it drawn by women. With Elena Stonaker, Lori Damiano, and Stacey Rozich, she became a ghost. The mandala was drawn and filmed over two days in February and now hangs in our Portland, Oregon metaphysical shop. A fold out poster is included in the limited edition vinyl. Visit us [via The Wild Unknown]!
Arjan Miranda’s debut album Spiritual Unknown is available now via The Wild Unknown Records.
