Hot on the ankles of their recent watery-based installation soundtrack we have another sound-art extravaganza from Martyn Ware and Charles Stooke, calling themselves Illustrious (which also happens to be the name of Ware’s company which he co-founded with Vince Clarke). The item Mesmerine 111 ™ (COLD SPRING CSR357CD) arrives as a two-disc set and is an exercise in 3D spatial audio.
Whereas It’s Always Ourselves We Find in the Sea was themed on stories and ideas about the ocean, Mesmerine 111 ™ is about hypnosis, aiming to put the listener in a trance. Well, it seems there’s some correlation between human trance states and the 111Hz frequency, a fact which (according to the press notes) has been “scientifically proven” through studies of MRI scans; some go further and speculate that this frequency is also associated with ancient temples, burial sites, and other ceremonial situations where a trance state is desirable. No evidence given as to how this is proven, or provable. Still others from the New Age school of thought make claims that the 111Hz frequency can be used for its healing properties. I suppose it’s this last claim that intrigues our Illustrious fellows, as the record is packaged like a drug. Its makers allude to the “use of sound as pharmacology”, and instead of playing two CDs, the listener is prescribed two separate “doses” of this medicine. Even the title is part of the conceit – Mesmerine 111 ™ is the name of a fictional drug.
Spiritualized did a far better job of this with Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space as far back as 1997; Farrow Design worked hard to align the package with the idea that listening to the music was like enjoying the effects of a recreational drug. I suppose Illustrious would like to think they are attempting something slightly more ambitious, but apart from the superficial hints about trance states and audio frequencies, there isn’t much more substance on offer, either musically or intellectually. Unlike Gysin’s Dreammachine proposal, we are not promised any hallucinations or insights into unknown areas of the brain, or creative liberation of thought. Tony Conrad would be another important figure from 20th century art who could tell us a thing or two about frequencies – he understood their powers in his music, and his experimental films, such as The Flicker which played radical tricks on the brain with its disruptive visual frequencies. Mesmerine 111 ™ by contrast is simply an hour of slow and torpid ambient drone. The second disc is, I think, another mix of the same content, but with added voice elements by Charles Stooke, where a dispassionate voice lectures the listener with a smattering of pseudo-science and mystical utterances such as “become a deity in your own universe”.
Not an unpleasant listen; perhaps one needs to experience it in situ, like when it was premiered at the Focus art fair in New York in 2025 presumably with a suitably powerful PA. But I wish the creators had put more effort into making more effective mesmerising tones; instead it seems more work has gone into the packaging, contextualising, and peripheral data, as if to say “It’s hypnotic because we’re telling you it is.” (29/09/2025)