I Recorded An Album Inside Notre-Dame And Am Donating The Proceeds To Help Survivors Wounded By Religious Authorities.

Eleven years ago I found myself inside the Notre-Dame cathedral for the first time while in Paris, France performing at small clubs with a band I was in. While sitting there quietly reflecting on this monolithic structure, I felt an overwhelming sense of awe and was genuinely affected by the incredible architecture, sprawling history, haunting atmosphere and strange sounds I was hearing. Choir voices and the great pipe organ echoed off of the massive stone walls. I take plenty of pictures when I travel, but I also love to take "audio snapshots" whenever possible as sound captures a whole other world we just can't convey in photos. I took out my handheld recorder and captured what I was hearing.

On April 15, 2019 as the flames overtook "Our Lady of Paris" I watched on in dismay with much of the world. Saddened by the thought of potentially losing this 850-year-old monument, including all the history and relics it housed, I mourned the loss.

But then my thoughts turned to other losses. Buried losses. Lives lost to religious wars. The horrors of the Inquisition. Indigenous peoples killed and stripped of their culture, lands, and dignity in the name of God. Children abused by those in places of spiritual power. I realized these losses are much greater than a stone building. Being raised Roman Catholic, I felt the internal conflicts churning inside me...familiar and uncomfortable feelings. The contradiction I too often witnessed between "preach" and "practice what you preach."

Just as a photographer might do in Photoshop or a painter might do with her brush, on April 15th I took these sounds, this raw material I gathered from inside this iconic structure, and reimagined them...specifically, what they might sound like at that moment when the very building they were coming from was being consumed by flames. I fed the audio through an analog tape delay machine seven times. The sound morphing and evolving with each succession. Sections from each pass were then spliced together forming the full length of the piece. The full track was then fed through the tape machine three more times to add hand manipulated echo and ambiance. Finally, the entire piece was stretched to 4 times its original length slowing down time much like our perception in emergency situations.

As millions of dollars quickly rolled in from wealthy businessmen and religious devotees I pondered the disparity in the distribution of assistance to those in need. Big dollar gifts to famous landmarks make for high profile news. Helping the nameless who struggle on a daily basis to recover from institutional abuse is what Jesus would have done with those dollars...or so I was taught to believe.

This album has become the second ambient/experimental music release from Chrystal Für. I am donating all the money collected through Bandcamp from the sale of this album to SNAP who is the largest, oldest and most active worldwide support group for women and men wounded by religious and institutional authorities.

More info: chrystalfur.bandcamp.com