ātamōn by Amina Hocine

With simple materials found in hardware stores—such as PVC pipes, water hoses, and ball valves—powered by a construction site air compressor, mesmerizing drones emerge, challenging our expectations of the material.

Originally inspired by foghorns and sirens, Amina set out to gain control over these sounds by building a foghorn organ. However, what emerged from this experiment was something far beyond foghorns: a hauntingly electronic-sounding acoustic instrument, spreading frequencies like lasers, which Amina has come to call her sound crystals. These sound crystals translate surprisingly well to recording and are best enjoyed through speakers.

Originally conceived during a residency at Skogen in Gothenburg, ātamōn is the result of a personal and spiritual exploration. Drawing from years of conversations with a spiritual advisor and therapeutic work on inner archetypes, Amina transforms composition into a tool for self-inquiry. The piece centers around a deconstructed version of the foghorn organ, with eight pipes placed throughout the room—each representing a distinct psychological archetype, such as The Safe Place, Hyperarousal, or Original Face.

The title ātamōn, derived from Old High German meaning “to breathe,” reflects the instrument as a living, communicating organism. With pipes instead of actors and sound in place of speech, the composition unfolds like a wordless theatre, where frequencies act out the tensions, longings, and contradictions of human experience.

Recorded later in the vast, reverberant space of Spelhuset at Ställbergs gruva—an out-of-use iron mine in rural Sweden—ātamōn becomes a sonic ritual: an encounter between body, resonance, and the infinite. The space itself, once housing the massive wheels for the mine's elevator, amplifies the work, as each sound lingers, refracts, and folds back into itself.

In ātamōn I, we hear the play unfolding as the different parts communicate and test each other. Each archetype believes it serves a purpose, even when its effect is painful. The work gives these parts space to speak, ultimately bringing them into harmony—not to villainize them, but to listen.

In ātamōn II, the space itself speaks with the instrument. Moving through the sound field with microphones, Amina activates the acoustic properties of the old chamber. Each gesture becomes an invitation for the mine to respond, as the sound draws from the resonance of the place.

The result is drone-based music where sonic textures emerge slowly, yet are punctuated by moments of sudden intensity—alarm-like signals and interlocking polyrhythms that pierce through the density like flashes of insight. Elsewhere, the sound becomes vast and oceanic, inviting the listener to drift through a continuously shifting field of resonance.

Informed by inner inquiry, symbolic systems, spiritual science, and the re-enchantment of sound, ātamōn constructs a delicate architecture of vibration—a memory not of events, but of presence. Rather than telling a story, the work opens a space for listening, sensing, and transformation.

Alongside the release, a book by Amina Hocine and Jennifer Lucy Allan further extends the work in text, mapping its inner contours and sonic logic.

aminahocine.com
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