please continue

Program Notes

please continue seeks to examine the relationship between psychedelics and American culture. By setting trip reports from the 1890s to the 1920s, the piece decentralizes the narrative that these substances were the products of 1960s counterculture – they’ve been with us as a species for much longer than even the texts I’ve selected can attest. With the setting of a quote by John Ehrlichman, Richard Nixon’s policy advisor, the piece illuminates the pure politics that led the United States to pursue the War on Drugs, disenfranchising entire communities and contributing to the highest per capita imprisonment rate in the world. please continue draws further parallels between today’s blind and unguided continuance of the War on Drugs and the Milgram Experiment, which showcased how humans are willing to go against their conscience, to the point of harm, in order to appease authority figures. Drug laws need to be recalibrated towards rehabilitation rather than punishment – people must receive the benefit of the doubt, not institutions. The electronics used in the interludes of please continue are taken directly from presidential speeches from the Nixon administration to 2020. please continue is written for and dedicated to Anika Kildegaard and Will Yager of LIGAMENT.

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