Journey Music for Psychedelic Healing Playlists: Laura Cannell — The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined (2024)
The first notes of The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined enter the room like the opening of a ritual space. A single breath of recorder echoes through the stone acoustics. Loops gather slowly, circling back on themselves. The music does not rush forward. It waits, holding space.
In psychedelic healing work, music often shapes the emotional field and opens imaginal space. Some albums do this through orchestral sweep or dense sonic architecture. Others create transformation through restraint. Laura Cannell’s The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined belongs firmly in the second category.
This Journey Music series explores albums that function as companions for inner work, especially for neurodivergent listeners. These reflections come from my listening, so preview the music yourself before your flight.
I came to this album without prior knowledge of Cannell’s catalog, and that sense of not knowing became part of my listening experience. The novelty opened a space and waited to see how I would enter.
Album available here: https://brawlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-rituals-of-hildegard-reimagined
Artist and Album Overview
Laura Cannell is an English composer and multi‑instrumentalist whose work dissolves boundaries between early music, folk traditions, and experimental minimalism. She is known for using recorders, violins, and historical or unconventional tunings, often recording in resonant spaces such as rural churches. Her music frequently feels improvised, exposed, and intimate, less concerned with polish than with presence.
Released in 2024, The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined consists of twelve improvised pieces recorded in single takes inside St Andrew’s Church in Norfolk, England. Cannell worked primarily with bass recorders and medieval‑inspired string instruments, processed lightly with looping and delay. The album reimagines themes associated with Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th‑century mystic, composer, and visionary whose writings describe luminous encounters with a living, breathing cosmos.
Hildegard’s music was never merely decorative. Her chants were expressions of what she called viriditas, the intrinsic ability of living beings to heal. Cannell approaches that legacy from a contemporary angle, translating medieval melodic fragments into looping, breath‑driven soundscapes that feel at once ancient and newly imagined. A living and breathing sound.
What emerges is neither historical recreation nor parody. The processing of archaic instruments places these ancient timbres firmly in the present moment. At times, the music feels centuries old. At other moments, the looping makes its modernity unmistakable. The tension between those temporal layers becomes one of the album’s quiet strengths, evoking Kairos, the archetype of timelessness.
Many neurodivergent listeners could appreciate Cannell’s passionate study of medieval history and thoughtful use of traditional instruments.
Listening Impressions and Journey Qualities
The first thing that stands out is how much space this album creates. The instrumentation is sparse and breath‑driven, especially the recorder passages, which rarely fill the entire frequency spectrum. For psychedelic work, that restraint can be helpful. Sensations, imagery, and emotional material have room to arise without competing with the music's density.
Another striking element is the acoustic environment itself. Because the album was recorded inside a medieval stone church, the architecture becomes part of the instrument. Notes bloom outward and linger against stone walls. Breath noise from the recorder floats in the air before dissolving into reverberation. Listening on headphones can feel almost tactile, as if the listener has stepped quietly into a sacred sanctuary where the music is still unfolding.
Much of the album is flute‑forward, looping and repetitive in a way that feels hypnotic rather than insistent. "See the Moon and the Stars" exemplifies this quality. The flute gently nudges the perceptual field as effects begin to rise, opening visual imagination without pushing intensity. The piece feels accessible and flexible, suitable for a wide range of listeners and potentially different medicines.
A subtle shift occurs when the album moves into textural twelve-string medieval harp, as on "Earthly Music." These pieces introduce a metallic shimmer that can evoke ancestral or spiritual imagery. They also carry a faintly uncanny edge. Some listeners may experience this quality as ceremonial or mystical, while others might interpret it as eerie. Intentional placement within a playlist becomes important here.
Several pieces feel less like destinations and more like openings or invocations. I kept returning to the word initiation while listening. These tracks seem to mark the threshold between ordinary perception and imaginal space.
After extended listening, the recurring recorder timbre can blur together slightly when heard straight through. For journey playlists, I would likely draw selectively from the album, with individual tracks spaced throughout. The songs may work beautifully as recurring motifs, threads of sound that return, reminding the listener of the journey’s atmosphere.
Why This Album Works for Psychedelic Journeys
The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined offers atmosphere without coercion. The music is minimal, engrossing, and quietly hypnotic, creating an environment rather than a strong narrative. The looping structures support altered states without overwhelming them.
Ancient timbres filtered through contemporary processing may evoke ceremony, mythic time, or ancestral memory. In facilitated settings, this quality can encourage imaginal exploration without dictating emotional direction.
This is not background music. It has presence and asks to be met. When placed thoughtfully, these pieces can help open a container, support symbolic exploration, or provide reflective pauses between more intense musical passages.
A single recorder line echoing through a stone room can sometimes feel like stepping into another century of consciousness.
Playlist Placement and Track Reflections
Below are reflections on how selected pieces from The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined might align with the Copenhagen Music Program (CMP) and Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM). The CMP follows an Ascent → Peak → Descent → Landing flow, while BPM describes the inner terrain moving beneath that arc.
[see previous article on CMP and BPMs]
"The Cosmic Spheres of Being Human" (Track 1)
Ascent – Opening | BPM I (Oceanic Bliss)
Spiraling bass recorder lines with delay create a snake‑charmer quality that flickers and dissolves. Ceremonial and grounding, well-suited for signaling entry into a sacred container.
"See the Moon and the Stars" (Track 2)
Ascent – Activation | BPM I → II (Oceanic Unity)
Hypnotic looping flute with a gentle pulse. Opens visual imagination as effects begin to rise without forcing intensity.
"Earthly Music" (Track 3)
Peak – Challenging | BPM II (No Exit)
Metallic medieval harp textures shimmer through delay. Evocative and slightly uncanny. Best used with care, particularly for listeners sensitive to eerie tonalities.
"O Ignee Spiritus" (Track 4)
Flexible Placement / BPM I (Oceanic Bliss) / BPM IV (Resolution)
Breath‑like looping flute phrases that feel meditative and spacious. Works as an opening invocation, mid‑journey pause, or descent bridge.
"The Rituals of Hildegard" (Track 5)
Peak – Processing | BPM II → III (Struggle to Release)
Long whirring recorder loops create a strange narrative‑like soundscape that may stimulate symbolic imagery or inner storytelling.
"Flying North" (Track 6)
Flexible Placement / Transitional
Light flowing recorder phrases. Effective as a recurring anchor throughout a playlist.
"O Mater Omnis Gaudii" (Track 7)
Ascent – Opening | BPM I (Oceanic Bliss)
Slower flute phrases with spacious pacing. Feels ceremonial, like the lighting of a candle at the beginning of a ritual.
"A Feather on the Breath" (Track 8)
Ascent – Activation | BPM II (No Exit)
Harp textures and wind‑like drones evolve into playful rhythmic movement. Trance‑inducing and immersive.
"Everything Is Hidden in You" (Track 10)
Descent – Integration | BPM III → IV (Release and Resolution)
Delayed harp textures with warmth and shimmer. A strong candidate for reflective late‑journey phases.
"A Lost Nightingale" (Track 12)
Landing – Reorientation | BPM IV (Resolution)
Lyrical flute loops that feel like a benediction. A natural closing tone for a playlist.
Best Uses in Journey Playlists
Particularly well suited for:
ceremonial openings
imaginal or visionary work
early ascent phases
transitional pauses between emotionally intense pieces
Less ideal for:
peak phases requiring strong emotional momentum
listeners who prefer dense harmonic layering
Closing Take
The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined feels like listening in on a ceremony that exists slightly outside ordinary time. The music does not rush to guide the listener or decorate the space. It simply opens a field and lets attention settle.
For facilitators and journeyers drawn to ritual atmosphere, minimalism, and ancient timbres filtered through contemporary experimentation, Laura Cannell’s work offers rich textures to guide journeyers.