Journey Music for Psychedelic Playlists: Helios — Veriditas (2018)

In psychedelic healing work, music is a co-facilitator. The right sound can soften defenses, open emotional gates, or guide the psyche through states that words can’t reach. Music offers structure and sensory orientation, shaping how safety and surrender unfold. Mapping an album through frameworks like the Copenhagen Music Program (CMP) and Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs) helps facilitators and listeners understand where each piece might fit, turning an ambient record into a living map for transformation.

This series explores albums that function as companions for inner work—soundtracks that hold, mirror, and move with the listener through altered states. This is my only perspective, so preview the music before the flight.

Check out the album here: https://heliosmusic.bandcamp.com/album/veriditas

Keith Kenniff is a Canadian-American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer from Maine. He releases ambient and electronic music as Helios and post-classical piano works as Goldmund and has composed widely for film and TV. Since 2004, he has released about a dozen excellent albums. For more information, please visit Kenniff’s website: Unseen-music.com

Imagine a pop album distilled into ambient form, hooks reduced to texture, emotion carried by the shifting color of sound. Each track feels like a vignette or a short emotional film: cinematic, liminal, full of subtle dissonance and quiet resolve. The record navigates a range of emotions, from melancholy to hope, inviting the listener into its tactile warmth. Compared with other Helios releases, Veriditas leans lo‑fi and inward, balancing rich bass and airy guitars with the intimacy of piano lines that feel human and close in the room, creating an album that feels at once expansive and personal.

Listening to various ambient albums on shuffle, I kept hearing tracks that caught my interest. I looked at my phone and discovered it was Helios again. Veriditas kept showing up on my journey playlists until it became a stable companion, a record that followed me through writing, reading, and long stretches of reflection. Each time, it drew me in deeper, the kind of album that works, whether whispering in the background or surrounding me at full volume. At a low level, it feels minimal and relaxing; turned up, it wraps around me like a fog. The balance of piano and guitar drones is tender yet edged, evoking both melancholy and hopeful emotions.

Listening feels like stepping into a movie mid‑scene: liminal, dreamlike, always in the midst of a process of some sort. The songs are short, vivid sketches that carry emotional resonance without overstaying their welcome. Veriditas is more evocative than ambient wallpaper; it has presence, story, and soul. For psychedelic work, some of its tone feels especially at home after the peak, when the psyche begins to unfold in relief and integration. It’s music for comfort and movement, a sound that can cradle while still stirring. The brevity of each track makes it useful for session design too: gentle dissonance or a moment of texture can arise, then shift before it overwhelms. This is music that holds space, feels vulnerable, and is alive.

Why this album works for journeys

Veriditas creates immersive atmospheres that move and surround the listener. Some tracks evoke the sensation of being caught in a snowstorm, while others settle into warmth and stillness. The album’s motion and texture make it easy to feel held within its changing elements, as if each piece reshapes the air in the room. It’s evocative without being coercive, inviting emotion without prescribing meaning. Each short vignette supports the natural micro-arcs of a psychedelic journey, with human timbres—piano, guitar, and low-end resonance—that signal safety and authenticity. Its brevity is part of its power: every track offers a chance to lean into subtle intensity, then ease back before the moment overtakes you.

Playlist placement:

Below are my reflections on how each piece from Weeds aligns with the Copenhagen Music Program (CMP) and Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM) frameworks. The CMP follows an Ascent → Peak → Descent → Landing flow, mirroring the natural rhythm of a psychedelic experience. BPM is a map for emotional and physiological states, from the safety and openness of BPM I through the challenges and breakthroughs of BPM II–III, to the grounded renewal of BPM IV.

[see previous article on CMP and BPMs]

“Seeming” (Track: 1)
Ascent – Opening → Activation | BPM I → II (Oceanic Unity)
Feels like stepping into a lush, warm bath… eventually a touch of discordant guitar. Try including early in the session to ground and build trust while hinting at movement as one comes up on the medicine.

“Latest Lost” (2)
Ascent – Activation | BPM II (No Exit)
Subtle hooks and understated emotion; quietly propulsive and slightly dissonant. Supports emotional curiosity and gentle engagement as the journey unfolds.

“Dreams” (3)
Peak – Release / Transformation | BPM III (Propulsion)
Evocative and cinematic; one of the album’s most transportive pieces. Works beautifully mid-journey when imagery and emotion are expanding.

“Eventually” (4)
Descent – Integration / Late Peak | BPM III → IV (Struggle and Release)
Well-named, as it carries the sense of being in motion toward eventual catharsis. Ideal for turning points—when the experience shifts toward understanding or insight.

“Even Today” (5)
Peak → Release | BPM II → III (Cosmic Engulfment)
Opens with melody, then swells of guitar, abstract yet emotionally direct for moments of processing or cathartic emotional release.

“Harmonia” (6)
Peak – Explorative / Challenging | BPM II (No Exit)
Slightly eerie and textured. “A little spooky,” said my mind. Best used when the journeyer is resourced enough to explore shadow work or tension.

“Toward You” (8)
Bridge – Peak → Descent | BPM III → IV (Struggle and Release)
Humming and luminous, like entering a mechanical dreamspace. Or stumbling into a room of humming machines. Transitional track for reorienting energy after intensity.

“Upward Beside the Gate” (9)
Return – Landing | BPM IV (Resolution)
Acoustic guitar and nostalgic vibe, full of tender sweetness. Beautiful for late-session closure and heart-centered grounding.

“Row the Tide” (10)
Ascent – Activation or Descent – Integration | BPM II → III or IV (Cosmic Engulfment / Release)
Foggy, coastal atmosphere that feels both mysterious and cleansing. Versatile short bridge piece for pacing or emotional recalibration.

“Silver Light” (11)
Descent – Integration / Return – Landing | BPM IV (Resolution)
Slow and droning, with gorgeous restraint at only 3 minutes. A perfect closer as it settles the nervous system and restores quiet presence.

Closing take

Veriditas is a rare kind of masterpiece—an album that can loop all day without fatigue. It cradles at low volume and envelops when turned up, holding a balance of tenderness and quiet tension. For anyone curating music for journeys, these pieces fit naturally across phases of Ascent, Peak, Descent, and Landing. When handled with care, it becomes more than a soundtrack; it’s a companion that holds, mirrors, and moves with the listener through the experience, never fading entirely into the background.

Looking ahead

This review opens a continuing series on music that shapes the inner landscape of psychedelic work. Each album in the series invites the listener to explore how sound functions as an emotional guide, nervous system regulator, and vessel for meaning.

Next, we turn to James Murray’s Weeds, a record that carries this exploration into quieter territory. Where Veriditas moves with cinematic warmth and melodic motion, Weeds breathes through stillness—an ambient study in patience and presence. Its six tracks, each named for a humble plant, unfold with a sense of reverence for the unnoticed. Murray’s music feels organic, almost alive, offering the kind of subtle, steady beauty that can hold space for introspection and renewal.