"I know this optimism gives me power," declares a voice at the beginning of Hopeless Optimist, the April 2022 single from James Collector. The quote and the music itself evoke not only the power of positivity, but also the necessity of radical self-belief in the face of pessimism. Collector created the track in 2014 while living in Auroville, the world's largest ecovillage in Tamil Nadu, India. The field recordings feature one-of-a-kind resonant chimes from Svaram (
svaram.org), a sound healing and musical research community based in the ecovillage. Eight years later in 2022, as the world reels from the pandemic, climate change, and threats of war, the power and necessity of optimism cannot be understated.
released April 2, 2022