5-HT2A Deep Dive
It should come as no surprise to anyone with a knowledge of brain chemistry that this album has deep connections with the serotonin molecule. For those that don't know, the 5-HT2A receptor is responsible for the uptake of serotonin.
The 5-HT2A serotonin receptor is a subtype of serotonin (5-HT) receptor primarily found in the brain. It plays a key role in modulating various neurological processes, including mood, cognition, perception, and sleep. Activation of the 5-HT2A receptor is associated with psychedelic effects, as well as with the therapeutic actions of some antidepressants and antipsychotic medications.
Psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms), and DMT are known to primarily act on the 5-HT2A receptor, leading to their hallucinogenic effects.
This album plays heavily on this theme with several tracks explicitly referencing psychedelic compounds like “mycelium” and “lysergica”. Other tracks are more abstract but still reference these themes.
In this track introspective I will be diving deep into every track and the themes that connect them. I'll be exploring how the songs evolved from their primordial state and how the recording and production process evolved as well.
Buckle up, it's time to buy the ticket and take the ride.
1. psychonaut
This song was originally written to be the soundtrack to the mobile video game Paddle Ship by Thumbwit, but it proved to be too intense for gameplay. The track had no guitars or drums and was very synth driven. I didn't really have an idea of where this song was going to go, but I knew the name would be “psychonaut.” I wanted to emulate the experience of an acid trip coming on.
The idea of the album was, in a sense, to be akin to an acid trip and included the stages of an acid tip: dropping, coming up, peaking, introspection, second wind, and come down. These themes are present throughout the entire album but specifically in “psychonaut” as well as the whole song could mirror this idea.
First the horns come in with the sound of a bell, the dropping of the acid into your mouth. They rise and undulate, reflecting a peaceful calm that will culminate into something much more intense. The drums are heard next, quiet and building, the experience rising. Then the guitars explode in, the peak, and continue to bring energy throughout the song. They weren't originally included in the track, nor were the live drums, but I had found a way to record them with decent enough quality on my phone and was satisfied with the result.
A quick note on the tracking. There are three guitar tracks and two drum tracks. The first two guitars are melody and harmony, and the third is another harmony that appears later in the song. The two drum tracks are panned to either side, essentially a double tracking of the same beat but with a few variations in fills. I didn't intend to do this either, I just took a few recordings looking for a segment that I could loop. But when I listened to the two tracks I found that not only I didn't need to loop any segment, but they acted as a “call and response” in certain areas which I thought sounded cool.
Finally the horns return and the song nears it's climax, the moment of greatest truth before the guitars and drums drop out and the come down begins. The song ends with the same warm horns and bells that brought it in, returning the listener to reality.
The song is pretty simple in its construction, there are no chord changes or riffs besides the main chords. Everything just builds on top of this initial idea and then the tension is released back to the start. “colours i've never seen” has a similar structure and I find that it works quite well when trying to establish a theme or set a mood.
2. geometry
The second track opens with a synth buildup followed by a guitar run through a wah-wah pedal for that envelope filter sound. It's a funky riff and sets the tone for the whole song immediately. Again, no guitars were planned for this track and it really evolved from the synth rhythm that is found later in the song.
The concept behind this was the next step in an acid trip, the world begins to open up and geometry appears in the vision as the hallucinations begin to arise. It's a funky feeling, seeing things that aren't there or shouldn't be. I can still remember one of my first experiences on LSD when I saw the clouds changing sizes and shifting to deeper and more contrasted hues. It broke what I thought about reality and I felt as if I was entering a dream. There was warmth in my chest and everything was rising, colors, emotions, and thoughts.
There is a break in the song at about 1:01 where the guitar plays a jazzy riff. Like most things on this record, it was not originally planned but thought it would be cool to include a little break. Directly after, an organ comes in to increase the funkiness and we immediately break to drums and synth. This synth was the initial starting point of the track and everything built from there.
Another funky guitar comes in, a long with a vocalized bass riff (another original track feature). The guitar solo then takes the stage as the chord progression changes. I knew that I wanted to try my hand at soloing over a progression that featured a minor to major switch at the end and it was a bit difficult.
Recognizing the “third” in the scales was the key (no pun intended) and I found that I could easily stay near the minor pentatonic box with great results. The switch to a major chord at the end of the progression also sounded very satisfying and it proved to be a great melodic ending to the high energy part of the track before the outro synth (the original track melody).
3. mycelium
This song went through many, many different iterations before being finished. I originally wanted to remain in 7/4 for the entirety of the track but it proved too clumsy for transitions. Instead, 4/4 is used for the intro and second section, while 7/4 is used in the entire first section before the out of tune piano.
This song begins with a long ethereal intro and some sparkly synths. This ethereal sound was a fundamental part of the original track and persisted throughout. It was trimmed a bit during the main sequences to let the other melodies take center stage. The first electric piano melody that is heard is a 4/4 variation of the main 7/4 melody, foreshadowing what's to come in the track.
The main section then begins. This was the backbone of the original track, with very little variation happening from here and no guitars but I felt like it sounded empty. With most tracks that feature guitar work, the songs without them definitely felt lacking and “mycelium” was no exception. After a few phrases of guitar, the 7/4 synth melody comes in, setting the tone for the rest of the track.
A drum breakdown follows, which I had tons of fun recording. I love odd meter music and doing drum fills in 7/4 was very rewarding. Further altering them with filters and bit crushers added such a unique effect to the track and it really turned out great.
Immediately following the breakdown we switch to 4/4 and the sound of an old out of tune piano. This was actually recorded in my house using my old out of tune upright Kawaii piano that I practiced on in my youth. I was lucky enough to be able to bring it to my new house and knew that I wanted to use it for recording in some form. It being out of tune really added to the dark ambience of the track as well. The bass then explodes back in and we're into part two of the song.
The concept of this track is two fold. First, in the scheme of the album, we're not yet at the peak but we are feeling high energy and unsure of what's happening in the world around us. It's likely that we are nearly the point of disassociation and letting the LSD really infiltrate our senses. Things are changing, the world looks different, and we don't necessarily like what we see.
Second, this track refers explicitly to mycelium, or mushrooms. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, directly activates in the 5-HT receptor of the brain (so there's that reference) but distinctly has a different style of tripping than LSD.
A quick aside for the curious mind:
Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, is broken down by the body into psilocin through a process called dephosphorylation. Psilocin is then further metabolized into various compounds, including 4-hydroxyindole-3-acetaldehyde (4-HIAA) and 4-hydroxytryptophol (4-HT).
4-HIAA is a precursor to melatonin, a hormone involved in regulating sleep-wake cycles, while 4-HT can be converted into bufotenin, a psychoactive compound, or into 5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine), another potent psychedelic compound.
Melatonin synthesis involves the conversion of serotonin to N-acetylserotonin by the enzyme arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT), followed by the conversion of N-acetylserotonin to melatonin by acetylserotonin O-methyltransferase (ASMT).
5-MeO-DMT is synthesized from serotonin through a series of enzymatic reactions, but the exact pathway of its synthesis from psilocin is not fully understood. However, it's believed that psilocin may be converted into 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT or serotonin), which is then methylated to form 5-MeO-DMT.
A psilocybin trip has distinct and eerie similarities to a 5-MeO-DMT trip (and those who enjoyed the aside should find connecting those dots easy), with the focus less on thoughts but more on visuals. Most mushroom enjoyers find immense pleasure from them, sometimes laughing uncontrollably.
My experience has been double bladed. I've taken them four times and have had great times 3/4 times. The final time I ingested the magical substance was my last and for good reason. They were freshly picked by a myco-scavenger friend of mine and were of the highest quality. Still wet with the freshness of life, their ingredients asserted themselves on me without reprise. It wasn't the best time of my life and my mental state was not attuned for tripping that night. Note: always plan your trips. If you're not feeling up for it, don't take them. It's not wise to jump into a psychedelic experience with no plan.
Anyway, that's exactly what I did and the results were hellish. The trip would not subside and I was not having a good time. Being a seasoned veteran of tripping I knew what I needed to do to maintain control over my reality and mental state, even though it was quickly deteriorating. I had a friend help me through, trip sitting me until I calmed to the point of sleep, but it was unpleasant and terrifying. I would close my eyes to escape the reality I was seeing and would see an even worse and more complex geometry underneath my eyelids. There was no immediate escape. I had to endure it until it's end.
This song is a representation of that feeling. Mental instability paired with mind awakening substances don't generally mix, and the results can be frightening, especially knowing that your mind is the source of these nightmarish hellscapes.
Part two of the song represents this scary possibility. Near the end, the drums begin to fly from the on-beat, the synths jump up notes creating a tension and dissonance. Laughter (my laughter) can be heard in the background and slowly creeping into the forefront as the song culminates to its final peak, the end.
4. iris opening
iris opening is another track that went through many variations before its final form. Practically nothing from the original track remained. We open with a guitar riff that is repeated throughout the duration of the song. A few synth lines here are pulled from the original track ideas, but after that little remain.
The bass kicks in and we start high energy right from the bat. This song is meant to represent the peak LSD experience. There's lots going on melody-wise. Many different tracks coalesce with the driving guitar melody to bring a scattered yet centered sound.
The track then breaks down into weird synths before heading into the second part. The background bells are another melody from the original track, but we drive right through with a heavy bass and guitar riff while keeping the energy high.
Guitars weren't present at all at the inception of this song, and it had been tabled for a long time before I decided to add real instruments to almost everything. I put the song on as a jam and came up with a few cool lines and decided to entirely scrap the original idea. Parts were moved around, most were deleted, and the final project is what emerged.
I'll also note that the track has a very long outro, one that has a distinctly different feel and tone from the beginning. Minor keys permeate the beginning, the peak experience is overwhelming and fierce, and yet at the end we feel a calm. The soft guitars and major tones reflect this sudden change. We've been through something now, something notable, and we have a story to tell. But now that the peak experience is over we enter a new phase that throws us back into darkness: introspection.
5. innerspaceship
This track was the second attempt at the videogame music for Paddle Ship and made the cut. The developer had heard a demo of “lysergica” and liked it although it was too intense for his game so I took the main riff and toned it down a bit. Little did I know that this would become the final track for the videogame but also the perfect intermission track.
This track is pretty mellow and I decided that it was too spacey to stand on its own as a track in this album so I recorded a bit of acoustic guitar to supplement.
The final track proved to both foreshadow the future of the album and provide a place to rest for a bit before the next big songs.
6. enter hyperspace
This song is purposely awkward. Hyperspace is a concept for which few LSD psychonauts have experienced but for which nearly all DMT psychonauts have. The idea of “breaking through” has been used in popular culture for decades, most notably with The Doors’ song “Break on Through (to the Other Side)”. Doctor Strange is another great example. The scene when he is flying through universes is perhaps the best visual representation of a DMT experience I've ever seen.
The experience is difficult to explain with words, but I'll do my best. I have taken DMT once and it truly was the most profound experience of my life. Moments after inhaling the first hit I noticed that my body felt rubbery and flimsy. My reality soon followed as I was instructed to take a larger hit in the same breath. I pulled harder and saw specks of reality breaking down in front of me. Light seeped from the center of my vision as if I was entering light speed in the Millennium Falcon and all the colors rose. I do not remember exhaling. Instead, my head was filled with a sound, a crackle so loud that it split my consciousness into all of its composite parts.
My body ceased to exist. My brain could not think. There was nothing, only the very fundamental speck of what I was, and oh how it was so small and yet so infinite. I saw the universe as it truly was inside of me. A great and large expanse of black void and I was a part of it. I didn't have a body, I didn't have a thought, I didn't have a feeling, I simply was.
Surrounding me, whatever I was, I saw a great spiral made of blocks. Each block was made of a moment of my life, past, present, and future. I saw every moment of time in which I would inhabit this body and yet could not distill the path or make inference to any of it. I just existed through it, helpless and yet guided.
A thought crept into my mind in this moment of infinity, “this is fucking intense.” It's the only thing I remember thinking.
As I slowly made my way back to my body and reality, I opened my eyes and saw the room I was in. Every shadow was filled with the same complex and impossible geometry, shifting and flexing through more dimensions and planes than my brain could perceive.
I looked at my friend on the couch and his whole body swirled with orange and purple light mixed with gold and arguably soul, colors that I'd never seen before. He looked alive, I could see his corporeality and it was like staring into a window, “did I look this alive as well?”
As I returned more to my body, it felt mechanical and in need of oiling, but my mind has never been sharper. I felt like I had gained a wisdom that few have experienced and even fewer understood. I asked how long I was out and was told it had been about 8 minutes. Impossible. It felt like 1000 years.
The visual experience was mostly forgotten, the brain unable to cope with such a high amount of stimuli and reconcile it into something tangible within the constructs it's lived with since it's birth. It was truly unidentifiable, breaking all the rules of experience and existence.
This track was made to reflect that impossibility. The drums are off beat yet familiar, the guitar fits over 4/4 and 9/8 equally, the song moves from one end to another with nothing but madness in between. Yet it leaves you with a sense of something more, something hidden, cryptic and yet obvious. At the end the piano melody brings you back to reality but you're changed, you're new, and your in for another ride.
7. lysergica
This song is perhaps the most straightforward song on the record. The synth patterns are repeated throughout and the driving bass carries is through from one end to another. This is the first pinnacle track of the introspection phase of the acid trip. Thoughts are flying through your head, not all of them good, not all of them bad, and its tough to make out which is which.
This track did not feature guitar at all at its inception. Instead it was made to be a purely synth exploration, bookended by the driving synth melody and with a slow center where thoughts can dwell.
Yet it proved to be lacking with only the synth melody and guitars were added to great effect. The funky center part is perhaps my favorite, then the bass enters and drives the melody home. We then break down again to the original synth line before being taken into a guitar solo.
A quick note about the recording and production:
I produced the entire album on my phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 using FL Studio Mobile and while I was able to create some very cool sounds and tracks, it has its limitations. Not having a computer meant recording audio ended up terrible quality and the equipment used was finicky. With that being said, the mixing process allowed for a lot of tweaking to get the final raw sound that I was looking for.
I should also note that while all these songs were written and produced on my phone, they were all polished on Abelton Live after and with very little production after the fact. Maybe a few EQs and bringing everything up to, or close to, 0db. I had finally purchased a computer while producing and didn't feel like exporting all the stems to recreate them in Abelton. I ended up doing this anyway for live performance purposes and then tragically lost them all when my computer crashed.
All in all its a simple song but with a lot of empty space. The melody is present and the culmination of the foreshadowing from “innerspaceship” earlier.
8. neuronz
This is track two of major introspection along the acid trip path. This also was the track that I wanted to convey visually and Ellie Moon did an excellent job with her animations.
The sounds concept is pretty straightforward as well. Neurons are firing still during the acid trip and thoughts are flying through your head every which way. Sometimes it can be hard to stop them and it's almost a lesson in mindfulness. You just have to let them pass by without getting attached to them, for if you do you risk pain.
The opening synth is a weird chord, a DbmMaj7 to be exact, and the major 7 tonality gives the whole song a creepy feel. Plus Db is not a very common key so right from the rip we're hearing weird chords in an unfamiliar key. It gives the song a uncomfortable feeling and it just gets better from there.
Guitars enter and I had lots of fun playing around with weird tunings with this one. The acoustic guitar is tuned down a half step, plus drop D [Db - Ab - Db - Gb - Bb - Eb] while the electric guitar remained in standard, dropped one half step [Eb - Ab - Db - Gb - Bb - Eb]. This gave the open Db strumming chords much more warmth and tone and allowed me to keep the song in Db (it didn't sound as powerful in D).
The track moves from part to part until we reach a breakdown point with only guitar and electric piano. Synths then enter for a big building sound, an apex point in the song. We then return to the guitar as we build to the final section.
I originally wanted to solo here but there was just too much going on and repeating the acoustic riff on electric sounded far better and helped maintain continuity. I am a bit disappointed at this because the rhythm guitar riff during this part is one of my favorites and only available to play in the weird tuning.
Finally the riff ends and we're back to where we started with the weird synth DbmMaj7 chord, rounding things out of the introspection phase and into a little break.
9. colours i've never seen
This was the track that was never meant to be. I had no idea what to write. I knew I wanted a track with this name but wanted a more Pink Floyd “Any Colour You Like” style, hence the spelling. And I knew that I wanted it to be a filler track so I decided to go with the same style as “psychonaut.” The end result happened to be one of my favorite tracks on the record.
I immediately started with the electric piano and knew I wanted it to repeat throughout but didn't know where to go from there. Sitting at the drum kit I just started playing and everything fell into place. I started hitting the ride in a cool pocket and just kept going from there. The whole drum tracks is one take and bit-crushed to hell for a psychedelic vibe.
The guitars came naturally as a call back to “psychonaut” both in the music and conceptually. At this point in the “trip” we have become a psychonaut officially. We've dropped in and took the wild ride through peaking and hyperspace, battled our thoughts and our demons, and are ready for another go around.
The synths rise along with the bass that drones one note at a time and grounds us when the guitars get crazy. Finally everything evens out and we're back at the electric piano and ready for the next drop which doesn't hesitate to deliver.
10. hyperlocomotion
This is probably the highest energy track on the album and for good reason. Hyperlocomotion refers to the almost uncontrollable dancing urge one usually experiences during an MDMA trip.
An aside for the curious mind:
MDMA primarily affects the serotonin transporter, causing a surge in serotonin release and inhibiting its reuptake. This flood of serotonin can lead to euphoria, increased empathy, and heightened sensory perception. However, MDMA also interacts with various serotonin receptor subtypes, including 5-HT1, 5-HT2, and 5-HT3, albeit to a lesser extent compared to its impact on the transporter. These interactions contribute to the drug's complex effects on mood, cognition, and behavior.
This was the final song written for 5-HT2A and utilized Abelton the most. While I did plan it while on mobile, I moved most of the stems over the Abelton for the final rendition as I wanted to make sure this track got the most polished sound as it's also the most mainstream.
Right from the get go we're high energy, the guitar and bass chopped up and creating an interesting call and response layer over the kick and snare. Finally the sub bass provides a chord progression to ground the madness and then guitar takes off for a bit while the synth pans from left to right, echoing “iris opening”.
I solo a bit here which was fun at such a high tempo, lots of opportunities for fast licks and bluesy pentatonic sounds and minor 9s.
The bass drones for a bit with the kick and snare as we prepare to enter into another build up, keeping the energy rolling until we drop into half-time for a reggae inspired section but then right back into the energy.
Finally the song ends and so does the trip conceptually.
11. comedown
This song is pretty simple but was a ton of fun to produce. There's heavy guitar work in this. A clean guitar provides steady picking notes over ethereal synths while dueling electric guitars battle in the background with effects pedals.
I used the Electro Harmonix Pitch Fork pedal heavily to mimic a David Gilmore”Marooned” sound, and drew heavy inspiration from that track in general. I really got to experiment with some licks that I had been working on, including some sweep picking things that didn't fit with any of the other tracks.
Most of the guitar work was played essentially in “free time,” I wasn't paying attention to the drum beat at all but rather just going. It made for a unique sound and a feeling of needing to let everything out but being surrounded by calmness, much like the end of an acid trip.
For the people that know, the comedown of an acid trip can last for hours, even while you're begging for sleep. This track definitely echoes that feeling. You just want to be asleep, the trip was intense and inspiring and impactful and you feel spiritually, physically, and emotionally drained, and yet sleep will not come until the drug let's go.
It can be maddening to lay in bed, coming down, with your mind still racing and being hyper-aware of your thoughts, waiting for sleep to release you from the drug’s clutches.
Final thoughts
This was a long journey and I applaud you for making it this far. Hopefully you've enjoyed reading and may listen to the music with a better understanding of what was going through my mind when I wrote it.
I will say that I love the idea of a concept album and this definitely was my attempt at it. It's not perfect, it's raw, but yet so is the feeling of being out of control while on psychedelic drugs and in that respect I think I've succeeded. I'm glad that it was finished on the phone as it was a unique experiment (albeit one that I will not likely replicate).
Finally, there are at least four tracks that didn't make the cut for this album and I may decide to release them in the future if I work on them further. For your pleasure, and in their current form, they are called:
aya
godflip
synchronicity
divine doorways
I definitely dig the style of 5-HT2A a bunch and would love to return to the concept, but for right now they stay in the vault. They lacked the memorable-ness to be included in the final album and ultimately would have made it too long. Not every track can be a banger and not all of them should be, but we'll see where the future takes us.
Stay safe, psychonauts.
