Ritual, magic and alchemy
Alchemy and bass music
Alchemy is the old art of turning one thing into another. The Great Medicine Show borrows its symbols, its stages and its sense of a night as a transformation, and sets them to bass music.
The emblem
The Great Medicine Show's mark is a circle holding a triangle, holding a square, holding a circle. It is the alchemical figure known as the squaring of the circle, one of the classic images of the alchemists' Great Work, and it sits inside the O of SHOW in the wordmark.
The artwork has a recurring character too: Alkem Thoth, a masked, robed alchemist figure who appears across the show's visuals.
The Alchemical Bass Symphony
On April 13, 2024, The Great Medicine Show shared the bill at Indra's Awarehouse in Austin with Axel Thesleff, Govinda and AKRIZA for the Alchemical Bass Symphony, a night that brought sound healing, circus arts and fire to a bass music lineup. It is the clearest picture of what an alchemical bass night looks like: music, movement and flame treated as one work.
The Alchemy of Bass
The Great Medicine Show also hosted The Alchemy of Bass, an all-inclusive music production retreat, with Govinda, Axel Thesleff and AKRIZA as guest instructors. That is the craft side of the transformation. Jordan Larsen still teaches it, sound design, arrangement and remixing, in the courses.
A show built on the seven stages
The alchemists described the Great Work as a sequence of operations: calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation and coagulation. Burn, dissolve, separate, unite, ferment, distil, and make the gold. When we build a night with a promoter, the show can follow that arc:
- Calcination: the fire. Dark, heavy bass, and the room throws in whatever it walked in carrying.
- Dissolution: the melt. Breakdowns, ambient pads, flowing silk and voice.
- Separation: clarity. Minimal, precise percussion and space to choose what stays.
- Conjunction: the sacred marriage. Call and response, two voices, two halves of the room meeting.
- Fermentation: new life. The wildest, most alive music of the night, colour and masks.
- Distillation: purify by repetition. Hypnotic loops and a slow, steady rise.
- Coagulation: the gold made solid. The biggest anthems, then a warm, grounded close.
It is a way of telling a story with a dance floor. It gives a festival or a themed night a spine that guests can feel even if they never hear the word alchemy.
Alchemy in the music
Bass music suits the idea. A drop is a transformation you can feel in your chest: tension built, then released, the same material turned into something heavier. The Great Medicine Show has released more than 100 songs written to move a floor through an arc rather than hold one level, which is what an alchemical night needs. Listen on the music and links page.
Book an alchemical night
For festivals, themed events and conscious gatherings, see the festival stage show, or start from ritual medicine music for the whole picture.
Questions people ask
What does alchemy have to do with electronic music?
For us it is a way to shape a night: a sequence of transformations, from the first fire to the finale, set to bass music. The alchemical stages give a show a story the audience can feel.
What was the Alchemical Bass Symphony?
A night at Indra's Awarehouse in Austin on April 13, 2024, where The Great Medicine Show shared the bill with Axel Thesleff, Govinda and AKRIZA, with sound healing, circus arts and fire.
What is The Alchemy of Bass?
An all-inclusive music production retreat hosted by The Great Medicine Show, with Govinda, Axel Thesleff and AKRIZA as guest instructors.
Can you build an alchemy themed show for our event?
Yes. We can shape the night on the seven alchemical stages, with music, dancers, aerial and fire timed to each, scaled from a solo DJ set to a cast of 12.