Transcendental cover: a glowing hypercube inside the Flower of Life, ringed by the digits of pi and hieroglyphs

Thrice Great

Transcendental

Math rock in odd meters dissolving into space ambient, built from the numbers that never end. Pi and e are transcendental: no equation of whole numbers can ever land on them.

By Thrice Great, 2026. Listen on Suno at @te55er4ct.

LP · 12 tracks · 38 minutes

Transcendental

From the Emerald Tablet through the constants, the slow turning of the sky, the first builders, the five times the world ended, Egypt and Thoth, the Earth's own hum, and out past the edge of the Sun's wind. Tempos and meters come from the ideas: 141 for pi, 137 for the fine-structure constant, 72 for precession, 5/4 for five extinctions.

Download the albumMP3 · 76 MBFLAC lossless · 241 MB
  1. 01

    Emerald Tablet (Intro)

    no pulse3:35

    The Emerald Tablet is the core text of Hermeticism, credited to Hermes Trismegistus: the one who is thrice great. The album opens on a drone, distant choirs and a ney flute, and one bell.

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  2. 02

    Pilish

    7/8 · 141 bpm3:03

    Pi, written into the words. The verses are in Pilish: each word has as many letters as the next digit of pi, for 51 digits. The 7/8 meter nods to 22/7.

    Sun3I1hear4a1voice5resonance9in2spiral6light5and3every5geometry8unfolding9forever7beginning9all3of2the3universe8from4silent6to2golden6fire4and3the3hermetic8law3of2harmony7vibration9moves5everywhere0
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    Lyrics
    Intro: tapped guitar, 7/8 Vocoder Three. One. Four. One. Five. Nine. Verse 1 Sun, I hear a voice, resonance in spiral light, and every geometry unfolding, forever beginning, all of the universe from silent to golden fire, and the hermetic law of harmony: vibration moves everywhere. Chorus Three point one four one five nine, round and round, it never comes out right, twenty-two over seven, close, but never heaven, you can't close the circle on a line Verse 2 We measured infinite arcs, a wonderful machine. I cannot calculate the boundless remainder, but spirals carry a revelation. Chorus Three point one four one five nine, round and round, it never comes out right, twenty-two over seven, close, but never heaven, you can't close the circle on a line Bridge: drums drop out, guitar alone Nobody finishes pi Nobody finishes pi Every circle that you draw is a promise and a lie Outro: full band, 7/8 Vocoder Two six five three five eight nine seven nine... Fade on the digits
  3. 03

    Merely Irrational

    5/8 · 162 bpm2:31

    Phi, the golden ratio, is irrational but not transcendental: it solves a simple equation, so it's only merely irrational. The verse is a Fibonacci poem; its lines run 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13 syllables and back down. 5 and 8 are Fibonacci numbers, and 162 is about φ × 100.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: one guitar, then two, then three Verse: the spiral Grow. Turn. Spiral. Shell and seed. Petals count the turns. Each new branch keeps the one before. Add the last two and you get the next one, forever. One point six one eight, never ends. Close, but never whole. Golden mean. Turn back. Grow. Turn. Chorus I'm merely irrational, merely irrational, you can't write me down as a fraction of you. Merely irrational, the shell knows it, the storm knows it too. Verse 2 One and one is two, one and two is three, three and five is the flower, five and eight is the tree. Thirteen in the sunflower, twenty-one in the pine, the ratio of the last two gets closer every time. Chorus I'm merely irrational, merely irrational, you can't write me down as a fraction of you. Merely irrational, the shell knows it, the storm knows it too. Outro: the band falls away, one guitar left Grow. Turn.
  4. 04

    Natural Log

    9/8 · 118 bpm2:53

    Euler's number e is the rate behind everything that grows or decays naturally: interest, forests, fire, half-lives. The chorus counts its digits: two point seven one eight, two eight, one eight, two eight.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: acoustic guitar, 9/8 Verse 1 The tree doesn't know it's counting, but every ring is a little bit more. What grows, grows on what it grew, and the forest keeps the score. Verse 2 The fire knows the same number, the river and the falling stone. What fades, fades by what is left, and nothing fades alone. Chorus Two point seven one eight, two eight, one eight, two eight, the natural law, the natural log, the rate that's always there. Two point seven one eight, nothing's early, nothing's late, the curve was here before us and it's rising everywhere. Verse 3 Compound it, the banker whispers, like he wrote it, like it's his. But the mushroom and the virus knew the number as it is. Chorus Two point seven one eight, two eight, one eight, two eight, the natural law, the natural log, the rate that's always there. Two point seven one eight, nothing's early, nothing's late, the curve was here before us and it's rising everywhere. Bridge: drums double, guitars stack Grow. Grow on growth. Grow on growth on growth. Outro And everything that rises has a half-life, has a home.
  5. 05

    Fine Structure

    3 against 4 · 137 bpm3:28

    The fine-structure constant is about 1/137. It sets how strongly light and matter interact, and no one knows why it has that value. So: 137 bpm, three against four the whole way.

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  6. 06

    Precession

    72 bpm2:24

    The Earth wobbles like a top. One turn of the wobble takes about 25,800 years, and the sky slips one degree every 72 years. The ancients tracked it anyway.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: pads, a slow clock Spoken Verse One degree every seventy-two years. A lifetime, and the sky slips one finger's width. Twenty-five thousand years to come around. The old ones watched it anyway. Sung Verse: female, soft The fish swim out, the water bearer pours, the pole star drifts, and the dawn changes doors. Spoken Verse They built the temples to the rising star, and the star moved on. They built them again. That's the whole of history: building again. Chorus: both voices Turn, great wheel, turn so slow, as above, so below. Outro: the clock ticks, slowing
  7. 07

    Before the Word

    6/8 · 96 bpm2:03

    Göbekli Tepe, in what is now Turkey, is a ring of carved stone pillars about 11,600 years old, older than writing, the wheel or Stonehenge. Somebody built it, then buried it.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: stone on stone, frame drum Chant: male, low Before the word, the stone. Before the wheel, the stone. Before the field, the stone. We raised it here. Call: female Who carved the fox? Response: male We did. Call Who carved the vulture? Response We did. Call Who buried it? Response We did. Verse No king, no coin, no letter, just a hill and a hundred hands, the stars above the pillars and the cold across the lands. Chant Before the word, the stone. Before the wheel, the stone. Remember us. Remember us. Outro: drums alone, then wind
  8. 08

    The Big Five

    5/4 · 150 bpm3:23

    Five times, most life on Earth died: the Ordovician ice, the Late Devonian, the Permian Great Dying, the end-Triassic and the end-Cretaceous asteroid. In 5/4, one verse each.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: riff in five Verse 1: Ordovician Four hundred forty-five million years, the sea went cold and froze the shore. Verse 2: Devonian Three hundred seventy-two, the reefs went dark and breathed no more. Chorus Five times the world ended, five times it came again, the fire, the ice, the falling sky, and something always lived. Verse 3: Permian, quiet Two hundred fifty-two, the Great Dying, nine in ten. Verse 4: Triassic Two hundred one, the rift split open, the fire climbed the air. Verse 5: Cretaceous, building Sixty-six, a mountain falling from the sky, and in the ash, a little thing with fur and frightened eyes. Chorus Five times the world ended, five times it came again, the fire, the ice, the falling sky, and something always lived. Bridge: spoken, over the riff We are the little thing. Outro: the riff, slower and slower Six?
  9. 09

    As Above, So Below

    108 bpm2:44

    Thoth, called Djehuty in Egyptian, is the god of writing, measure and the moon, and the Greek Hermes Trismegistus. The verses paraphrase the Emerald Tablet: what is below is like what is above.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: ney flute over a drone Chant: male Djehuty, measure of the moon, Djehuty, keeper of the word. Verse 1: female It's true, and not a lie, and certain, and most true: the thing below is like the thing above, and above is like below, to work the wonder of the one. Chorus As above, so below, as within, so without, the river and the stars run the same way round. Verse 2 The sun its father, the moon its mother, the wind carried it, the earth nursed it, separate the fine from the coarse, gently, with great care. Chorus As above, so below, as within, so without, the river and the stars run the same way round. Bridge: drums drop, chant only Thrice great. Thrice great. Thrice great. Outro: full orchestra, then the ney alone
  10. 10

    Schumann Resonance

    59 bpm4:17

    Lightning around the world rings the space between the ground and the ionosphere like a bell, at about 7.83 Hz. Halved eight times, that's 59 beats a minute, close to a resting heartbeat.

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  11. 11

    Heliopause

    slow build4:33

    In 2012 Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, where the Sun's wind gives way to interstellar space, carrying a golden record of Earth's sounds.

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  12. 12

    Ascendant

    7/8 · 137 bpm3:30

    The seven Hermetic principles, one line each: Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, Gender. The ascendant is the sign rising when you're born, and the act of rising.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: slow, 7/8, choir hum Verse 1: seven principles, slow The All is mind. As above, so below. Nothing rests; everything moves. Hot and cold are one thing, measured. The tide goes out to come back in. Nothing happens by chance. Every seed needs two. Pre-Chorus Count them with me, one to seven, the ladder's made of numbers and it leans on heaven. Chorus Rising, ascendant, the sign on the horizon, transcendent, past the last thing written down. Rising, ascendant, three times great and rising, we leave the circle open and we're coming up the ground. Instrumental: tempo doubles Verse 2: fast Mind, mirror, motion, pole and pole, the tide, cause and cause and seed and seed, the ladder's on the inside. Chorus Rising, ascendant, the sign on the horizon, transcendent, past the last thing written down. Rising, ascendant, three times great and rising, we leave the circle open and we're coming up the ground. Outro: everything drops but the vocoder Three point one four one five nine... Silence
Higher Plane Edition cover: the Giza pyramids under the solstice sky, a beam rising into a hypercube

The second layer

Higher Plane Edition

The same twelve songs with a second layer underneath, made from orbits, real sky positions, the digits of pi and recordings from interstellar space. Felt more than heard, about 20 dB under the music.

Download this editionMP3 · 76 MBFLAC lossless · 241 MB

Planet tones

Each orbit's frequency (one over its period) doubled until it's audible. The Earth's year lands on 136.10 Hz, its day on 194.18 Hz, the Moon's month on 105.21 Hz.

Astrological attenuation

Each tone's volume follows its planet's real altitude over the Giza plateau on the winter solstice of 2026, sunset to sunrise across each song. Below the horizon, silence.

Tuned to each song

Every song's key was measured. Where a planet's tone would sound between the notes of the key, it moved to a song it fits.

The solstice night over Giza, sunset at 17:00 to sunrise at 06:47, local time. Each curve is a planet's height above the horizon; each song plays this chart from left to right.

#TrackLayerHzVolume follows
01Emerald TabletMoon, Saturn, Earth's day, Great Year105.21 · 147.85 · 194.18 · 173.04one chord swelling in, plus Voyager
02Pilishpi as a melodyB minor scaleintro and ending
03Merely IrrationalVenus110.61Venus over Giza
04Natural LogEarth's day194.18grows as eᵗ
05Fine StructureMercury141.27Mercury over Giza
06PrecessionGreat Year173.04steady
07Before the WordMoon105.21the Moon over Giza
08The Big FiveSaturn147.85Saturn over Giza
09As Above, So BelowEarth's year136.10the Sun over Giza, by day
10Schumann Resonancebinaural beat194.18 / 202.01steady, 7.83 Hz apart
11HeliopauseVoyager 1 plasma wavesNASA PIA17045first and last minutes
12AscendantJupiter, and pi183.58Jupiter over Giza
Apocrypha cover: the hypercube emblem in silver and violet

EP · 5 tracks

Apocrypha

The apocrypha are the books left out of the canon, the Gnostic gospels among them. These are the hidden chapters of Transcendental: Gnosticism, Celtic knotwork, the druids, hieroglyphs and the ancient astronauts. Each song's idea is also done to its audio.

Download the EPMP3 · 36 MBFLAC lossless · 126 MB
  1. 01

    Sophia

    Gnosticism4:30

    In Gnostic myth, a blind lesser god made this world and set guards at its gates, and a spark of the true light fell into each of us through Sophia, Wisdom. Knowing it is the way out.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: low organ, heavy and close Verse 1: male, low The maker of this world was blind. He said there is no one but me. He set the gates, he named the guards, and called the prison free. Verse 2: female But a spark fell through the floor of heaven, it fell through you and me. Sophia dropped her lantern, and it's burning secretly. Chorus Knowing, not believing, gnosis in the dark, the guards can count the bodies but they cannot count the spark. Verse 3 Seven gates and seven keepers ask you who you are. Tell them you're the light that fell, and walk on past the star. Bridge: everything opens up, wide and bright Pleroma, Pleroma, the fullness, the fullness, nothing missing, nothing missing. Chorus Knowing, not believing, gnosis in the dark, the guards can count the bodies but they cannot count the spark. Outro: choir, radiant, fading
  2. 02

    Endless Knot

    Celtic3:44

    Celtic knotwork is one line that crosses over and under itself and never ends. In 9/8, the meter of the Irish slip jig.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: whistle alone, then the band in 9/8 Verse 1 Over and under, under and over, never a seam and never an end, the line goes out across the stone and comes back round again. Verse 2 Three spirals turning from the one, the land, the sea, the sky, the knot that ties the living ones to the ones who said goodbye. Chorus Endless, endless knot, no first thread and no last, over the future, under the past, endless, endless knot. Instrumental: pipes and fiddle trade the tune Verse 3 Samhain night the veil is thin, the fires on the hill, the line runs through the both of us, and it is running still. Chorus Endless, endless knot, no first thread and no last, over the future, under the past, endless, endless knot. Outro: back to the whistle alone, the same tune as the intro
  3. 03

    Oak-Knower

    Druid3:28

    Druid likely means oak-knower. The druids taught by memory and wrote nothing down. Their lunar calendar lines up with the sun every 19 years, after 235 moons.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: rain on leaves, harp Chant: male Oak and mistletoe, stone and sky, nothing written, nothing dies. Verse 1 We never wrote it down, we kept it in the breath, twenty years to learn it all, from birth to well past death. Verse 2 Count the moons against the sun, two hundred thirty-five, nineteen years they line up again, and the old ways come alive. Chorus Knower of the oak, keeper of the grove, what the tree remembers the wind will carry home. Outro: chant over harp, fading into rain Nothing written, nothing dies.
  4. 04

    Sixty-Three Sixty-Fourths

    Hieroglyphs3:01

    A popular story says the parts of the Eye of Horus stood for 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64. They add up to 63/64, and Thoth's magic is the missing piece. Historians doubt the story; the math holds. 64 bpm.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: sistrum and a drone Whispered counting One half. One quarter. One eighth. One sixteenth. One thirty-second. One sixty-fourth. Verse 1 Set tore the eye from the falcon's face and broke it into six, and every piece a measure the scribes would learn to fix. Verse 2 Write it in the bird and reed, the owl, the water line, the sun is just a circle with a point at the centre sign. Chorus Sixty-three sixty-fourths, almost whole, almost whole, the last piece isn't in the eye, the last piece is the soul. Bridge: chant, male Djehuty healed it, Djehuty healed it, one sixty-fourth of light. Chorus Sixty-three sixty-fourths, almost whole, almost whole, the last piece isn't in the eye, the last piece is the soul. Outro: the drone, cut off before the end
  5. 05

    Sky People

    Ancient aliens3:54

    The ancient-astronaut idea told as a myth, ending on what we do know: we carried the stones ourselves. In 1974 Earth sent its own message from Arecibo: 1,679 bits, which only make a picture laid out 23 by 73.

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    Lyrics
    Intro: radio beeps, theremin Verse 1 They say the stars came down to teach us, they say we couldn't lift the stone, they say the lines across the desert were landing lights for ships of chrome. Verse 2 And maybe someone crossed the dark once, maybe someone looked our way, we've been waving for a long time, we're still waiting for the day. Chorus Sky people, sky people, are you out there, are you near? Sky people, sky people, we left a light on for you here. Bridge: vocoder Twenty-three by seventy-three, sixteen seventy-nine, we drew ourselves in numbers, we sent the stars a sign. Chorus Sky people, sky people, are you out there, are you near? Sky people, sky people, we left a light on for you here. Outro: the band stops, one voice Whoever came or never came, we carried the stones ourselves.