Purusha - A Sonic Adventure

In Contact (1997), scientist Ellie Arroway goes through a wormhole. At a loss for words to describe the wonders that she sees, she utters the line “They should have sent a poet”. In Purusha, instead of sending a poet, the Earth sends 4 astronaut musicians to meet up with a strange source of musical sound. The journey will take 36 years in cryosleep. While they are asleep, they are to be tended to by the AI controlling the ship, called PAO. Each of the four characters is clearly distinguished: responsible leader Muller, perennial pessimist Colebrook, brusque rationalist Ambedkar, and at-odds-with-herself Ymir. They hypothesize and argue with each other about science fiction ideas. Could the frequency be God? Does PAO have the capability for sentience or is it just very good at copying others? What did they leave behind for this journey and what will be there when they return? And when they are seized by inspiration, they compose and play music. When the twists and turns come, it is very satisfying to realize that every surprise had been seeded early on, like watching a line of dominoes fall. Purusha is a soundtrack for grand ideas: the loneliness of isolation, the separation from loved ones, the creative synthesis from jamming together, the wonder and fear of finding the unknown. Where words are inadequate, music is there.