Inside The Psychedelic Mixtape: Awe, Antarctica, and the Architecture of Immersion
Chris Holmes has spent more than three decades building experiences through film scores, DJ sets, live performance, and immersive installation. Across dance floors, theaters, and large-scale environments, he became increasingly interested in music's ability to draw large groups of people into a shared experience.
Holmes has served as Paul McCartney's sole opening DJ for the past fifteen years, beginning at Coachella in 2009. Across more than 100 countries, he has watched audiences arrive at stadiums carrying the stresses of ordinary life and, over the course of the show, move into a shared state of wonder. The reliability of that transformation across cultures and continents shaped much of the work that followed.
He often references what he calls the "Hey Jude effect," the moment when thousands of people, regardless of background or language, stop functioning as separate individuals and move together through the same shared experience.
Holmes has served as Paul McCartney's sole opening DJ for the past fifteen years, beginning at Coachella in 2009. Across more than 100 countries, he has watched audiences arrive at stadiums carrying the stresses of ordinary life and, over the course of the show, move into a shared state of wonder. The reliability of that transformation across cultures and continents shaped much of the work that followed.
He often references what he calls the "Hey Jude effect," the moment when thousands of people, regardless of background or language, stop functioning as separate individuals and move together through the same shared experience.
"Music has the power to break that grip and connect us with different ways of thinking and experiencing the world around us," he says.
The Psychedelic Mixtape Vol. I grew out of years of research into mythology, religion, psychology, and altered states across cultures and historical periods. Holmes found himself returning repeatedly to similar narrative structures: departure from ordinary consciousness, immersion in altered states, and return with a changed relationship to awareness. From Campbell's Hero's Journey and Jung's
Active Imagination to Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, the same psychological patterns continued to appear across different traditions and belief systems.
Those ideas inspired the construction of the project itself. Hand-built LED kaleidoscopes, laser sculptures, 360-degree field recordings, orchestral composition, and footage captured across Antarctica, Malibu, Minnesota, Carlsbad, and Los Angeles became part of the mixtape's visual and musical language, using physical materials and recorded environments rather than digital simulation.
Much of the first version was developed in isolation during the pandemic, as Holmes traveled and recorded environments that would later become embedded within the work itself. Antarctica became one of the most significant of those experiences. In the Weddell Sea, Holmes encountered what he describes as an "iceberg graveyard," where towering ice formations continually fractured, drifted, and reformed within the water. Nearby, from the deck of a Zodiac, he spent hours watching penguins repeatedly climb to the top of an iceberg before sliding back into the sea. Those recordings and images later became part of The Psychedelic Mixtape Vol. I, carrying the same cycles of movement, repetition, and change present throughout the expedition itself.
The mixtape premiered in April 2025 as a full-dome installation at Cosm in Inglewood, becoming the first production to achieve 12K resolution at 60 frames per second on the venue's 87-foot LED dome. Audiences were surrounded by a wide-ranging musical mix spanning multiple artists and genres. The work later screened at the Stardome in Auckland before entering Cosm's Premium Media Program for distribution to planetariums and science centers internationally.
Much of the first version was developed in isolation during the pandemic, as Holmes traveled and recorded environments that would later become embedded within the work itself. Antarctica became one of the most significant of those experiences. In the Weddell Sea, Holmes encountered what he describes as an "iceberg graveyard," where towering ice formations continually fractured, drifted, and reformed within the water. Nearby, from the deck of a Zodiac, he spent hours watching penguins repeatedly climb to the top of an iceberg before sliding back into the sea. Those recordings and images later became part of The Psychedelic Mixtape Vol. I, carrying the same cycles of movement, repetition, and change present throughout the expedition itself.
The mixtape premiered in April 2025 as a full-dome installation at Cosm in Inglewood, becoming the first production to achieve 12K resolution at 60 frames per second on the venue's 87-foot LED dome. Audiences were surrounded by a wide-ranging musical mix spanning multiple artists and genres. The work later screened at the Stardome in Auckland before entering Cosm's Premium Media Program for distribution to planetariums and science centers internationally.
The ONNA release approaches the same material in a different form. Holmes and cellist Oliver Kraus composed an original Dolby Atmos score built to carry the full arc of the installation through sound alone. Where the dome version surrounds audiences within an 87-foot visual environment, the album translates that scale into a more intimate listening experience through spatial audio and home listening systems.
In alignment with ONNA’s mission to create projects by nature, for nature, a portion of royalties from The Psychedelic Mixtape, Vol. I will support the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, specifically supporting conservation efforts at Port Lockroy, Antarctica.
The Psychedelic Mixtape Vol. I is out now via ONNA in Dolby Atmos, available through Apple headphones, iPhone, or compatible Atmos speaker systems.
The Psychedelic Mixtape Vol. I is out now via ONNA in Dolby Atmos, available through Apple headphones, iPhone, or compatible Atmos speaker systems.
