A composition in itself, the Gardens resound with the nocturnal songs of its resident creatures: the buzz and chirp of insects; the sharp, descending whistles of birds; the trills of amphibians matching one another in ever-shifting harmony. Even the plants take part in the symphony. Some have long, rattling seed pods or crystalline leaves that ring when stirred, like wind chimes. Others have hollow trunks which serve as resonating chambers for curious, long-legged birds, or as drums for the complex polyrhythms of woodpeckers.
So much life, and so little light... where does the energy come from? Something in the very earth and air fuels these plants, a precisely tweaked ecology that supports vast trees and trailing vines with nutrients and vibration. Sound itself is food for several varieties of broad-leafed plants that convert kinetic energy at certain frequencies to chemical.
The Gardens trail off in all directions, taking in miles of twisting caves and hidden grottoes. At their heart is a vast open chamber, its ceiling lost in the distance. In the centre a great tree stands, the lights playing through its broad, translucent leaves. Between its sturdy branches grows a web of ghostly, wire-thin vines, each fastened between two branches and stretched precisely tight. The same plant bears cupped leaves which catch every breeze, causing their long, resinous stems to knock and rub bow-like against the vines, playing the soft notes of the evening Raag Bageshri.
Members of the Neo-Boreal faction can often be found here.
A riff on the idea of a "Music Garden" - there's another fancifully landscaped park in Toronto by that name, but it's not underground. Lots of subliminal influence from Miyazaki, Manning and others, along with some ideas about ambient music. I imagine it would sound a little like "Ikebukuro" by Brian Eno (from his disc The Shutov Assembly). With a treated recording of a tropical rainforest going at the same time.