Mission Statement

First Flush is an ongoing artistic initiative that uses ambient electronic music and traditional Chinese tea practice as a framework for meditation and contemplative listening. Rather than staging a conventional concert, each edition builds an environment in which people are free to listen, reflect, read, meditate, or simply be present.

First Flush’s founders are developing the series into a practice-based research project. The inquiry at its center asks whether the musical characteristics of ambient techno and electronic music — repetition, steady pulse, gradual transformation, and immersive texture — can support meditation, contemplative listening, and attention restoration.

This research is being built through repeated public events, participant feedback, interviews, and reflective analysis, in conversation with frameworks including Deep Listening, Attention Restoration Theory, and artistic research methodology. Each edition of First Flush functions simultaneously as a public gathering and a live research setting.

Looking ahead, First Flush aims to formalize this inquiry through academic and research partnerships examining the physiological and psychological effects of ambient electronic music on the body.