Whether or not Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was meant to sync up to the Wizard of Oz is a music mystery we may never solve. But the newest planetarium show at the American Museum of Natural History is definitely intended to mesh with a new project by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.
Titled no less than Musica Universalis: The Greatest Story Ever Told, the fantastic voyage takes place on April 13 and 14. Hart provides the music on his own instrument called a Pythagorean Monochord, accompanied by graphics courtesy of Carter Emmart, the museum’s director of astrovisualization — something even trippier-sounding than being the definitive ‘60s psychedelic jam band.
According to Hart in an interview with the podcast Fan Theory, the journey begins where everything began: the Big Bang. “(It’s) the beginning of time and space,” Hart said. “That’s beat one, that’s where the groove began.”
Once the audience has flown through outer space all the way to how this unlikely planet of ours came into existence, they’ll be transported right into Hart’s brain, courtesy of an MRI scan. The idea is that when you’re “in the moment,” as the creative parlance goes, you’re actually tapping into the cosmic energy of the universe.
To get you into the right headspace, here’s Hart further setting the mood: “Anything that moves has two components: it has a light, and it has a sound… So when you see a star, you can hear a star. You see the Milky Way, you can hear the Milky Way. When you can see the sun, you see it and you can hear it, and that brings it right on home.”
For the occasion, the museum’s current funhouse-like exhibit Our Senses: An Immersive Experience has also been re-soundtracked with tracks from Hart’s 2017 album RAMU. Tickets are $225, which also includes a signed artist’s statement and a special edition vinyl of the record.
You can also catch Hart with the rest of the remaining members of Grateful Dead performing as Dead and Company this summer at Citi Field on June 15 and 16.
