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b/art's Playlist for Maandag, 8 May (17:30 - 19:16)
Water "What I am urging is a phenomenological approach to broadcasting to replace the humanistic. Let the voice of the announcer be stilled. Let situations be presented as they occur without interruption of sponsors, clocks, or editorial manipulation." R. Murray Shafer, "Radical Radio" [0] | |
| Cut | Artist |
|---|---|
| Pulsation Scale | Nocturnal Emissions [1] |
| Attacked by Something Wreck 4w.3x0t.96mesk.act | |
| Approaching a Forest Camp | Mbuti Pygmies |
| Waterpump | Dallas Simpson [2] |
| Insect Talk | O Yuki Conjugate |
| Cricket Voices | Hildegaard Westerkamp |
| + Kwaidan (exc. #2) | Toru Takemitsu |
| + Rain Forests & Helicopters & Monky Chatter & Toucans | |
| Zen Goeika Chants | Zen Monks in Stone Isolation Meditation Chambers |
| Adrift | Jeff Greinke [3] |
| Pluie Des Tropiques | Kristof K. Roll |
| + Ocean's Relaxing Surf (thruout) | |
| South Florida Remote | Phillip Perkins |
| Be A Ball & Bounce On The Beach | C. Cummings |
| + Walk Along Normandy Coast | b/art |
| "I proposed an idea to the CBC to do a program on the sounds of the ocean. The producer wanted to know how much time I required. Without thinking, I answered '24 hours.' ... I was given an hour and a half ... Radio today is the pulse of a society organized for maximum production and consumption ... The rhythms of life are enormously complex ... Let us recall the natural rhythms of the tides, sand spinning on the beach. Let us measure the durations of melting snow, the waning of the moon; let us become familiar again with the counterpoint of birds, and frogs and insects ..."[0] | |
| Storm | Lisa Kucharski |
| South Florida Remote | Phillip Perkins |
| Ambiances et Atmospheres | Chez les Pygmees du Nord Congo |
| Le Pacifique | Kristof K. Roll |
| The Name of the show is Wreck This Mess | Curd Duca |
| Another Silent Wave | Marineville [3a] |
| Stairway to the Sea | Johnny Mathis [3b] |
| The Adoration of Willow [River Trent] | Dallas Simpson [4] |
| Grantchester Meadows | Pink Floyd |
| + Foghorns & Surf | |
| The Adoration of Willow [River Trent] | Dallas Simpson [4] |
| Ebb & Flow [-8 Pitch] | Dave trance & James Bernard [5] |
| The World Behind You | Social Interiors |
| Walking Under Water | Lisa Kucharski |
| Walking on Down to the Ocean | Doctor Illig |
| Plage A L'Etretat | b/art Soundings 1988 along the Normandy coast |
| The Adoration of Willow [River Trent] | Dallas Simpson [4] |
| Finding The Sea | Durutti Column [5a] |
| Ocean's Relaxing Sound | Nature's music / Silver Bells Music |
| Lunar Plexus | Vox Populi |
| Sitting in the Park | David Toop, John Zorn, Toni Marshall |
| Sailing to a Hidden Cove | Solitudes Enivronmental Sound Experiences |
| In The Fields They Lay | Wayne Horovitz |
| The Adoration of Willow [River Trent] | Dallas Simpson [4] |
| Waterworld [Afon Glandy Mix] | Extremadura [6] |
| Melt [Dub Obscura Mix] | Pitchblack [7] |
| Climate | Graham Haynes [8] |
| Plasma Freshwater Mix | Qualla [9] |
| Chaos & The Emerging Mind of the Pond | David Dunn |
| + Informatic Forces | Nocturnal Emissions |
| + Anjung Wild Dogs of Bali & singing | Touch Travel |
| Going Off Duty Outro [extended] | |
| [0] "Why not take hold of the pulse of another civilization ... of waterwheels and waterfalls, uninterrupted for hours - just as they are in the making." [0] | |
| "Radical Radio" appears in the excellent "Radiotext[e]" an anthology of essays from Autonomedia/Semiotext[e] http://www.autonomedia.org it includes essays by Brecht, Weill, Abbie Hoffman, Walter benjamin, Nigel Ayers [from Nocturnal Emissions], Ezra Pound, Orwell, Guatarri, Hakim Bey, Geert Lovink, Kurt Schwitters and many more, including your humble DJ from WTM. R. Murray Schafer is the distinguished founder of Soundscape Studies, through the World Soundscape Project and his seminal book, "The Tuning of the World." | |
| [1] "Blasphemous Rumours" is played by Charlotte Bill and then disarranged and decomposed by Nigel Ayers on Staalplaat, 1992. | |
| [2] "Waterpump" on Dallas Simpson's "Commercial Releases" is really entitled "Aquapump" and appeared on a Time Recording. The natural beat emited by the waterpump is such a strong primal experience the fusion of nature, mechanics and electronic technology. It was recorded in Shining Cliff Woods, Ambergate, Derbyshire, UK at dawn on May 29 and is part of a larger 45 minute work. This is one of many [all?] of his pieces which has a duration, a challenge to patience and contemporary molding of mind. It insures that time s is part of the seduction drama which an impatient culture devalues. It is funny, I am a huge fan of /Curd Duca who has totally the opposite philosophy regarding time - his pieces are short, truncated, impatient with narrative and yet I can see the purpose of both extremes. And they do not seem to be at cross purposes in much the same way that music when the BPMs get too extreme, too hi velocity, the beats merge into a hypnotic hum that defines 'slow' hypnotic musics. | |
| [3] "Changing Skies" on Staalplaat / Multimood is one of the ultimate ambience-mood records. Bells, distant drums, drones and electronic longing create a soundscape that is reminiscent of a 19th century landscape. | |
| [3a] "Redpath House" on Universal Egg http://wobblyweb.com/ueindex The extrapolated connections between electronics and ecstasy, mixing and psychedelic experience - one approximates the other at the fertile doorway called the inner ear. How does sound trigger deepseated memories of alternate consciousnesses? As the old d&b, dub, house, ambient genres start to collapse into one another all sorts of interesting jazzed up and morphed beats and sounds create new fabrics. Is it "Avant Bass" or "Post Beat" or ... Apparently Marineville are a sight to see - "an embryonic version of Marineville performed a visual/sound display in a derelict underground car park in Newcastle!" Or is it the "Drum & Space community, particularly appreciated on the French scene?" | |
| [3b] "More Johnny's Greatest Hits" on Fontana. The incredible scratchiness gave the song an extra bedewed rainy fogginess. | |
| [4] "Willow [complete]" is a 40-minute exploratory cut from "Commercial Releases" one of the 2 self-burned cds that Dallas Simpson, www.artistforum.com/dallassimpson master natural sound provoker, recently sent to me. By provoker, I mean that Simpson not only interacts with his surroundings but encourages the ambience to perform itself. Unlike most ambiences, you get the sense that humans are a part of that ambience, not only walking through it but having an impact on the line of 'conversation.' I find it to be a crisply recorded and a sharp addition to the tradition of investigative soundings. Simpson says that it was "recorded in Colwick Park at about 10 am. There is a prelude entitled 'Adoration', which is an exploratory improviasation in a small area of woodland containing may willow trees. The main improvisation is a percussive exploration of a wooden fence and this is a prepartion for the actual 'adoration of a fallen Willow Tree' which was nearby. This mature willow tree had fallen into the lake adjacent to where it was growing. The main trunk which rested at about 10 degrees above horizontal was easily accesible and the main part of this improvisation was performed by me standing on the fallen trunk over the water in the small lake." In an interview with Laurent from WTM in Paris, Simpson said, "At my last count I have over 75 original DAT's and Mini Disks of my work recorded over the last five years. Time Recording never had the budget to put out an album from me, but there is certainly no shortage of material! One of my earliest works "Settlement", which features, among other things, a spirited improvisation at the back of a hotel amongst discarded rubbish and a large number of beer barrels, was sampled by Axel Libeert of Pablo's Eye for his recent release "All She Wants Grow Blue". Then there is the Stonevandal Suite - recorded at various locations it features the throwing of stones and other objects coupled with native ambience - the natural sound of the location. Pipechant was recorded down a large sewer pipe where I was dragging chains and using a flageolet as a sound object, it also incorporated certain sacred chants and texts. The acoustic of about 150 metres of very large sewer pipe was astounding resulting in a phenomernal naturally reverberant echo. Beachbeat was recorded on the Isle of Man, UK and featured some sound improvisations using found objects like driftwood, rope and rusty metal drums. Dimensional #59 involves free improvisation on a large ex-military sheet of titanium played with double bass and violin bows under a bridge on a disused railway track bed at about 3am. Improvisation for Tahirih was performed on the rocky shores of St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly, UK utilising items of scrap iron, which had been washed up or discarded onto the rocks, as sound objects. There are also many urban works recorded in city locations. The Kindergarten Suite, referred to above, features a series of sound improvisations in different locations on children's playground equipment, mainly performed solo at night during windstorms and rainstorms, but there is one movement recorded during the day with children. There is also my more pastoral work, which features the English countryside. Waterpump (EMIT 1197) is, in fact, part of a long locomotional (I'm moving about all the time) meditation and improvisation through some exquisite woodland near Ambergate, Derbyshire. I am currently recording a series of pictorial acoustic meditations with minimal improvisation in the deep narrow valleys of a number of small streams, called The Dumbles, near the village of Lambley in Nottinghamshire, which is near where I live. I have recently completed two dawn meditations in this series. Some of the material for 'abha' (EMIT 2296) came from this location...." And Simpson is looking for a label to help produce and distribute some of these projects. dallassimpson@waterpump.f9.co.uk | |
| [5] "Ebb & Flow EP" a 12-inch from Wide Awake distributed by Brooklyn Music Limited cdrop@bmlentertainment.com . It is a tekno trance evocation of how technology might further agitate nature into a rhythmic pattern that will serve certain interests. Here forced to play with or against the chaos of nature we produce a dialectic that suits perfectly our stressed natural world. | |
| [5a] "Durutti Column Vini Reilly Fact 244' on the groundbreaking label, Factory. Factory basically invented the notion of minimal packaging as an enhancer of mystique. The less info and graphical cues, the more listeners have to create their own images of the music and musicians. This strange strategic sound that was stuck in among all the attitudinal punk noise and snarling sounds of the 80s - what was it doing there? Romantic anarchy. The sentimental gestures of overthrow as aesthetic? Beautiful. And suddenly I see Durutti Column as a relative of Muslimgauze - instrumental music that through sheer force of aesthetics - no lyrics to direct the polemic - drove home a political point. | |
| [6] "Wreck This Mess: Remission 2: Ambient-Industrial vs Electronic-Dub vs Hypnotic-Grooves" on Noise Museum www.zone51.com/noisemuseum This is volume 2 of the WTM series. It includes Twilight Circus, Spectre, Systemwide, Dub Factory, Extremadura, Botom Botom, Holon, Silk Saw, DJ Spooky, Egon Zo vs Digidub, Audio Active, Starfish Pool, Andrew Lagowski from S.E.T.I. Here Laurent expands the empire of WTM, into new unforeseen markets. This is a painstakingly and precisely edited disc. He is very particular about what he likes and here it all fits into a meticulous polemic of sound and noise against hyper-mediated commerce. The Starfish Pool cut is pure beautiful insanity - a mechanical loop of menacing jangling machinery that ends up lilting along until you find yourself not scrunching your shoulders but unwinding. One of the choicest cuts. Systemwide fits in with new roots Muslimgauze and Rootsman. BSI www.bsi-records.com One of the other killer cuts is by Twilight Circus, ex-bassist of the Legendary Pink dots [a great band in their own right], Ryan Moore, based in Holland, who is producing some of the heaviest and most breathtaking dub sounds STAY TUNED FOR MORE. Extremadura cut, Waterworld, is from the Universal Egg and Zion Train stable of trance dub and investigative electronic beats. David Tench says "It is from a new album mid way through." proof that great music happens everywhere and dub can be inspired by a variety of geographical locations. This disc offers a lot of space and comes across not dark and dingy but upbeat like the Mad Professor or like their island mates from New Zealand, Salmonella Dub. Funny synchronicity: my 'co-conspirator du son' at Wreck This Mess in Paris, Laurent, did a gig with DJ Spooky on the Batofar and I see he also played this same cut on Monday Night. | |
| [8] "bpm" by Graham Haynes on Knitting Factory http://www.knittingfactory.com www.grahamhaynes.com is a very interesting and strong disc from KF. Haynes is the son of jazz legend Roy Haynes and here shows that it is possible to bridge the gap between old jazz and new sound. It is a record rich in sampling but also soulful jazz as well as a wide array of sounds that go the gamut from Bengal to avant garde. And if that isn't enough breadth - half the cuts are jazzy scratched drum and bassy interpretations of Richard Wagner! I'm looking for the remixes by State of Bengal and work with Talvin Singh. Perfect for my upcoming show on the renovation of classical. | |
| [9]
"Dubbed on Planet Skank" on Dubmission
dubmission@btinternet.com
includes some great stuff including this
cut. This is material which hybridizes anything that comes in its
path - water, ether, electronix, beats, message, roots so that it all
gets liquefied into some bio-electrical amniotic inflammable
material. Includes Doof, Zion Train vs Sounds from the Ground,
Dubolition, Lithium6 and Alpha & Omega... qualla perfectly fuses
teenage rebellion, drug exploration, and the fluid realms of
unencumbered soul where we are temporarily released from the weight
of living. Escapes is an aesthetic, political and biological
enterprise. Dub, in its best moments perfectly conflates these forces.
* And of course don't forget the excellent book about the inevitable mix of water and music "Ocean Of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds" by David Toop, Serpent's Tail, 4 Blackstock Mews, London N4 * "Toward An Aqueous Subworld: Exploring the disorienting & inspiring openness" is my Review of Toops' book that appeared in the January 1998 issue of AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW. Write me if you want a copy of it. | |