Welcome to 2011!
I’ve got lots of plans for the show this year but for today I thought we’d spend the hour listening to some beautiful music that’s lush in it’s minimalism. Sometimes more really is more and to demonstrate I’m only going to play four songs on today’s show. Somtimes you need to give a song all the time it needs to bloom and unfold. Sometimes it’s worth the wait to see what journey a song will take you.
I think of the music on today’s show as being ambient psychedelic because the sounds of today’s show will blend into your world and vice versa. You’ll oten wonder if what your hearing is part of the show or your environment. For maximum effect I suggest putting on your headphones and listen to today’s show as you walk about your neighborhood. Trust me, it’ll be trippy.
So let me tell you who is providing the soundtrack to today’s audio hallucination.
“Floating World Part 3” by Annea Lockwood.
Annea Lockwood is a composer who has taught music at Vassar College. Her music has spanned the breadth of microtonal music to electro-acoustic soundscapes to recording Fluxus-inspired pieces that included burned and drowning pianos. “Floating World” comes from her album, Thousand Year Dream/Floating World, in which Annea invited friends who are soundscape artists themselves to make recordings for her in places of personal and spiritual significance to them. The soundscapes are collaborative and while they have been edited they have not been processed.
Richard Chartier continues the theme with “A Desk For Mixing” which comes from his album, A Field for Mixing.
In A Field For Mixing Chartier recorded in a variety of small and large spaces in countries from Australia through Japan and the USA. Chartier took the unique properties of these spaces and created a completely new acoustic space. “A Desk For Mixing” is dedicated to William Basinski, another artists who works with soundscapes. “A Desk For Mixing” is based on Richard’s site-specific installation work Mixing Desk, which was presented at the Montalvo Art Centre in 2006.
From Francisco Lopez we’ll hear his track, “Untitled #203,” which appeared in the Room40 Airport Symphony compilation album.
Airport Symphony was commissioned by the Queensland Music Festival and Brisbane Airport Corporation to document and synthesize the experiences of travel. Each piece represented a personal meditation on the aspects of travel in the modern age and ways in which we might control, augment and ultimately exists in a time where almost no part of the face of the planet is inaccessible.
Last but not least, we’ll end the show with “Mass Observation” by Scanner.
Robin Rimbaud is Scanner but Robin will always be Scanner to me and part of being Scanner means listening to telephone chatter. It’s funny how back in the day Robin’s recordings inspired conversation about the nature of communication, intimacy, alienation and ideas about privacy. Here in 2011 those ideas are just as relevant but what’s changed is how freely we share things about ourselves that we once kept to ourselves.
Join us next week when we’ll kick out the jams with a live set from Chevron.
Until then, for solipsistic NATION, I’m Bazooka Joe. Thanks for listening and Happy New Year!
Photo Credit: ©dev deploy
- Annea Lockwood “floating world Part 3”
- Richard Chartier “A Desk For Mixing”
- Francisco Lopez “Untitled #203”
- Scanner “Mass Observation”