Tag: avantgarde

SOUNDWAVE : 50 : EMIL ZAPFFE

Today’s guest deejay is João Guimarães, AKA Emil Zapffe.

If you’ve been listening to SOUNDWAVE for the last few weeks, then it will come as no surprise that I discovered João on Bandcamp.

When SOUNDWAVE comes up in conversation with those unfamiliar with ambient music, I sometimes have to explain that not all ambient music is swathes of pretty sounds. Ambient can be haunting and discordant. Or, in João’s case, it’s grand in scope. If you want to experience it yourself, go to João’s Bandcamp page and play any of his songs with the volume cranked to 11. His music will shake your windows and vibrate dishes off your table. You’ve been warned.

But if you’re expecting that kind of experience on today’s show, then you’ll be just as surprised as I was. João’s mix covers quite the gamut. Yes, there is that big sound, but it’s also delicate, mournful, and lovely. It’s precisely the kind of mix I’d share with people I have to explain the depth and complexity ambient music offers.

Oh, and I also appreciate that João and I appreciate Peter Wessel Zapffe’s nihilist essay, “The Last Messiah” (listen to an excerpt from the essay on my October 2020 mix). I usually embrace Nietzche’s existential exuberance, but it’s easy to waffle and settle into existential dread, something Zapffe (Peter Wessel, not Emil) explores in his essay. As long as I don’t fall into Emil Cioran’s existential disgust, I guess I’m doing okay.

João has some words regarding his mix below.

Before I wrap this up, I feel the need to mention that it was this time last year that California went under lockdown. Like most people, I’ve gotten along with my life. I work from home, I rarely go out, and when I do, I wear a mask even when I don’t need to. Vaccinations for the entire U.S. are just around the corner. But a year ago, we were all white-knuckling it, and every day was filled with angst. I’m relieved that we’re about to turn the corner.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Rhucle.

See you then!

 

João Guimarães, AKA Emil Zapffe
João Guimarães, AKA Emil Zapffe

For this mixtape, I tried to make a selection of compositions that touched me this past year and permitted me to escape reality for a while. Our world outside changed, but our inner world changed too, with lots of questions about the nature of existence, the fabric of society, our strengths, and our deepest fears. Through these sounds, I could cope with reality and dream outside its claw, making my mind and spirit expand beyond self-imposed barriers. I hope the listeners can expand their senses and spirits, and for a while, inhabit their inner world, free of any form of limitation or weakness. In times of fear, all we have is our imagination.

Thanks to Joseph Aleo for this invitation, it’s an honor.

  1. Giulio Aldinucci “Phoenix”
  2. Emil Zapffe “Fragmented Anchors”
  3. SVLBRD “The Void”
  4. Mono Tape “Origin”
  5. Mount Shrine & Alphaxone “The Realms of Madmen”
  6. David Cordero “Tras la tormenta (feat. Carles Guajardo)”

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SOUNDWAVE : 49 : LESS BELLS

Today’s guest deejay is Julie Carpenter, AKA Less Bells.

Several months ago, I did a deep dive on musicians on Bandcamp who explored ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music. Julie explores all those genres, so naturally, I invited her to join us on SOUNDWAVE. I expected to be surprised, but I didn’t expect how surprised by her mix. Dirty Projectors? Buddy Sainte-Marie? Big Star? What the hell?!? I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m delighted!

Speaking of delights, I urge you to go on your music streaming platform of choice and listen to Julie’s music. I’ve been listening to her albums constantly since first discovering her music, and I have a feeling you’ll do the same. Better yet, if you like what you hear, and you will, why not spend a few dollars on some of her songs or her albums. You can thank me later.

Julie will talk about her mix below.

I need to wrap this up because my wife will visit me for the next week and I need to tidy up around the house. The pandemic and work have kept us apart for months at a time. While I’m used to a solitary life, I don’t like being apart from her this long. But I have relapsed into my former bachelor ways and need to get things shipshape before she’s back in town.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Emil Zapffe, AKA João Guimarães.

See you then!

 

Julie Carpenter, AKA Less Bells
Julie Carpenter, AKA Less Bells

Putting together a coherent playlist makes me feel like I’m having a party and leaving some of my favorite guests standing outside in the cold. I start with way too many ideas and then eliminate the various contestants. This is how I write music, too. It isn’t until I’m done that I can see what I was trying to do. This list revealed itself as a collection of my favorite sound palettes.

I love music that makes me ask, “how on earth did they do that?” The whole Bitte Orca album from Dirty Projectors is a cabinet of wonders, but this is the crowning gem for me. They hung this beautiful melody on reversed swelling strings, and it’s sculptural.

The Clint Heidorn piece that follows has its own kind of dimensionality but pursues it through timbres. The way the sax, strings, guitar, and upright bass move together creates one gorgeous multi-faceted instrument.

Windy & Carl have such a deep body of work, it was hard to choose, but I love the little chimes that litter the winter landscape of “Snow Covers Everything.” Guitar and vocal sounds are their trademark, but it’s the attention to little sonic details that sets them apart.

“Sleep Walk” is a song I’ve loved my whole life because it’s one of those perfect melodies that embodies yearning and satisfaction in the same moment. Also, it’s got the best reverb.

Christina Vantzou’s piece that follows is from a completely different planet, but the dialogue between the elements she’s chosen is so subtle and warm. It’s a piece you can wrap up in.

The Books take us in yet another direction, a frantic scramble of chopped acoustic bits that comes together in an emotionally resonant way.

Buffy Sainte-Marie is a hero of mine in many ways, but I especially love Illuminations for her experimentation with processing. “Poppies” shows off her acrobatic voice in such a chilling atmosphere.

I debated putting “Kanga Roo” on this list as it’s such a well-known song, but it’s got so many elements that draw me in. It’s the ultimate beautiful mess: distortion clashing with strings, dissonance, and melody, timing fluid to the point of falling apart.

I closed out the playlist with “Queen of Crickets” from the most recent Less Bells album Mourning Jewelry because I feel like its one of our most successful experiments with texture. I loved bringing together the sound of a 120-year-old banjo with synthesizers and strings. In the end, it’s all just vibrations and how they move the listener.

  1. Dirty Projectors “Two Doves”
  2. Clint Heidorn “Pasadena”
  3. Windy & Carl “Snow Covers Everything”
  4. Santo & Johnny “Sleep Walk”
  5. Christina Vantzou “Entanglement”
  6. The Books “That Right Ain’t Shit”
  7. Buffy Sainte-Marie “Poppies”
  8. Big Star “Kanga Roo”
  9. Less Bells “Queen of Crickets”

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SOUNDWAVE : 47 : OUT OF HELL

Today’s guest deejay is Boris Tyurin, AKA Out of Hell.

Out of Hell continues my exploration of musicians who mine the ores of ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental on Bandcamp. It’s been a successful endeavor, and previous Bandcamp artists who have been guest deejays on SOUNDWAVE are Ishmael Cormack, Tim Six of ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ Records, and Ivan Somov, AKA Notnotice.

I’ll be honest, what made me listen to Out of Hell’s was the influence of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft on his music.

It’s interesting because Lovecraft’s books are in the public domain Lovecraft permeates popular culture. In particular, his Cthulhu mythos. You can find Lovecraft’s tentacled Elder God in the form of crochet toys, tiki mugs, and pajamas. The sublime terror of Cthulhu has been diminished into a safe, consumer item. The only people who tap into the nihilistic horror of Cthulhu are comic book writer Alan Moore, role-playing game creators, and bands such as Rudimentary Peni and Skinny Puppy.

Not everything Out of Hell records is touched by the tentacles of Cthulhu, but the influence is there. Out of Hell explores the realm of dark ambient. His music can be just as delicate and pretty as a lot of ambient music, but it’s mysterious and often tinged with dream and anxiety. His mix is more than a selection of some of his best work. It’s an experience to be had.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Dani, founder of Kloob Music.

See you then!

 

Boris Tyurin, AKA Out of Hell
Boris Tyurin, AKA Out of Hell

  1. Out of Hell “The Dark”
  2. Ouy of Hell “Symphony in Moonlight and Nightmares”
  3. Out of Hell “The Temple”
  4. Out of Hell “The Whisperer in Darkness”
  5. Out of Hell “The Voice of the Night”
  6. Out of Hell “The Ruins”
  7. Out of Hell “Introspection”

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SOUNDWAVE : 37 : CHRISTIAN SAGER

Today’s guest deejay is Christian Sager, co-host Supercontext, a podcast autopsy of media: how we consume it and how it informs our everyday culture.

Christian Sager
Christian Sager

I loved Supercontext. It felt like a podcast that was produced exclusively for me. For example, some of the topics they covered have been the anime Akira, Roy Scranton’s book, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization and Bruce Sterling’s state of the world address at SXSW 2016. All those things are in my nerd wheelhouse. Even the shows that discussed topics I knew nothing about were gems.

Sadly Supercontext is now defunct although Christian and co-host Charlie Bennet still release a monthly podcast for Patreon supporters where they chat about the media they’ve been consuming. I highly recommend you go through their archives and listen to shows you think might strike your fancy.

I respect Christian and Charlie’s taste in music and invited them to guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE. Christian has delivered a mix that ranges from prog to math to dirge rock with a dollop of hip hop. Not your usual SOUNDWAVE fare but for me, at least, it was the perfect soundtrack to this week. 300,000+ dead from COIVD-19 and a President and his supporters who seemingly want to upend democracy. Christian’s mix is the blast of sound and fury I needed to propel me though the week.

Special thanks go out to Taylor Shechet for sequencing this week’s mix. Christian didn’t have the original tracks and when I offered to assemble the mix GarageBand refused to import the audio files. Taylor did me a solid by putting the mix together. And if you love today’s show then you’re definitely going to love Taylor’s mix for SOUNDWAVE that I’ll release in the next month or so.

CORRIDOR Magazine
CORRIDOR Magazine

Before I go, I want to mention that Christian and David Moore are launching a project called CORRIDOR Magazine, a new horror magazine bringing the weird worlds of short fiction, art, comics, and essays together under one roof. I’m helping fund it and so should you if this sort of thing is your bag.

Jonathan Ammon's American Splendor album
Jonathan Ammon’s American Splendor album

I also wanted to share Jonathan Ammons’s new release, “Living Proof,” from his forthcoming album, American Splendor. I’m looking forward to the album. If you want to hear more music from Jonathan, listen to his mix for SOUNDWAVE here.

Harrold Budd
Harold Budd

Lastly, some sad news. Ambient composer Harold Budd died December 7. Just the day before I was listening to The Pearl, an album he recorded with Brian Eno, the day before he passed and was thinking how much I enjoyed his music. Harold was a pioneer in ambient music. He will be missed and my condolences go out to his family and friends.

And on that somber note, it’s time for me to say goodbye.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Harrold Roeland.

See you then!

  1. Aspects of Physics “Level 3”
  2. Battles “Tonto”
  3. Atomsmasher “Thunderspit”
  4. Sannhet “Invisible Wounds”
  5. DJ/rupture “A04 Untitled from ‘Nubus’”
  6. Run The Jewels “Don't Get Captured (Instrumental)”
  7. MONO “After You Comes the Flood”
  8. Thrones “Ephraim”
  9. Russian Circles “309”
  10. Sunn O))) & Boris “Akuma No Kuma”
  11. OXES “Bees Won”
  12. The Fucking Champs “What's A Little Reign?”
  13. Orthrelm “rdd 1+2”
  14. Heilung “Norupo”
  15. Earth “Crooked Axis for String Quartet”

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SOUNDWAVE : 34 : offthesky

Today’s guest deejay is Jason Corder AKA offthesky.

Jason Corder AKA offthesky
Jason Corder AKA offthesky

Jason was on the list of people I wanted to interview for solipsistic NATION after being introduced to his music through Bluetech’s Somnia music label and featuring Jason’s music on my show (here and here).

Ambient and instrumental music that leans towards the ambient tends to sound indistinguishable. It’s difficult to have a unique sound and in fact that is the point for many artists who create music in this genre. But this is not the case with Jason, His music is very organic. Burnished, you might say. It feel’s worn-in, like a jacket you’ve owned for decades. Jasons music is very much his own and instantly recognizable.

I know you’re going to love this mix. I know I certainly have. I had the pleasure of listening to it again today as we were driving out of Palm Springs. It's not an environment I thought would be conducive to this mix but it fit right in there.

Imperial Valley
Imperial Valley

Before I get out of Dodge I wanted to tell you about a release from one of my favorite music labels, the Other Forms of Consecrated Life that came out earlier last week. It’s a self-titled LP by Imperial Valley and I purchased it without even listening to the preview tracks. Other Forms of Consecrated Life releases music only of the highest quality so I did not hesitate to buy the album. I was not disappointed. I love the album and have listened to it easily a half dozen times already. It represents everything I love about the label: it’s haunting and minimal but deceptively rich and layered. Give the album a listen and while you’re at it, listen to Other Forms of Consecrated Life’s mix for SOUNDWAVE.

Join us again next week when our guest deejay will be Melorman.

See you then!

  1. Xu “Whisper My World (Featuring Darren Harper)”
  2. Dalot & Sound Awakender “Little Things”
  3. Lee Evans “Aphasic Forest”
  4. Hipnotic Earth “Home Diaries 022”
  5. David Bowie “Low”

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SOUNDWAVE : 25 : ADRIAN UTLEY

I’m very excited about today’s show because our guest deejay is Adrian Utley!

Most likely you know Adrian from Portishead, the band that put trip hop on the map late last century. Or you many know Adrian more recently for the work he did with Will Gregory for the soundtrack to the motion picture Arcadia, which I featured on the first episode of SOUNDWAVE. Adrian is a man who cares deeply about his craft and his love of sound and music is expressed in any project he is involved with.

I want to give special thanks to Charles Hazelwood for putting me in contact with Adrian. After Charles’s mix for SOUNDWAVE went live I asked him who he knew personally who might be interested in participating in the show and he suggested Adrian and Hannah Peel (who will be our guest deejay on next week’s show). It’s little things like that that make this show feel special and more intimate. At least to me, anyway.

Okay, time for me to wrap this up. My family and I are going to take a little but much needed vacation and get away from the wildfires and earthquakes that have wracked California.

I hope you are safe and well. See you next week.

 

Adrian Utley
Adrian Utley

  1. Pulled by Magnets “Nowhere Nothing”
  2. Philip Glass “Music in Similar Motion”
  3. Townes Van Zandt “Sky Blue”
  4. Asher Gamedze “Movement Three: Synthesis”
  5. Robert Fripp & Brian Eno “Evening Star”
  6. Sonic Youth “Dirty Boots”
  7. Lee Morgan “Search for a New Land”
  8. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Into My Arms”

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SOUNDWAVE : 8 : ROBERT RICH

Here we are in week whatever of the safe at home lockdown in California. I’m in really good spirits because I got to see my wifee for the first time in over two months. She’s in the military and her unit has been tasked to pack boxes for food banks. Being apart from her for so long was taking a toll and seeing her, if only for week, did me a world of good.

She was on bereavement leave for her grandmother’s funeral. It was a sad day but due to the Corona Virus I think everyone took extra solace being with family members. It was a little surreal seeing everyone wearing masks at the ceremony.

I’ve continued to find comfort and enjoyment in the mixes guest deejays have shared on SOUNDWAVE. Today’s show is significant to me because our guest deejay is musician and producer, Robert Rich. I’ve been a fan of Robert since first hearing his music on the From Here To Tranquility Volume 2 compilation album way back in 1993. I was excited to interview him for solipsistic NATION and share his performance at Fort Mason and the Morrison Planetarium and I’m equally excited to share Robert’s mix with you today! You can read Robert’s show notes below.

Join us again next week when our guest deejay will be Kirk Markarian, who composes music for video games, film, animation, stock music, and other projects.

See you then!

 

Robert Rich
Robert Rich

One thing that ties all of these together, is that I was involved in each of them. All but the first two are also unavailable to the public. I mixed and mastered Forrest’s Folklore album, and played a bit on it. I have also mastered almost all of his other albums, and I appear on his next one which I will also master soon.

Amoeba is a group I was in you that might know, then there’s the debut of my next album, and a live recordingof a Lou Harrison concert that I made in the dome of the observatory on top of Mt. Hamilton, as a favor to the gamelan group and to Lou. They debuted this composition at the concert, and it was the only time that piece was ever performed. This recording is the only one made. After Lou died I sent a spare copy to his archives in Joshua tree.

The last piece is one that I edited along with six others for the Mexican composer Arturo Salinas. I spent several weeks working with him in 1998, down in Tepoztlan, Mexico.He had a grant to complete the album, but then couldn’t find alabel to release it. It remains unreleased.

  1. Forrest Fang “The Bridge of Chan​-​Chou III. Falling Stones (Kuan Yin)”
  2. Amoeba “Origami”
  3. Robert Rich “Cantus For Hospitality”
  4. Lou Harrison with Gamelan Si Betty “Gending Max Beckman (Unreleased recording from Lick Observatory concert 17 July 1992)”
  5. Arturo Salinas “Munamukami”

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SOUNDWAVE : 6 : JAMES CURCIO

Today’s guest deejay is James Curcio.

I met James years ago back when I was hosting the small WORLD podcast. I was part of the second wave of podcasting and I was small WORLD as the punk rock Fresh Air. If by punk rock, you mean badly played music on out of tune instruments. Anyway, James Curcio was one of my guests and I believe we we talked about his book, Join My Cult!

During the course of producing small WORLD I noticed that James would pop up again again in various circles. Into culture jamming? James was there. Interested in philosophy. James is your man. Writing? James. Music? James again. Magick? Also James.

When I was putting together a list of guest deejays for SOUNDWAVE I included James because I was curious what kind of mix he’d put together. I suspected it would be a playlist that included Coil, Current 93 and Dead Moon. You know, some sort of musical art project attempting to turn lead into gold. Instead, I got a mix of David Bowie interspersed with industrial and Nordic folk music. Did not see that coming.

Before I let James introduced this week’s show, I want to thank everyone who is listening to the show and the kind words they’ve shared. I just ask that you do it in on iTunes. Leave SOUNDWAVE a quick review and whatever algorithm Apple uses pushes the show up their podcast charts. SOUNDWAVE is a super niche show so I don’t expect that it’d take much.

Come back next week. Out guest deejay will be electronic musician Frank Riggio.

 

James Curcio
James Curcio

This mix was probably inspired by spending 3 years writing and researching MASKS: Bowie & Artists of Artifice (especially the themes that come up in this long-form blog post, Masks All The Way Down). But it’s not a “Bowie mix” as such: mortality, futility, transience, being lost in the simulacra, isolation during coronavirus… and some great beats. Everything in our lives feel so fragile now, but of course the truth is it always was. The outro track is an original remix of Nine Inch Nail’s “Me I’m Not” that I did like 10 years back, and some live studio outtakes from a mushroom party.

  1. IAMX “Stardust (Video Mix)”
  2. David Bowie “No Plan”
  3. Forest Swords “Panic”
  4. David Bowie “Love is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix)”
  5. Eivør “Í tokuni” (lyrics translation)
  6. David Bowie “The Motel/Sunday”
  7. Onuka “Zenit (intercut with sections of Davi Bowie’s ‘Sunday’)” (lyrics translation)
  8. Perturbator “Tactical Precision Disarray”
  9. Igorrr “Downgrade Desert”
  10. SKYND “Tyler Hadley”
  11. David Bowie “Killing A Little Time”
  12. Nine Inch Nails “Me I’m Not (James Curcio Original Remix)”
  13. James Curcio “Mother Hive Brain (Recorded at OrangeFace)”

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SOUNDWAVE : 4 : STEVEN HOWARD

I’ve expanded the scope of SOUNDWAVE by inviting musicians, deejays, podcasters, etc to contribute mixes to the show. I’ve been overwhelmed with their generosity and support.

Last Sunday’s show featured our first guest deejay, Sean Horton, who provided a gorgeous mix of music. All week long people have shared with me how much it meant to them. On today’s show we’ll hear another mix of music no less beautiful than Sean’s, this time from my old and dear friend, Steven Howard.

I met Steven last century one day while I was wrapping up my show at WMFO. He was their be trained by one of our staff but for whatever reasons that deejay failed to show up. I gave Steven a 15 minute crash course on how to operate our board, wished him well, and ran off to work.

Steven and I became fast friends and he introduced me to so much music. Over the decades I’ve watched Steven meet the girlfriend he would later marry, become a proud father of two boys, move from Boston to Asheville and help launch two radio stations. You can catch his show, Mental Notes, on AshevilleFM.

Steven was one of the first people I asked to participate in SOUNDWAVE. You will, of course, love his mix but what I think you will really enjoy is the field recordings he weaved into the music. It’s a reminder of the world that’s out there waiting for us when it’s safer to leave our homes.

Before I let Steven talk about today’s show I implore you to purchase any of the songs you hear on today’s mix or any mix you hear on SOUNDWAVE. The artists are pouring their hearts into each track. Your purchases of songs or albums not only helps them continue working on their craft but also puts food on their tables or pays for the roof over their heads.

See you next Sunday when our guest deejay is Vince Millett, the founder of Broken Drum Records and the host of the Secret Archives of the Vatican podcast.

 

Steven Howard
Steven Howard

It’s kind of silly to say this here:

I knew I had some field recordings on my phone. My intention was always to use them somehow. As I started going through files of artists in my digital library, I dropped tracks into a folder for your project. It was easy to pick the tracks I wanted. I only picked 9 between A-O in my experimental section of my digital library. I then sequenced those into an order roughly resembling a fantasy walk in nature.

Often when I would drive to work in South Boston at 4 am, I’d listen to ambient music like Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol II. I always loved how the city looked with the backdrop of dark ambient playing. When I moved to Western North Carolina I would take drives into the mountains or onto the parkway sometimes alone. Ambient worked well there, too.

Being in many different time slots on the radio has moved me further away from experimental sounds over the past handful of years. I have always felt that way about experimental radio. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’ve made all the segues I needed to make. Then you come along and ask me to do a short 30 minute project. I realize if I’m to make a piece, it has to include some original work.

In the layering of these pieces as I sequenced them, I imagined walking in some unknown place, as if superimposed on a green screen and looking down a crater at pulsing orb embedded in a forest. While it looked ominous there was no danger. I passed along wind whipped water of a mountain lake and looked up and saw the late morning sky and heard a plane’s echo of the mountainside. Behind some five miles back, that orb has flown off. I hear it and look.

My heart is exhilarated. I feel good. I’m nearer my goal with the others at camp. The stars are coming up and it’s been a long day. It’s time to feed.

  1. Steven Howard “Field Recording: crows in trees before sunrise (Three Lakes, Wisconsin – July 7, 2019)”
  2. Oren Ambarchi “This Evening So Soon”
  3. Biosphere “Antennaria”
  4. Annea Lockwood “floating world: Part 1”
  5. BJ Nilsen “Black Light”
  6. Sylvain Chauveau “A”
  7. Colleen “Your Heart Is So Loud”
  8. Pauline Oliveros & Miya Masaoka “Twilight – Bashou (Tolling Of A Bell)”
  9. Geir Jenssen “Cho Oyu Basecamp – Morning”
  10. Steven Howard “Field Recording: katydids from our backyard (Asheville, North Carolina – July 19, 2019)”

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