SOUNDWAVE : 116 : JOSEPH ALEO

This mix has been gestating for decades.

A year ago, I was rooting around my bins of CDs, gathering music I wanted to use in a future mix on Soundwave. There was a herculean amount of labor finding those CDs. It meant going into the garage, pulling out 75-100 lbs bins of CDs, and sorting through every CD to find what I needed. I have literally put sweat into this mix.

The mix features songs I’ve played many years ago when I deejayed at WMFO. From there I’d segue from one cluster of songs to the next. I know from experience that these songs slot together like sonic LEGOS. Okay, maybe not the most elegant analogy, but you get the idea.

These songs mean things to me.

Take Coil, for example. When Love’s Secret Domain was released, my fellow deejays at WMFO loved the album. I didn’t get it. But I had spent money on the CD, so I gave the album a few listens. And after a while, I came to see the genius in that album and became a fan of Coil.

I discovered C-Schulz on the Extreme RecordsX-X Section compilation album in the stacks of new CDs in the main studio at WMFO. I’d play “Fir” on repeat on my Discman and lose myself in itself Bladerunnerish beauty.

Z’EV, rest in peace. He left us five years ago, and we’ll not see his like again. I have RE/SEARCH to thank for turning me onto Z’EV and his percussive explorations of sound.

I’m a fan of Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin. When they collaborated on Techno Animal, it was everything I had hoped for. “The Dream Forger” has particular significance to me for getting me through one long, heartbroken night. Listen to Justin’s mix for Soundwave here.

My buddy Steven Howard introduced me to Mono Pause and many other great bands from the fantastic America The Beautiful compilation album from RRRecords. Listen to Steven’s mix four Soundwave here.

Steven “Jesse” Bernstein was another WMFO find. There are many fantastic tracks from his Prison album, “More Noise Please” is the one that gets me all blubbery contemplating alienation in what sometimes seems like a madhouse of a world.

The Anti Group’s “A.A.A.A. (Accelerated Audio Alpha Activity)” from the Total – Volume One compilation album never fails to creep me out even after all these decades.

:Zoviet*France: is much loved, and “Voice Print Identification” is perhaps the song I love most from their wonderful and extensive catalog. I encourage you to listen to Zoviet’s A Duck in a Tree show.

Pornosect also appeared on Total – Volume One album, and like “A.A.A.A. (Accelerated Audio Alpha Activity)”; I still find “Media Termination” just as unsettling after all this time.

I hope you enjoy today’s show.

I discovered that when my CDs were in storage, nearly all the songs featured in today’s mix are no longer published. They’re rare gems.

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

See you then.

  1. Coil “Corybantic Ennui”
  2. Coil “Dismal Orb”
  3. C-Schulz “Firn”
  4. Z’EV “Superballed”
  5. Techno-Animal “The Dream Forger”
  6. Mono Pause “Come Into the Future”
  7. Steven Jesse Bernstein “More Noise Please”
  8. T.A.G.C. (The Anti Group Communication) “A.A.A.A. (Accelerated Audio Alpha Activity)”
  9. :Zoviet*France: “Voice Print Identification”
  10. Pornosect “Media Termination”

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SOUNDWAVE : 54 : MICHAŁ MILCZAREK

Today’s guest deejay is Michał Milczarek.

Michał is based in Warsaw, Poland, and is an ambient electroacoustic artist that explores multimedia, sound art, and ambient genre through guitar soundscapes, field recordings, and samples. He is a conceptual leader of MM3, who creates 360° concepts of composing music, sound design, audio production, visual arts, and live performances. Michał is also a member of NUDA, a polish modern jazz/avantgarde band. Michał is currently working on different multimedia concepts and audio-visual works connecting the language of music and social commitment.

Michał is yet another musician I discovered on one of my deep dives on Bandcamp. I don’t have anything else to say about Bandcamp that I haven’t said here already. If you haven’t used Bandcamp’s service, please do. They do great work, and they make sure that the artists and music labels receive a high percentage of the money they make through selling music. You can buy the music you love and know that the musicians are fairly compensated for their work.

Michał’s mix for today’s show is a surprise. I suppose all the mixes on SOUNDWAVE are surprised. What I mean is that I invite people I respect to guest deejay on the show and give them the parameters that their mix focus on ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music. How they choose to interpret that is up to the guest deejay.

Therein lies what I think the charm of the show is. What music do these talented musicians love and want to share with us? It would be a mistake to believe that the guest deejays would select tracks like their own music, yet I make this mistake again and again.

Take Michał’s opening track, “When the World Ended.” It’s a beautiful piece of poetry that serves as a kind of a mission statement for today’s mix. At least, that how it seemed to me. There’s nothing in Michał’s own music that prepared me for it. Nor did I expect Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to make an appearance Michał’s mix, yet here we are. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised by Yorke’s appearance after hearing him on Robin Rimbaud’s mix from a few weeks ago. You’ll hear more from Yorke on upcoming mixes on SOUNDWAVE as well.

I know you will take as much delight in Michał’s mix as I did.

Before I get out of Dodge, I want to briefly share my experience of getting my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. I’ll get my second dose the first weekend of May, but I already feel invincible. I still have to take the same precautions of social distancing and wearing a mask, but the background anxiety of going out into the world has melted away. It’s remarkable how much my outlook has changed. I’ve gone from learning how to live with the pandemic on a day-to-day basis to the feeling we have this virus on the ropes and that we can soon go back to our lives.

That raises an important question: how much of our old lives do we want to go back to? The pandemic has been harrowing, but in some ways, it’s made changes in my life for the better and opened me up to possibilities. How has your life changed under the pandemic?

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

 

Michał Milczarek
Michał Milczarek

  1. Envee “When the World Ended”
  2. IDRA “Indivisibilité”
  3. KMRU “Solace”
  4. meeting by chance “Not Alone”
  5. Julianna Barwick “Safe”
  6. Palette “It’s The Little Things, Pt. I”
  7. Thom Yorke “Not the News”
  8. Michał Milczarek “#4”

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Logo by Rik Oostenbroek