Ten Minute Bursts (#129)

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on this day 16 years ago(!), October 8th, 1998.

I can only faintly remember the idea for this show--to parcel out the show into 10-minute chunks, trying to cut ourselves off in mid-stride once the timer goes off, to keep from getting stuck into long periods of repetition. Without minutely analyzing the recording to see if that worked, this show doesn't stand out from others that I've heard in any dramatic way. The same tropes and tactics seem to be in effect here: digital FX, forced hypnotic loops, vinyl record manipulation, and non-sequitur text-and-background arrangements.

If anything, the overall show seems less violently disruptive of its own grooves--it gets into a new track and digs on it for a bit, then moves to a different one and tries that for a bit. There are some really great textural sections here, from sharp, cutting distortion to soft, crackly prickles like an aural wool sweater. Recognized sources: Star Wars OST, Led Zep, OOIOO, Melt Banana, Medicine, NIN.

1. Continuous Sandpeople
2. Rubbery-go-round
3. "Die yr roots"
4. Short-circuiting telegraph
5. Tap tap tap--whatisit?
6. Communication freakout
7. Electrified chicken coop
8. Metaphysical tagalongs
9. Train trestle becomes fast drums
10. Funky break, falling horns
11. Resonant whisper
12. Wolf-the-frank
13. Thrum pulse sunrise

Ob-strats (#118)

Source file here. Originally broadcast on July 23rd, 1998.

Being music geeks—not music nerds, who hold their special knowledge over others to feel powerful—we here at TKDF want everyone who doesn't already know about Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies to hear the good word.

Traditionally the Strategies take the form of a deck of cards, and they are intended as tools for when one gets stuck while doing creative work. They are used to challenge preconceptions and allow one to see things suddenly from a perspective where the problem doesn't exist or doesn't matter. Being fans of Eno in general, we decided to approach the problem of the show with the Strategies in hand. This tells you two things: 1, we sometimes felt doing the show was a "problem", and 2, we like using tools.

If we didn't tell you what Oblique Strategies were, could you tell that this show was produced in a different way? Probably not. It has an appealing, shuddering shimmer of a heartbeat for much of its length, but the component sounds and overall show-shape are within the usual range of loopitude, non-sequiturism, uneasicity, dynamicision, and intentional cruftage. Which is not to still wholeheartedly recommend the Strategies for any and all problems that may arise. As one of my favorite cards exclaims, "Try faking it!"

1. Responding to pulses
2. Crackly backward-chanting doctors
3. Tense, endless Italian New-Wave
4. Metallic abrasions
5. Whistling from behind the curtain
6. Almost-dub The Letter
7. Frothing and boiling over onto the mixing console
8. Cavernous, sappy, soulful, pouncing
9. Boomerang yodel
10. Endless-er 'cause it's slower
11. Toads and diseases while channel-surfing
12. An existential question
13. The strategies call for an Ambient 4 coda

Potluck Dinner (#106) (Ian and Jason)

Source here. Originally recorded on April 30th, 1998.

This was supposed to be a sort of potluck of a show, giving each of the current members a chance to explore a theme in a smaller space of time but a larger sphere of influence (either unencumbered by or freed from other members' wills).

What transpires is three very different pieces.  However, we only have two right now.  Lisa's may be lost to time, I fear. I need to dig through the remaining recordings to determine if it's still here.

Also note incidental Mac sounds.....

1. Announcement and Explanation
2. Densely populated concert halls
3. Engraved Television Weapon
4. Lightsaber Battle
5. Cardboard box saw
6. Reverse attackarama
7. Fake space sonar test
8. BittersweetBittersweetBittersweetBittersweet
9. Slavetothemoneythenslavetothemoneythenslavetothemoney
10. BittersweetPublicEnemyNoNoNoNoNo
11. PowerhouseSymphony
12. YouKnowThePusherThatTakesYou
13. TheOtherPusherICantChangeMyModeGoodLeader

Untitled (#96)

Source here. Originally recorded on February 20th, 1998.

I kind of like the unlabeled ones. There's a complete lack of setup, and so it makes for a kind of choose your own adventure listening. It's also clearly a choose your own adventure creation, as the lack of an overarching theme allows for anything to be explored.

1. Buzzing of various kinds
2. Gentle guitar, ungentle background
3. Violins and Turntablism
4. "You're Lumpiest"
5. Grinding voices
6. Orbital mechanics
7. "So Upset"
8. Sonic Chisel
9. At some point, we dropped a beat
10. Television, Movies, Comics
11. Ambient Chill Out Kinko's
12. Scraping out the crates
13. Surf guitar AI

Added by Ian F-R: This show includes a record, "Sleepy Eyes" by Simeon, near the beginning (the "gentle guitar" as well as crunchy guitar soon after). I knew Simeon from my job at the time screen-printing t-shirts.

It also sounds like we did that thing I like a lot, where I transfer an older show to a tape reel and then we send it through FX. I enjoy the swooping crunches near the center of the show's timeline.

Music and Noise, Pt. 2 (#20)

Originally broadcast on October 5, 1996, and show source found here.

I feel my role for these programs now is part historian and interpreter, and sometimes apologist. I recount the facts and details about the original show and how it was made, I provide context from the intents and environments at that time, and I also admit when the shows fail to live up to their potential. This one feels at times like it needs apologizing for, with dead-air minutes and interminable stretches of unpleasant scrapings.

This is, however, what this show is also fundamentally about: pointing out the subjectivity of sound appreciation and attempting to sow seeds in the extreme outer corners of the possible aural field. Music is sometimes differentiated from noise as being organized or desired sound. But putting Music and Noise on a linear axis varying in degrees of Organization or Desirability does not address the subjective nature of those factors. Repetitive factory sounds, clumsy guitar dismemberment, slap funk bass, scrambled tape feedback, reverberating vocal grumbles as found within this show are all equally organized/disorganized, or desirable/undesirable based wholly upon the listener's sensibilities.

As the second of a two-show theme, this recording captured myself, possibly alone at the controls, challenging my future self's definitions and acceptance of music versus noise, contrived versus accidental, and beautiful versus unlistenable in the context of radio programming. I won't bore you how I like it now, but I find it still makes me think, which I count as a kind of success.

1. Dot matrix guitar
2. Guitarpentry
3. 1959 guitar lessons with 3-minute break
4. Hi and lo white noise
5. Cave flautism
6. Caveman at open mic night
7. Actual beats and basslines
8. Jajouka versus breakaway tape machine
9. Fire engines in freefall
10. Weird noise club next door
11. Behemoth speaking slowly
12. More cave guitars with Anton LaVey
13. Relentless house paranoia

Mysterious Beeping and Static (#105)

Source here. Originally recorded on April 23rd, 1998.

One of the more minimalist versions of the show, this one features an almost ethereal avoidance of anything resembling music. The 10 second delay is looped into the main feed, giving a deep deep deep layered background of the previous few minutes.

1. Morse code test
2. Frequency sweep
3. Most people prefer touch-tone
4. Sonar Tube
5. A murmur of voices is barely distinguishable
6. Whispers in the plenum
7. Ping pong ping pong ping pong
8. Telegrammatic Feedback
9. Very low background radiation
10. Radar dish singing bowl
11. A chorus of chaos
12. A little light grinding
13. Finally, a stringed instrument
    

Tape Loop Marxist (#67)

Should be “Tape Loop Archaeologist”. What the hell were we doing here? It's as if the tape's been buried thirteen years in damp peat. There's certainly no Marxism present, except perhaps the reduction of all sounds to an equal level of recognizance, which is kind of the aural equivalent of blurry.

I vaguely remember attempting twice to make an entire show out of one long tape loop which was jury-rigged to stretch off of the station's reel-to-reel tape machine, and I think that's what this is. It's a shorter show, a mere 37-odd minutes of unintelligible swamp and blowing air. I've listed notes for imaginary sources, as I've no clue what was actually used to make these sounds.

Direct link to file here. Originally heaved into the airwaves on July 31, 1997. Unhelpful playlist sheet here.

1. Ross ice shelf cracking apart under the weight of tourists
2. Thousands of timbered trees floating past over slow rapids on their way to the port of Gdańsk
3. Static on an analog telephone line as you listen to the asthmatic breathing of a tubercular wooly mammoth
4. Dream you had once of an out-of-control party where the host unexpectedly turned into a werewolf
5. Rummaging in your pocket for the perfect styrofoam peanut
6. Hiccuping belt sander in its last few minutes of functional life
7. Dragging a small tree over twelve lattice fences piled flat on top of each other
8. World’s largest thunder sheet, 400 yards long but only 1/8 inch thick
9. Furious drum circle in a hurricane, heard from inside a quonset hut filled with chainsaw sculptures
10. Being hit in the face with a wave of mud on a riverbank in the Amazon
11. Riding inside a aluminum-sided bus being driven sideways in gale force winds
12. Killing flies on a hardwood floor with a pennyloafer while vacuuming the drapes
13. 5-minute re-enactment of The Matrix on an enormous moving walkway which is slipping its bearings

The Clumsy Attempt (#58)

Source here. Originally aired May 29th, 1997.

Once again, I'm stumped for a Theme. This may be the reason this particular tape is called "The Clumsy Attempt". It does have a lot of experiments with negative space, though. One problem you get with a collage show (especially a college collage show), is the urge to throw everything at the broadcast antenna you can in the space of the hour or so you have allotted.

This is a mistake.

The value of "less" cannot be overstated. I could go into lots of music theory about why this is the case, but this is something to hear more than write about. Listen to pop music all this week, and if you find yourself confused and disoriented, consider what the music would be like if producers followed a maxim of "less".

1. Crazy Birds are the new Crazy Dinosaurs
2. Zoo Gymnastic Meet
3. Carly Simon / Mr T. / Tammy Faye
4. Field Mice and Bad Jokes
5. Smugglers and Marriage
6. Somebody Else's Problem
7. Fish
8. And Mice Jesus
9. French Dressing
10. Oh My God It's Amway
11. Twitchy Violins
12. Z-Man Speaks
13. Americana

Added by Ian F-r:
This show's flowsheet, with Stern comments added.