Buffer (#128)

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on October 1st, 1998.

"Buffer" because the number 128 reminded me of old computer systems? An aural dumping ground, the shows built up around whatever got picked up, following patterns and relationships not discernible to the distant listener. Some pieces are wholly random and unrelated, lying clumsily against each other like discarded cutouts and leftovers. This could be some run-up-to-Halloween material resting awkwardly between editing experiments, random loops, and effects overloading. Tape manipulations, reversals, and forced-skipping records figure largely in this episode.

1. Water drips on piano keys
2. Pressure release valve
3. Mob scene, Haunted Village, 1952
4. Hot cats and wobbly bolero
5. Lecture and gunfire in drainpipe
6. Yule fawn
7. DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF
8. Atari Teenage Blabbermouth
9. Jody is losing reality
10. Self-destroying suspicion
11. Windy city loop
12. Out-of-range 80s electro
13. Windchimes & PVC bass

No Theme (#127)

Source found here. Originally broadcast on September 24, 1998.

I just found an old flyer for a house party that happened two days after this show was originally broadcast. It claims a start time of "about 10 P.M." Knowing laughs all around from the aging peanut gallery.

This show is another improvisation without a net. I like improvisation, and this one is Zen-like in its minimalism. It might have been well used in another show, laid gently on top of another minimal doodle, and then again with another layer, until the combined time-shifted meditations created a rich, loamy, compost of Zen-like waves of aimless sound-drawings.

1. Thwipping fade out
2. Ovalesque dreamtime
3. Little person on really high stilts
4. Shimmy shimmy down
5. Strumming in traffic
6. The Perhaps Shuffle
7. Weepy thin violin-tone
8. All your accordion are belong to us
9. Disruptive, insistent guitar
10. Enjoy shildriln!
11. Spritzbeat and Real Satan
12. Schpritschbeat and shlurr
13. Terminal amoebae

Trickle-down Publishing

I have not pushed shows out with frequency lately, but there are only a handful left to share with you, honestly. Jason has magnificently done 99.9% of the tape conversion work to be done, and I have been reviewing shows even more slowly since my work life came back this summer.

Bear with me, and you will be rewarded with more Ouija, more Halloween, more cinema, more Christmas, and a phone call from the Mojave Desert. Cheers and thanks for tuning in.

Untitled (#126)

Source found here. Originally broadcast on September 17, 1998.

An energetic workout of the unthemed genus. Featuring crackly records, French whispers, zany whirling, violent spoken word poetry courtesy Attaboy, rushing digital effects, melodic polyrhythms, tinny cheesy tunes, unprepped tape warble, a blind walking tour, xylophonic studies, overblown guitar wringing, and a macro-sense of balance between the chaotic and the orderly.

1. Crumbly whispering
2. The French hang around
3. An unhinging progression
4. [...download complete...]
5. Ranting obscured by synesthesia
6. The mess dissipates outdoors
7. Phased reggae French gurgles
8. The sighted person
9. Dreams losing color
10. Hypnotic vocal chime
11. Metallismo
12. Resonance in cavernous tubes
13. Led Zep on the shortwave

Panic Movement (#122)

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on August, 20, 1998.

I'm not sure how we came up with this variant on the "scored" shows, but I think the idea was build slowly from a calm passage with more and more "panicked" outbursts at opportune times. Kind of the sonic equivalent of climbing an inclined plane of intensity for the length of the show. This resulting show feels like a creepier, dirtier Halloween show imitation. We peak early, but it does end with a large quantity of loud banging. Some of the sources--e.g. Naked City's Absinthe, F.M. Einheit & Caspar Brotzmann's Merry Christmas--also fit well in a playlist of psychological horror and violence soundtracks. Maybe not gradual panic so much as gradual alienation!

1. Whispers and heartbeats
2. Soothing sounds of nature
3. Down in the speech lab
4. Horrible, nameless dread emerges
5. Tension strings and children amok
6. Ask them to be quiet sir
7. A promise of cannibalism
8. Hall running, analysis and static
9. Various sirens, but a balmy ambience
10. Irradiating the beachgoers
11. Oh God it's eating my EYES
12. We've gotten good at "bludgeoning", haven't we?
13. That city-sized vacuum cleaner is back