Thursday, July 22, 2010

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