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

Gradual Brightening, pt 3 (#56)

Source can be found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 3 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

Part 1, Part 2

This segment of this show features a lot of vocalization—mumbled, hollered, gasped, giggled, foamed, and belted. If you've ever pulled a marathon shift, you know that things get loopy after a certain stretch, and hours four and five here are sure showing it. But that was the point, I guess, to go beyond our normal endurance for mixing and test the limits.

It does get tired and fallback upon some late-ninties IDM for a bit, but then there's a great bit where we say "Hello to the universe". The walls of noise and newborn baby reference also play along with the early morning theme, I suppose.

1. Ode to Dinah Shore
2. Extended sleep episode
3. Braying and chimes
4. whatisitwhatisitwhatisitunclecleottototo
5. Round and round-dnuor dna dnuor
6. What's so funny about power electronics?
7. Foul-mouthed open letter
8. They're so cute when they start reading poetry
9. The martial art of jazz-golf
10. Screamix
11. Melodic moans of damned doors
12. Bombast and cheese
13. Yes, records ARE fantastic

Gradual Brightening, pt 2 (#56)

Source can be found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 2 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

Part 1

This one is getting going with full-force (already? Save it up, you still have pts 3-4!) raucousness and mayhem. Featuring a cruise-band record from my parents' Bermuda honeymoon, Lewis Carroll poems, the trusty HAL-9000, and some serious out-there skronk and noise, scattered amongst the drone.

1. On a ship: Lounge act, engine drone
2. A Wonderland revue
3. Anime exclaims with light industrial ditty
4. Primitive scree, rawk overclocked
5. Wait. Who started the self-destruct sequence?
6. This is it. We're going to die.
7. Your life flashes before your eyes—oddly with singing chipmunks
8. Limbo = electronique opera overture
9. Getting the saxophone started on a cold morning
10. Airplane mimicry in shop class
11. The Avant-garde vs. the Vienna Philharmonic
12. Absurd getting ugly, draws in John Williams
13. Twinkling beats. Get it? Beats?

Gradual Brightening, pt 1 (#56)

Source file found here. Originally broadcast on May 18, 1997. This is Part 1 of a four-part, six-and-a-half hour show that we performed one morning during a gap in the programming between spring and summer schedules at the radio station.

The idea was to begin quietly in the dark of early morning and very gradually increase the energy and mixing as the sun rose and morning progressed. Six plus hours is not a recommended amount of time to do anything non-stop with any consistency or high amount of success, but there are some notable bits here and there once we got into the mode.

Part 1 here starts with the station ID "looping" on the phone delay, and we move into a start-stop section until we work it out with some terrible organ music. From the 30 minute mark onward things are solid in a extended drone and animal-sounds way. Definitely worth taking a listen to, especially on a weekend morning on the couch.

1. ID...ID...ID...ID...
2. Is it funny already?
3. Rather Aphex-y so far
4. Anton plays an extended etude
5. Pretty annoying: calliope/R2D2 impression/tinnitus
6. Practicing my squiggles
7. Circular breathing through drainpipes
8. Forest empties of fauna in advance of an approaching menace
9. Fauna return to bliss out
10. Thick pulses surfacing
11. Dulcimer and prepared piano solos
12. Interesting loops, half-musical
13. A crumbly accordion

May Flowers May Day (#53)

Source is found here. Originally broadcast on May 1, 1997.

This is another fun show I remember listening to repeatedly. I think the title here is purely nominal and doesn't relate to any springtime or labor-related content. The energy level starts pretty high and active. There is a prevalance of spastic burbling and garbled chatter, bobbing back and forth between music fragments and blasts of verbal nonsense, and feedback—ranging from a hollow, ringing sheet to a rolling bass shudder—recurs throughout the show.

Featured largely throughout is Atavistic Records' 1996 "State of the Union" compliation, a two-disc set of 146 one-minute tracks of avant musics, spoken word, and collage bits. I am also happy to hear Protoblast's "Ex-Neurosurgeon" again at about the 1 hour 23 minute mark, a great, compact song from the great NC comp "Cognitive Mapping Vol 2" from Friction Media. I will need to pull that CD out again.

1. Saxophone overtakes tape deck
2. Backwards sucking vampire guitar
3. Meta-radio instructions
4. Let's turn on
5. You're the earth
6. The singing stone
7. I know you can
8. Record player won't turn, it's stuck
9. Sounds of being the sky
10. Mr. Price is amused
11. Thriller loop, screams, and static
12. Body bomb with background turntablism
13. Trash can party

Microphone/Macronoise (#93)

Source here. Originally recorded January 29th, 1998.

I spent the last two weekends going to live shows, one of which was Moogfest. I beg your forgiveness.

More than once we had an actual theme, the theme being a limitation on the usual kind of no-holds-barred, free-form mayhem that often took place. This particular show was a show where we started everything with microphones and handheld recording equipment. A genuine din captured live. There are toilet noises, which might be all you need to know.

1. A Pennywhistle for your thoughts.
2. I Fail at Sitar Hero
3. We finally shut off the alarm
4. Background Murmurs and an Organ Recital
5. We built a hurdy gurdy in the junkyard
6. A trek in the parking lot
7. Stuck in the feedback closet
   
8. Distant Weather Report
9. Aetheric Carpentry
10. A slight relenting/recording
11. More Static et.al.
12. Toys and more toys
13. Steel Pot Cathedral

Thanksgiving Break (#29)

Original Source here. Recorded on November 30th, 1996.

Given the date, there's really no overarching theme here, but the fact that Thanksgiving and Ostara are two holidays for overindulgence could lend a certain thematic tone to at least this post above and beyond what we were reaching for on that particular night.

Thanksgiving (and, by extension, Easter I guess), are lonely times at college radio stations. Most of the main DJs are gone, and the second stringers are in full force. Being perennial second-stringers we generally had all the time we could claim (not necessarily a good thing). Like the Grateful Dead, and extended remix might give way to distended sessions of noodling.

Sometimes this worked out just fine.

1. Come On, Every Beat Box
2. Back in the 20s, we only had wood burning Industrial Music
3. Not the First Song From Our New Album
4. 80's Horror Movie
5. We're Going to Take a Bath on This One.
6. Strings or Hinges
7. Story Chant Time
8. Where is it Hiding?
9. Alvin, Simon, Theodore
   
10. The Man Who Killed Carlos Santana
11. I Ended up Barfing on Bing Crosby
12. Will You? Won't You?
13. I Tripped Over Can

Added by IanF-R:
This show's flowsheet is a little more informational than others due to the show's less thematic, more ad hoc format.

Religion and its Predecessor, Feedback (#24)

Original source here. Recorded on November 2, 1996.

This is a pretty good bit of synchronization, seeing as how Easter is just around the corner (although maybe the indulgent nature of this is more suited to Fat Tuesday. It's possible). There's not as much traditional feedback in this one as you might expect, but the fact that I'm currently suffering under a head cold and consuming quite a bit of NyQuil means that it's all sounding a bit more transcendent than usual.

I would say "Take this with a dose of cough syrup", but I am not a doctor or a reverend.

1. To the four corners of the Earth
2. Stomp. Clap. Shout.
3. Speeding up and Slowing down
4. Sweating to the Great Old Ones
5. Religion Blurs the Line Between Country and Gospel.
6. If it's not true for you. It's not true.
7. Which Delta are We Talking About?
8. If the Spirit Moves You
9. Shortwave Message to the Lord
10. Trying to Watch the Game
11. Looking for a Snake to Handle
12. Call to Prayer
13. Greater Than One

Added by IanF-R:
Link to this show's flowsheet

A brief interlude.

We used to stuff like this all the time on the show, on purpose. You'll hear some of it, once in a while.