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

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