DE4TH CUBE K - DREAMAT0R1UM (1994)

Processed-guitar soundscapes, illbient noodling and grinding mechanics from the best chicken-bucket-on-the-head-wearing musician on the globe. Production and accompaniment by the faithful Mr. Laswell.

Check yourself in for some Dream Convalescence ...

IR1S GARRELFS - BEDR00M SYMPH0N1ES (2014)

There's been a nasty stomach bug circulating. Many of us have spent the past days in bed with nausea, fevers, chills and bodily upheaval. We played music. Some was to relax, promote restfulness and healing. Other times we interrogated or ingested the subject of illness itself, seeking a homeopathic sonic cure. The albums that follow are a mere selection of some of our literally "sickest" albums we played.

Garrelf's strange little classical/experimental outing is as good a place to start as any: chilly/sweaty Lo-Fi studies for processed voice, raw sound-art ideas, the wonderful feelings of freedom and isolation that come with private bedroom sequestration. Fever-dreaming starts here.

NE1L Y0UNG - DEAD MAN OST (1996)

Pulsing hallucinogenic solo guitar: fuzz, reverb and feedback for those in-between states.

Dream it...

MENSTRUAL CH1NESE DRE4M - S/T (2005)

Music both for and of cramps, bed-spins, nausea and digestive mayhem. A one-off side project of the ever-prolific Mr. J. Ferraro, this drone and loop dreamstuff has the strength to both sooth and unsettle. Dreams of menstrual blood, some people believe, bring good fortune and jubilance to one's life. Menstrual dreams themselves, however, can feel like slow death. Either way, this album provides a churning, grinding, meditative and even ritualistic kind of salve.

JAMES PL0TK1N - THE J0Y OF D1SEASE (1996)

From Zorn's long deceased Avant imprint. Here, sickness, disease and altered states are referenced in this industrial, ravy, and new-beatish offering from the grindcore legend. With collaborations by R. Collins, M. Harris, and F. Triechler.

Dream this if you want...

DEMETR10 STRAT0S - METR0D0RA (1976)

Stratos pulls the human range of vocal techniques through a blackhole in this two-suite series of sound poetry studies and compositions. This, our ninth of twelve DIVerso posts, finds its perfect context for aural consumption in the series of illness-inspired posts we give you today, as the listener who downloads this gem will discover. There is some discomfort, a bit of pain, moments of respite, and ultimately a purge and cleansing of the Four Humors.

Restorative Dreaming...

S0UNDS OF MED1CINE - OPERATION-BODY SOUNDS (1955)

Field recordings from the operating room, sonic documents of medical malfunctions, and the a propos track "Sounds of the Bowels" which has been speaking to some of us in very intimate, personal ways.

Gurgle, dream, regurgitate ...

ALBERT CAMUS / J4MES JENNER - THE PLAGUE (1947/2015)

While Parts One and Three of Camus' classic allegorical novel provide the most appropriate visceral descriptions of the state of disease and corporeal entropy (physical and social), we have provided Jenner's whole translation and 10 hour reading. For some, a narrated story is the best accompaniment for drifting off, dreaming, and distracting you while you hold your abdomen, and its swirling innards, in your sweaty hands.

An epidural for an epidemic...Part 1, Part 2.

STELV1O CIPRI4NI - INCUB0 SULLA C1TTÀ C0NTAM1NATA (1980)

A quick divertimento into Nightmares of the Contaminated City. A soundtrack that foregrounds both the spookiness of epidemic, and the horrible conditions of the cure. Some of this sounds most sickeningly like hospital waiting room music.

C0SM1C EYE - DRE4M SEQUENCE (1972)

Because you need your REM sleep when sick: the late Indian-born Amancio D'Silva provided some of us sicklings with a psych-rock remedy steeped in sonic dreamscapes.

Sequencing them...

MAM0RU FUJ1EDA - RAD1ATED FALL1NG (2009)

Some radiation treatment arrives in the form of two Fujieda compositions from 1980 and 1981--beautiful if perpetually degrading compositions that find wholeness and wellness through subtraction and purification.

Drm t...

MICHAEL NYM4N - DECAY MUS1C (1976)

Finding peace with our ailments.

SEAW0RTHY - SLEEP P4THS (2012)

Sleep loops of guitars, music boxes, ukeleles and electronics...a sonic lullaby to settle almost any stomach ailment. More dreamtime gorgeousness from the Sleepwell record label from Belgium. Get well soon!

Sleep paths from sickness...

JEAN-J4CQUES PERREY - PRÉLUDE AU S0MME1L (1958)

Often described as a key early progenitor of electronic and ambient sonics, Perrey's groundbreaking work comes to us as our earliest-known sleep-aid recording. Pressed by Institut Dormiphone, a French sleep research outfit, this album was created for use in hospitals and mental institutions. Featuring the Ondioline, some kind of vacuum based instrument, this album was specifically composed to induce alpha-wave drowsiness. Its lilting melodies and drone worked like a charm for this writer, who can attest to its abilities. A great addition to our sleep-aid collection: more here, here and here.

Dream it...

THE GHOSTWRITERS - REM0TE DREAM1NG (1986)

This marvelous new-age / minimal outing by C. Cohen and J. Cain (not to mention the perfect aptness of the duo's band name and album title!) provides the introduction and framework for today's grouping of posts: music for fantastic /sci-fi literature.

Here OWOD looks at the cross-genre traces of "remote dreaming" that span across and through not just genre, but media themselves. The law of genre is one of contamination, impurity, as Mr. Derrida once envisioned it. The ideological frameworks that smudge- and are smudged by- our dreams, it would seem, follow suit. As do their representations.

Again, dream dreaming...

BRAVE NEW W0RLD - IMPRESSI0NS ON READ1NG ALD0US HUXLEY (1972)

This is a one-off studio project by a handful of German musicians and, one would imagine, major Huxley fans. This album is a kind of rock opera, steeped in prog, early music, jazz fusion and easy listening, and infused with perfect subtle moments of experimental vocals. Not the sound that would likely come to mind when reading the book, this album is all the better for it.

Soma...

PAUL WADY - THE TERM1NAL BEACH (2012)

A dystopia-drenched, cold-war-sounding paean to JG Ballard's landmark story collection from the mid 60s. Thirteen tracks that cast an uncannily recollective association with, especially, the longer British edition of the book. A soundtrack déjà entendu. Psycho-sonics.

"The Delta at Sunset"

J0NNY TRUNK - 20,000 LE4GUES UNDER THE SEA (2016)

A final entry for the day: a wide-ranging sample of tracks off this newish release. Jazz-driven synthworks, sound effects and orchestral miniatures: a perfect contemporary-sounding B-filmesque "soundtrack" to one of the key progenitors of literary science fiction. A charming album that faithfully and lovingly evokes the novel, while giving it a totally unique sonic sheen.

Weightless dreaming under deep pressure...

S0NNYM00N - S/T (2012)

Dreamish poppity covered by this tempo-changing, layer-shifting, foreground/background reversing electro-pop confection. The two-piece band remains an obsession. From "Wild Rumpus" through to "Just Before Dawn" the songs come in snippets, at times dreamy, and at many others much more dream-like than dreamy, in structure and tone... the music sucks you in ... and then shifts, halts, interrupts and digresses, willfully taking you on its journey.

"Flit, Fleet, Float"