OWOD MIX #02 - FLOUNDER, BE FALCON (2017)

A snapshot of playlist-singles from our dream-fodder folder: alphabetical by artist.

1) F. Hardy - Rêve 2) F. Sinatra - Deep in a Dream 3) I. Mori - Dream 4) J. Struntz & A. Farah - Tangle of Dreams 5) Lali Puna - Together In Electric Dreams 6) L. Anderson - Dreaming of Life Before Birth 7) L. Hazlewood - Won't You Tell Your Dreams? 8) Reed/Cale - A Dream 9) L. Connors/S. Langille - I Wish I Didn't Dream 10) M. Monroe - I Found a Dream 11) M. Chieko - Dreams 12) Nexus/Earle Birney - Ebb Begins from Dream 13) NOMA - Desert Dog 14) P. Bowles - Sleeping Song 15) P. Scherer - Horses Star in My Dreams 16) Phew - Dream 17) P. Glass - Video Dream 18) R. Blake - Nica's Dream 19) R. Slavin - Dreamzone 525 20) R. Lussier - Les Fesses de la Reine 21) R. Amarante - Fall Asleep 22) Sleeping People - Out Dream 23) Stirrup - Domi's Dream 24) Suicide - Dreams 25) S. Ciani - Thirteenth Voice 26) Trans Am - Night Dreaming 27) V. Astley - Afternoon: Summer of Their Dreams 28) Y. Honda - I Dream about You

HANNE DARB0VEN - OPUS 17A (1996)

We played a long composition from an art installation today. Double bassist R. Black performs the late German conceptual artist's Opus 17A, one of her maddening "mathmatical compositions" from her Wunschkonzert series, a grapho-maniacal installation of over 1,000 pages of notes, numbers and notations. This is a rare disc from the Dia Center, and another exemplar leitmotif of music for art.

For us today, it's music for dreaming while working...

M4R1O SCH1AN0 - AND H1S ALL ST4RS (1978)

We listened to this today: our 10th of the 12 DIVerso Series. This is an all-star big band that includes only Schiano on his sax with subtle synths by a Mr. F. De Sanctis--part lounge act, part dancehall gig--that soars and stumbles, swings, slumps and shrieks. We do love pursuing the collection of a good, rare series.

Keeping the dream alive...

M0NS4NTO CHEM1CAL C0MP4NY - ONB SAMBA / M0NS4NTO MARCH (1953)

Then this. With the help of the Don Juan Quartet, Monsanto self-released these two promotional tunes on 78 rpm. The first, a nervy yet bouncin' latin-tinged number is subtitled "music about a chemical"; the flip-side features the Monsanto March, a piece that seems like it might have been a rejected early soundtrack from an "on-hold" telephone call.

This record fits our previous entries of the dreamstates inherent in the aural representations we classify as "easy listening" as well as into our posts on corporate music/recordings.

GMO soundscape here....

AHMED MALEK (W/ FL4K0)- THE ELECTR1C TAPES (2017)

At some point later we listened to this jewel of Algerian ambient--an unfinished project from the late film composer recorded primarily in the late 1970s and early 80s. An expansive, meditative project of sounds both earthly and cosmic. Pure magic.

Dream it ...

(We obvs adore the historical afritronica resurgence: see Jagwa, Mergia, El Omari, Bebey)

R. MURRAY SCHAFER - THE VANC0UVER S0UNDSCAPE (1973)

We also played this today, adding to our sonic locations series. 'Unseen Sounds' and Acoustic Ecologies from the North American West coast ... the unyielding rhythms of nature, industry, commerce, socialization and celebration in full, beautiful splendor.

Dream it...

[Previous Soundsites: The Hudson River / New Hope, PA  / Vancouver, BC / Glacier Bay, AK / Tropical Rainforest / American Fast Food Restaurants / American Offices, Ross Dependancy (Anarctica) / Junk Yards / Holland by Boat]

1891 C0LLECTION: READ BY BELL0NA TIMES (2013)

Here are a few quick associative rejoinders to our posts, yesterday, on Sigmund Freud. The first, from LibriVox, an organization dedicated to the "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain" looks at 1891--the year, incidentally, Freud published his first solo effort, On Aphasia, and moved into his flat at Berggasse 19 in Vienna, where he would write all of his major works. This anthology, however, has nothing to do with Freud. Instead we get 4 hours of amazing period pieces, set firmly within the dreamscape of the Modern: texts by Sir Conan Doyle, Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde and Lafcadio Hearn; pieces on American Hotels, Bohemian Scandals, Soup, and the Legacy of Antiquity.

Dream it all: Part One and Part Two.

NECR0POLIS, AMPH1BIANS & REPTILES: THE MUSIC OF AD0LF WÖLFLI (1986)

Wölfli's pathetic and gruesome life, most of it spent institutionalized near Bern, Switzerland from 1895-1930, gave rise to a monumental outpouring of primatif drawings and text (over 25,000 pages). Much of this material was accompanied by cryptic graphic musical scores. Wölfli himself would practice his works on a paper trumpet.

His psychologist, Dr. Walter Morgenthaler, a former student and protegé of Freud, archived Wölfli's work and produced Madness and Art: The Life and Works of Adolf Wölfli in 1921. It was Rilke who gave the book to Freud...to which the doctor pronounced the artist a "Geisteskrank Künstler." As Freud realized, this work was a product of the modern mind in psychic turmoil, somehow explicable.

This compilation disc captures Wölfli's compositions via interpretations by Nurse W/ Wound, G. Revell, and DDAA (who feature the paper trumpet).

AD0LF WÖLFLI / BAUD0U1N DE J4ER - ANALYS1S OF MUS1CAL CRYPT0GRAMS / THE HE4VENLY LADDER (2011)

A second interpretation of Wölfli's compositions comes from the solo violin of B. De Jaer, who we earlier featured on the Korean gayageum here. 

More strange, sparse and lovely string music on which to drift away. Far away. 

Do it. 

J0HN Z0RN - THE INTERPRETATI0N OF DRE4MS (2017)

A new release by the maestro, wearing its Freudian influence assertively on its sleeve. Three works for two small ensembles. Gorgeous vibes by S. Hashimoto. Odes to the Freud of Luis Buñuel and Burroughs. Methods of free association, stream-of-consciousness: Freud's legacy on Surrealism.

Dreaming...

JERRY G0LDSM1TH - FREUD (1977)

After a hiatus, we return today with a short series on Herr Freud, the progenitor of modern psychology and dream analysis. What follows is quick primer on the man and his ideas, with a few case studies and sonic points of reflection.

Goldsmith's 1962 score for John Huston's biopic (released on album in 1977) sets the scene: lulling harmonics and sweeping dissonances, harrowing stings and stark pizzicato. Eerie, suitably drenched in the sonics and symphonics of the psyche.

Get comfortable on the couch... our session begins here.

ANTH0NY ST0RR - FREUD: A VERY SH0RT INTRODUCT1ON (2001)

While tracks 24-27 (Download Part Two) provide the clearest summary of Freud's main theories on dreams, here are all 73 tracks from the 3-CD audiobook for context and general history.

In those 3-tracks / 10 minutes, Storr touches upon the key dream generators, as Freud saw them--wish-fulfillment, trauma, anxiety and shame--and the forces of repression, displacement, sublimation, symbolization that filter both the manifest and latent content of the dreams themselves. These ideas provide a loose frame and method through which this blog continues to ponder dreams, sound, music, and document. "Loose." Part One and Part Two.

S1GMUND FREUD / JUL1ANE KÖHLER - TRÄUME UND TRAUMDEUTUNG (Entdeckungen auf der Couch: CD01, 2006)

This recording of the foundational document of modern dream research--The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)--we are assured, offers both German speakers and non-speakers alike good fodder for drifting off. Consultation of the primary source, and its vast seas of commentary, is of course recommended during alert, waking hours.

Interpretive Dreaming...

This 11-CD series, produced on the occasion of Freud's 150th birthday, also features this Christoph Waltz reading of "The Moses of Michelanagelo" (1914), for those who enjoy the voice of this Django/Inglourious Basterds actor.

D10N MCGREG0R - THE DRE4M W0RLD OF D10N MCGREG0R (1964)

Our first test subject for Freud's ideas comes in the form of this groundbreaking album from the guy who dreams out loud in his sleep. This is our second offering from McGregor, and we have a third one we may post at some time. Here the dream-state is laid bare--not recounted from memory--and open to analysis in ways that Freud himself could only have dreamed. These are monologues from "inside" the subject and his dream, not a description as much as a experiential notebook.

Dream it here.

SIGMUND FREUD / STEVEN CR0SSLEY - CIVILIZATION AND ITS D1SCONTENTS (2011)

Perhaps more important for our own purposes here at OWOD are Freud's late works, where he suggests the larger ideological underpinnings of psychology and hints at their reification in material life, as well as their psycho-social affects. The "dream-states" of "Discontents" (1930) are of course our illusions and delusions, our anxieties and irrational drives in the face of social constraint...the Subject under pressure.

For fellow Lovers of listening to works reading-aloud, here's the audiobook of James Strachey's 1961 translation. (To read along, the Strachey PDF.)

Lastly, because we can, we offer a PDF of the The Future of an Illusion (1927).

D4PHNE 0RAM - PR1VATE DREAMS AND PUBLIC N1GHTMARES (2011)

Test subject number two--a response to Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents"--comes in the form of this "reworked and reinterpreted" album built from the late Ms. Oram's vast archive of unreleased material. The pieces are both haunting and futuristic, a case study of internal, pensive gestures set against the more public sonic codes of electronica and soundtracks. The seams between ego and superego? The private/subjective in constant negotiation with the constraints of our external, civilizing forces? Maybe. Wicked album. 

Dream it...

LULLAB1ES & DREAM S0NGS (2010?)

We'll end today's posting where all dreaming begins, with sleep. Mississippi Records Tape Series (#51) presents 25 folk recordings from around the globe: tribal melodies, field recordings, folk songs and pop ditties. Yoko Ono, Vashti Bunyan, and Brigitte Fontaine are featured.

Spin this at bed-time.