MUSlC IN THE STREETS (Recorded by T. Schwartz) (1957)

Subtitled "A fascinating collection of music and musicians recorded on the streets of New York," this album resurrects the seemingly long-lost sounds of public gathering: sociability, conviviality, hubbub and exchange. And of course performance. 

Does anyone remember this? When's the last time you've heard a busker? Seen a mall-choir? Watched a parade? These documented sonic rituals of the mundane are coming in as a restorative tonic today. NY, sure. But also anywhere. 

Folkways rarely lets us down. 

H0AHIO - HAPPY MAlL (1997)

This super group was initiated by the chanteuse/sonic polymath Haco, and for this debut recording, included sine-wave sampler-savant Sachiko M and jazz-koto player Michiyo Yagi. The work lulls the mind with churning minimalist repetitions, plucky folksy, scrambling improvisations, and well-placed moments of anthemic rock progressions and gentle digressions. Delicious, quixotic, lovely, confusing: all the sonic elements of dreamstate standing loud and proud. 

Dream it here...

DJ OL1VE - SLEEP (2001)

Future illbient hall-of-famer, G. Asch aka Olive aka The Audio Janitor, released this 13-track dream-salve in 2001 as a limited hand-crafted gift for friends who had trouble sleeping. Emerging from his time in the late 90s DJing for NY sleep-parties, this is the first installment of his sonic sleep medicines which has since yielded several albums and installations. The tones are warm, textured, graceful and suitably numbing. 

The project comes with instructions: "This is a sleeping pill. Please listen to it quietly."

OWOD MIX #03 - ONE DREAMER, ONCE DREAMING

A snapshot from our random playlist shuffle: music-box exotica, barrel organ cacophony, uncanny nostalgia & retro-tinged madness:

1) Dutch Band Organ - Did You See a Dream Walk? 2) F. Karlin - The Dream 3) K. Nordine - Thousand Dreams 4) Li De La Russe - Delia's Reverie 5) J. Plotkin - Mosquito Dream 6) A. Lane - Stories of Your Dream 7) Mapstation - TV Dream 8) Tuxedomoon - Dream Flight 9) F. Atkinson - Visnaga 10) Shock Exchange - Just a Dream 11)  Esquivel - Street of Dreams 12) E. Lurie - Possible Love 13) Broadcast - Aphid Sleeps 14) J. Gurascier - Sueno Otonal 15) C. Reimer - Carson Dial 16) K. Overall - Sleeping on the Train 17) R. Scott - Memories 18) W. Mertens - Bresque 19) W. Schumann - Pearl's Dream 20) Children's Ensemble - Piece vii 21) Shannon & the Clams - Into a Dream 22) D. Shore - My Isle of Golden Dreams 23) B. Lew - Aveugle Depuis 24) Paillard Music Box - La Sonnambula 25) M. Ribot - Dream of the Other 26) J. Miyake/ D. Byrne - A Dream Is a Wish  27) F. Durand - Hora de dormir 28) J. Derome - Reverie 29) C. Watson - Waiting 30) Regina Music Box - Garden of Dreams

0RUÃ - R0MA (20I9)

Just a total incendiary, throbbing, fuzzed-out pleasure today. Music for strutting, tripping, head-banging and perhaps dry-humping. We can't get enough of these enigmatic gents from Brazil and, it would seem, often Boise, Idaho.


Meltdown rock n' roll for lovers and dreamers.

B0RN OUT OF DREAMS (1985)

OWOD has previously mentioned a special, personal fascination with the year 1985 and even posted Wang Chung. Today, we have three more. The dreamstate is openly referenced and evoked in all. 

1985 a random date with only sentimental fixations that are too uninteresting to share. I'll say this: in the small island west-coast town where I grew up, you had to go elsewhere for your epic dream-sounds. A friend in the city had this industrial/noise taste-changer: NWW, Muslimgauze, P16.D4, Enrico Piva...wonderful!

Dream it here...

 

S0UNDS FROM THE MUS1C INTERI0R (MUSIC INTER1OR SAMPLER) (1985)

In mid 80s Canada, Attic Records was big into the weightless sounding adult instrumental scene. This record could sometimes be seen in your local bookstore or new-age boutique of the era, usually with Windham Hill or Heart-Music Sri Chinmoy cassettes. I didn't own it, but easily could have. I didn't know much about the new age, or architectural music, but I knew a girl who played ethereal flute through a Mr. Microphone and almost killed me with beauty. 

With Seigen Ono, Ichiko Hashimoto, Masahide Sukama, Yoshio Suzuki

Dream It...

SLEEPERS (1985)

This 1985 collection of "lull music," compositions and sounds from many of the now legendary sonic artists who found themselves in NY during the 80s. Whether this album of not-quite-soothing, dissonant timbres can fairly qualify as a "sleep aid" is debatable, but we'll take them at their word and label it so. Some people can sleep through anything. And I'm sure those were crazy days, where drifting off to this made sense. Thanks to P.E. for this, and many others. 

P. Oliveros, A. Lockwood, I. Mimaroglu, T. Johnson, A. Knowles, etc.

For you dedicated sleepers, you...

FRANC1S BEBEY - P1ÈCES P0UR GU1TARE SEULE (1965)

Bebey's sprawling sonic vision--and prodigious, polymathic talents--are on full display here...two early compositions for solo guitar. Gorgeous, spacious phrasing. Mesmerizing pluckery. A smart, soulful deep-dive into the quandaries/quagmires of genre, the musicology of empire. (Check his essay "La radiodiffusion en Afrique Noire", 1963)

(We previously posted on his album of sanza work (1982-84) here.)

Dream it here...

D10N MCGREG0R - THE FURTHER S0MNILOQU1ES OF D10N MCGREG0R (2004)

In the spirit of book-keeping here at OWOD, we must now present the long promised 3rd collection of Mr. McGregor's nocturnal transmissions from the other side of consciousness. As you may recall, this fellow dreams out loud, delivering an unequaled, often narrative, first-person reportage directly from the depths of slumberland. I recently learned there is a fourth volume of these 1960s recordings that has been released.

Hear the inside of the dreaming brain here...

MOT0HIRO N4KASH1MA - AND I WENT TO SLEEP (2004)

It has been hard to sleep. Some years now, some seasons. And yet dreams permeate the waking hours. I can't sleep so I sleepwalk while awake. Patience is a virtue. I thank anyone who still possesses any. Or at least dreams about it. Love, happiness, and blissful bewilderment to you all. 

Mr. Nakashima is from Osaka. These spacious pieces are as warm & cuddly as they are downtempo chill.

Dream it here...

DREAM WATER

Just an image.

No need to purchase this product, just dream about it. It only works in dreams anyway.

YUN0 - M00D1E (2018)

We have, admittedly, been neglecting our duties. The lawn has turned to hay and sparks with the rustle of the dry breeze.

The only breezy summer album that has sustained our sweaty, hallucinating selves is this EP. And it's not so cheerful, essentially a heartbreak album. Nonetheless, if you will please pardon the tautology, the chillwave chill of this album does provide some chilliness with which to comfortably chill.

Here, like the consolation of an air-conditioner in an otherwise stifling, lonely apartment. 

EIV1ND A4RSET - DREAM L0GIC (2012)

A day of house cleaning and taking stock. Today, a not-so-random rattle bag of recordings spanning the various fetishistic threads of dreams, dreaming and dreamwork you'll find in our archives: idiorrhythmic jazz, ambient space-out fodder, sleep/dream aids, plucky 'n lush solo strings, nature sounds, field recordings, folk music from the future-past.

Mr. Aarset's ECM album of collaborations with programmer / sampler Jan Bang is an appropriate segue to our line-up: music that halts, digresses, loses and gains rhythm without sacrificing the lulling and associative affects of dream logic.

Get it here.

ANDRÉ H4MEL / LA NEF ENSEMBLE - LES MUSIQUES D'URN0S (2017)

This outstanding release by Quebec composer Hamel features the Early Music NEF ensemble. The stunning project attempts to resurrect the 5000 year old music and instruments of the Urnos shepherd people in the Harappan-era Indus Valley.

As I understand it, evidence of advanced musical notation was discovered in the region around 1940. Hamel has spent years piecing together and imagining the melodies and musical rituals of this marginal historical community, resulting in this bagpipe-addled masterpiece of primordial revelry, droning folk/baroque tones and  mystifying, dream-worthy beauty.

Dream it here...

G. SCHIAFF1NI / M. IANNACC0NE - MEMO FR0M (1979)

We inch closer to completing our collection of Italian DIVerso posts. Here is the 11th of 12 releases from the Cramps label in the late 1970s (this is #12 in the series, but we have not been posting them in order).

This is a brass and percussion duet session of what seems mostly true free improv... a warm, charming dialogue of minimal, spacious gestures and textures, with moments of unpredictable cross-chatter and direct argument arising from time to time. The series' unique, intimate tone remains safely in place here. Our dream of fully assembling and posting the complete collection is close at hand.

Here...

THE FOLKL0RE OF PL4NTS (2017)

Works by 31 artists comprise this fructuous, conceptual compilation:  "Flora Britannica, the matter of Britain. This island’s plants clothe the landscape, characterising the country, lending it colour, scent and texture. They also colour the human imagination, suffusing it with a heady pharmacopoeia of mythic legends, local tales and magical lore."

Short pieces: meditative, pastoral, elemental, summery. Highlights include J. Bonnetta, Paper Dollhouse, Sam McLoughlin, Bridget Hayden, Dean McPhee, Modern Studies among many.

Midsummer's eve potions and poisons....

M0NA LING - HOW TO GET APPOINTMENTS BY TELEPH0NE (c.1960)

Speaking of collections, we've been interjecting these short lessons in  "professional telephone use" into some of our playlists to enduring amusement. (We date the album based on the red Western Electric / Bell Model 500 pictured, its ABS plastics, G1 headset and clear fingerwheel).

Ms. Ling's album, produced by the Success Motivation Institute, Inc., must have been written by her--it is narrated by some uncredited man. One track, "How to Write a Telephone Presentation" can almost be seen as a bizarre precursor example to McLuhan's media theories, if not also Kittler or Derrida. 

Brrrring brrrrrrrring...

M0RI CH1EKO - KATY0U FUUGETSU (2006)

Ms. Mori is a Koto virtuoso who began playing the instrument at age three. This solo album, augmented at times with her voice, brings the classical-folk tradition of her instrument into the world of the uncanny--where lyricality, spaciousness and intricately woven rhythmic textures meet dissonance, digression and chaos. A dream music smear of gagaku court music, country blues, and outsider serialist improv lullaby. Something that sounds at times like a hybrid of Yoritsube Matsudaira, John Fahey, Joanna Newsom and Derek Bailey. Beautiful.

Dream it...

J0EY BAR0N / R0BYN SCHULK0WSKY - NOW Y0U HEAR ME (2018)

Two percussionists. Love this. For those who both seek and find solace and restfulness in tapping, swishing and a near lack of melody. The opposite of a clock ticking in your bedroom, but nearly as gentle. I'm not weird, you're weird. See if this helps you drift off, awake or in bed.