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

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...

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....

J0E FRANK - DREAMS IN PROGRESS (AN OWOD MIX)

Time slows to viscous trickle around here. Days, nights come and go imperceptibly. The dog lays unmoving on the floor. The employees stare blankly at their screens. We fight to keep going.

Joe Frank (1938-2018) made over 250 hours of distinct, mindblowing radio works for NPR and KCRW Santa Monica over the course of 40 years. His monologues, dramas, and improvisations speak to the dreaminess of late-night America, the media of radiowaves and car travel, and the immersive, wayward possibilities of narrative voice itself. Here, we select and sample eight works (four hours) of short and long length spanning much of his career: specifically his works on (and within) the subject of dreams.

RIP, JF...

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

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).

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.

W1NDH4M H1LL REC0RDS SAMPLER '84

We last posted about easy listening. Contemporary music. Later, we ruminated about the personal roots of our weakness for soundscape, mood music, the unbearably saccharine, stilted, reserved or absurdly abstract. We fell asleep. We dreamed of our long-lost selves. Our long-lost selves were dreaming of something else.  

In some towns, cheaply-priced label Samplers would sometimes appear as the only album in the unfortunately-titled, if evocative, Contemporary section. Some of us went for it... three sampler samples today, squaring off in a smooth and mellow slapdown.

Elsewhere: M. Hedges, M. Isham, W. Ackerman, Shadowfax, G. Winston et al.

LATE IN THE 20th CENTURY - AN ELEKTRA/N0NESUCH NEW MUS1C SAMPLER (1987)

From new-age to new-music, the shock of the new introduced itself well here in a tastefully risque collection of so called new music from this short-lived conjunction label. With Kronos Quartet, World Saxophone Quartet, W. Horvitz, Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares, S. Reich, Zorn, Varèse and others.

Elsewhen...

AN OR1GINAL VIEW OF INF1NITY - AN ECM SAMPLER (1995)

A mixture of ECM and ECM New Series, and a fair sonic convergence of the two previous sampler posts above. With M. Monk, K. Bjornstad, J. Garbarek, Hilliard Ens., A. Brahem, T. Rypal et al.

New Age, New Classical, New World... dreaming the new that was now.

KIM'S BEDR00M (2000)

Two forays today into a particular subgenre that speckles our playlists at OWOD: soundtracks to an exhibition. Both come from 2000.

The first comes from Kim Gordon's project at Mu - De Witte Dame, Eindhoven. The soundtrack was released as part of the exhibition catalog from Purple Books. Features L. Sadier, Cat Power, J. Fahey, J. O'Rourke, I. Mori, Mazzacane, and Gordon herself alongside soundworks from artists including Raymond Pettibon, Mike Kelley, Rita Ackerman and others. 

Dream the scene...

OWOD MIX #01 - DREAMS THAT UTTER YOUR NAME (2017)

On loop at OWOD: random research. Songs in alphabetical order.
Mood & brood...dream here

1) Carlton - Do You Dream 2) David Shea - The Dream 3) Ryuichi Sakamoto/Arto Lindsay - The Dreaming 4) Alan Lorber Orch - Hang On To A Dream 5) Maxime de la Rochefoucauld - Le Sommeil Somnambule 6) Mia Farrow - Lullabye from Rosemary's Baby 7) Michel Houellebecq - On Se Reveillait Tôt 8) Sex Mob - Quiet 9) Patrick Gleeson - Take the 5:10 to Dreamland 10) Tomita - Reverie 11) Aksak Maboul - Scratch Holiday 12) Burroughs/Somerville - Silver Smoke of Dreams 13) Ramuntcho Matta - Sunset 14) Eurythmics - This City Never Sleeps 15) Fred Frith - Underwater Dream 16) Gary Wilson - When You Walk Into My Dreams

WELC0ME TO DREAMLAND: AN0THER JAP4N (1985)

Another Dreamland. A fantastic Celluloid compilation featuring the best and brightest of Japan's 1980s experimental/new-wave/no-wave scene. "Another Japan," perhaps, although for many of us on the other side of globe, this was more appropriately another sonic world. While a few of the album's participants have gone on to greatness or infamy--Keiji Haino, Haco, Tenko, guest Frith--many are unfamiliar to us at OWOD. This compilation is a slice of time past, a fair companion to this previous 1985 compilation post.

A slice of time past, but also a dreamland of time passed.

VA - TERRA INC0GN1TA (1985)

A life changing record for me when this came out, copy purchased on school band trip to Portland, OR. From the defunct Auxilio de Cientos imprimatur. Synthpop, soundscape, dark wave, ambient ... with a few well-known contributors, and a number of less-known figures: Zazou, Muslimgauze, Diseno Corbusier, Bene Gesserit..... even a track with lyrics credited to one Nicolas Bourriaud (could it be the same one who wrote The Radicant?). An album whose content then was pure dreamscape--indeed escape-scape--and whose form now represents the lure of nostalgia, another time, a dreamstate incognito of its own.

FUCK Y0UR DREAMS, TH1S IS HEAVEN (1986)

Aptly titled soundtrack project for a "video film" by Wonder Project. Features a number of my favorite Made to Measure label/series artists, many of which I hope to post about soon: Minimal Compact, Peter Principle, Steven Brown, etc. This album features atmospheric (and nostalgic, another facet of our dream-worlds) covers of songs by S. Barrett, L. Reed and P. Smith. Here's a bit of rock-wave-lounge to burn away the remainder of the weekend.

Dream...