JESÚS V1LLA-R0JO - CLAR1NETTISS1MO (1976)

We'll keep the DIVerso journey going with #4 (our seventh selection), an offering of clarinet skronk by this Spanish composer and woodwind specialist. Typically cataloged in the realm of classical concert music, the work--composed as it may be--refuses to settle into any easily recognizable sense of structure. Villa-Rojo coaxes all possible sonic potential out of the object called a clarinet, including perhaps its demons.

Unsettling,
some dreams are...

M1CHAEL SIEGEL - THE S0UNDS OF THE JUNK YARD (1964)

Compared to its companion, Sounds of the Office, this series of field-recordings comes across as a far more visceral kind of representation, a more material and urgent document. Set into vinyl, these mostly unheard, ignored, unnoticed, forgotten, marginalized, repressed, or unwanted mechanical rumblings become foreground sounds, unlike the background sounds of the office. As a record, the sonic abstractions of labor and capital take an indexical form, and materialize here within realm of the aural...

Dreamworking...

SUS4N BUCK-M0RSS - "THE CITY AS DREAMWORLD AND CATASTROPHE" (1995)

A favorite article on the dreamwork, and dreamworlds, underlying capital and it cultural surfeit. Buck-Morss urges a rethink of aesthetics in relationship to somatic or bodily knowledge under the impact of modernity.

‘The industrial metropolis became a landscape of techno-aesthetics, a dazzling, crowd-pleasing dreamworld that provided total environments to envelope the crowd’

‘Dreams, too, have entered into this electronic space’ of communication and media which ‘provide mass reproduction of the image.'

'The out of date ruins of the recent past appear as residues of a dreamworld’ 

S0LEX - AH0Y! THE S0UNDMAP OF THE NETHERLANDS (2013)

The artist took a boat through all 12 provinces of Holland recording local musicians. As a constraint, the musicians played to a loop they could hear through headphones, but could not hear what the others were playing. Solex then edited and reassembled the recordings into this soundmap. The results are a folksy cut-up sample collage, a kind of shuffle-beat techno-blues.

Appalachian Lowlands ....Pays-bas, Là-bas...

PETER BR0DER1CK - MUS1C F0R A SLEEP1NG SCULPTURE OF PETER BR0DER1CK (2009)

A sleep-track to an artwork, courtesy of Slaapwel in Belgium, a label devoted to producing music with which to fall asleep. Here we have an Efterklang co-conspirator going full-on sleep therapist. Very beautiful. Shockingly effective. (More music for art here)

Dormez bien...

M1CH4L TURTLE - MUS1C FR0M THE LIVING R00M (1983)

An EP of experimental electronic... dreambound synths and keys to take you back to the 80s...the one no-one ever had... the one we can do over.

#"Phantoms of Dreamland"...

SP1KE MILLIGAN - THE Q5 PIANO TUNE / N1NG NANG N0NG (7", 1969)

Two short BBC radio tunes from the creative polymath and comedic genius. "Ning Nang Nong" is a funny, oriental-sounding little country and western ditty whose lyrics go from something like "Old MacDonald's Farm" into a translingual glossolalia. Nothing can prepare one for "Q5" however, a surreal soundpoem ragtime collage piece of hilarity. Clearly this is one of the most delightful things committed to vinyl.

Dream it...

YAQUI D4NCES: THE PASC0LA MUS1C OF THE YAQUI IND1ANS OF N0RTHERN MEX1CO (1957)

Fiesta music from an indigenous people native to the area that is now, largely, the states of Sonora and Arizona. Pascolas are ritual performances, historical reenactments, invocations, and of course the ritual of the party. Fiddle-driven country-folk music with driving, trance-inducing edges and swirling, serialist wormholes.

Dreaming high, high desert...

TERRY R1LEY - SAL0ME DANCES F0R PE4CE (1989)

Today we post three CDs purchased on the same day in 1992, from a sale bin of deleted items, with holes punched into the jewel cases. What follows is one longish and two shortish releases from the now defunct combo Elektra/Nonesuch label. All three cost $14.

First up is Riley's epic collaboration with Kronos, in their original and classic incarnation. Lots to "peacefully" drift off to here, indeed: Part1, P2. 

(Check out Riley's soundtracks, previously posted here and here.)

STEVE RE1CH  - THE F0UR SECT10NS / MUS1C FOR MALLET INSTRUMENTS (1990)

Next up, Mr. Reich. The first piece is for orchestra, and is performed by the "four sections" of the LSO. The second is wonderful sidenote in the composer's oeuvre--a work for mallets, voice and organ performed by Reich & Musicians. (More Reich posted here a few days ago.)

Dream it...

KR0N0S QU4RTET / AST0R P1AZZ0LLA - F1VE TANGO SENSAT1ONS (1991)

Lastly we present our second dose of Astor at OWOD, a follow-up to this masterpiece. More lovely bordello melancholia with the Kronos Quartet. Goes down like sonic absinthe, or whatever Argentine equivalent.

Drink it to dream it....

RAYM0ND SC0TT - S00TH1NG S0UNDS F0R BABY VOL. 1 (1962)

Accompanied by a booklet from the Gesell Institute of Child Development, Inc., this glorious record was on the cusp of the child-rearing self-help movement. Designed for infants from 1-6 months of age, the simple electronic repetitions may indeed help to produce somnolence in some kids or adults. It may also seem fairly jarring to those who prefer to relax their precious bundles of joy with whale sounds (particularly "Nursery Rhyme" with its incessant digital alarm-clock-sounding chime). At any rate, this stands as one of the first recordings designed specifically with the production of sleep in mind. A ground-breaking recording.

Dream...

REVEEN - RELAX W1TH REVEEN (1978)

The Master of Self-Suggestion gives us just over half an hour of guided meditation and 'planned suggestion.' He reminds us to "maintain at all times a calm, confident cheerful state of mind," which would be sound advice if the perpetually slowing tone of our teacher's voice wasn't so strange, or discomforting. We have tried this without much success five times, but invite you readers to try in earnest for yourselves. During our last session, some of us were able to let go. Some weren't.

"Beautifully at ease...so heavy...going down deeper..."

 

M4X R1CHTER - SLEEP (2015)

We have previously posted the benchmark of sleep-aid composition (Sleeping Tapes by Jeff Bridges), and Richter's own short, listenable version of this project. Today, we post the whole 8 1/2 hour sleepable version--researched and composed to sync with our sleeping patterns. We have tried this album once, and will try again before we post our thoughts and reactions in the comments. We would enjoy to hear your thoughts on the process or success of the work.

Sleep it all here: Part1, P2, P3, P4, P5

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...

MCENR0E - BILLY'S VISI0N (2000)

Our second art-show soundtrack comes from an exhibition at the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. The mysterious mcenroe provides a lush, rural kind of downtempo trip-hop dreamscape that, at the time, seemed to overwhelm the quality of the exhibition itself. A rare, mesmerizing soundtrack. Surrealist cut-up-and-sample infused chill. Highly recommended.

Dreaming...

ELL10TT SH4RP / CARB0N - M0NSTER CURVE (1988)

It was the time, again, for guitar-centrism, axe-gods, urban dudes who shred. A day's required dose of percussive assault, melodic flight, and sonic density... a medicine best delivered on the strummable hand-held piano that is the guitar. There are days when lucid daydreaming occurs only when the head is stuffed with sound, when the cerebellum turns liquid and drips from the head holes, a result of the vibration of amplified metal strings.

30 years on, Sharp's Fibonacci-based minimalist experiments in rock continue to produce a rush of seratonin, a blissful, meditative state of quietude amidst the album's charging rhythm and unrelenting repetition.

Let it in to let it out...

RHYS CHATHAM - D1E D0NNERGÖTTER (1987)

Most of this classic(al) rock standout was played. 

K0SUKE HASH1ZUME - REICH: ELECTR1C C0UNTERP01NT (2015)

For some of us weaned on Metheny's version on Different Trains, this interpretation comes as a clean and tidy breath of air.

Dream...

BERN4RD FALAISE - DO (2000)

Halfway through the day, we inadvertently took a detour from serialism and repetition into a few albums of guitar based frenzy and cerebral nullification. The shift worked like a charm, the chaos and white noise giving us renewed mental focus, in the way static noise can ease the brain to sleep.

Falaise, a Quebec virtuoso, was probably the hardest test of our trance experiment. A rambunctious, stunning album that captures the attention as much as loses it. A sonic journey well worth the slight fall in office productivity--and concentration--for its quality of frontal cortex refreshment.

Do...

FUSH1TSUSHA - WITHDRAWE, THIS SABLE D1SCL0SURE ERE DEV0T'D (1998)

Haino and co. were played. Strangely, the albums kept bringing us back to Central-Eastern Canada. Here, a live concert in Victoriaville, QC, attended by the author, who can recognize his own unique cheering after each song. For some of us, this is yoga. Here, the mind seeps out, uncontained by itself.

Withdrawe, this...

FRED FR1TH - THE T0P OF H1S HEAD (1989)

We end this daily sample close to where yesterday's post begins: a captivating soundtrack work for a Canadian film (Peter Mettler, Director) by this famed axe-man with strong, long-held ties to Monsieur R. Lussier, below. This folk-ambient dreamscape features contributions by Jane Siberry, Ann Bourne and J. Derome, for those who like their Canadiana.

"Underwater dream..."

RENÉ LUSS1ER - CHR0NIQUE D'UN GEN0C1DE ANNONCÉ (1998)

Dream music for a nightmare. Music for the film Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold, a documentary on the Rwandan civil war. Harrowing and beautiful works from this legendary Quebecois guitarist and composer. With musique actuelle all-stars J. Derome, R.M. Lepage, P. Tanguay, and Tom Walsh.

Dream it if you can...

ALLIED VAN LINES / DICK BOYELL - MUSIC TO MOVE FAMILIES BY (1960)

Another corporate recording today--an album of light pop, Latin jazz and exotica recorded as a promotional giveaway and soundtrack for people moving homes with Allied in the early 60s. Apparently Boyell had made a name for himself doing advertising music, and had made a similar type of promo recording for a paper company. An amazing concept, a lovely recording, and another fine example of the synergy between sound, capital and dreamworlds.

Dreaming it...

D4VID LYNCH - THE B1G DRE4M (2013)

Lynch's second studio album makes a nice extension--and counterpoint--to the mood provided by yesterday's Sleep Party post. The track with Lykke Li is a standout, but there are plenty of skewed blues structures, half-spoken vocals, reverb-washed guitar and moody echo to pull one into this album in a sonic sense. The lyrics, of course, are something else again. Here both the beauties and the frustrations of "dream logic" become evident, as do the pleasures and pitfalls of a blog dedicated to this oxymoron.

The Big One...

SLEEP P4RTY PE0PLE - WE WERE DR1FTING 0N A SAD S0NG (2012)

A simple slice of Danish surrealist low-fi dreampop to help us mood, brood and daydream our way through the day... We are indeed Sleep Party folks here at OWOD.

Start the party ...

D1CKIE LANDRY - F1FTEEN SAX0PHONES (1977)

This long-time member of the Philip Glass Ensemble cut a few records of his own in the 1970s--including this pulsing gem of ethereality. The album is comprised of three works that would likely be called minimalist, despite their sweeping monumentality. All parts, sax and flute, are played by Landry with the assistance of an intricate series of Revox tape delays. The last track is a more jazz-inflected live recording from The Kitchen in 1974. A fantastic, delta-wave-inducing, lesser-known masterpiece.

Dream it...

ANNEA L0CKWOOD - A S0UND MAP OF THE HUDS0N R1VER (1989)

Here is the legendary composer and experimentalist recording, mixing and collaborating with the Hudson River, from the headwaters in the Adirondacks to the Atlantic. 15 different site specific recordings trace both the natural environments of the river and the human contexts it flows through, connects with, and feeds. This is a recording that is embedded in the liquid mental zones formed by the pitches of flowing water and our dream projections of nature itself.

Dreaming downstream...

Previous dreamsites: New Hope, PA  / Vancouver, BC / Glacier Bay, AK / Tropical Rainforest / American Fast Food Restaurants / American Offices  

HA1LU MERG1A & H1S CLASS1CAL INSTRUMENT: SHEM0NMUANAYE (1985)

It was time for more African electronic--Eygptian "tezeta" folk/pop ballads augmented with Yamaha keys, Fender Rhodes, and drum machine in this case. The album may be familiar to all you all global groovers out there, but remains a significant minor subtheme to our dreamtime posts nonetheless, a rich aural fusion of contexts. Check out our El-Omari and Bebey posts for more of this exploration.

Dream Hailu here...

G0RDON JENK1NS - SEVEN DREAMS (1953)

Jenkins cut his musical chops as a pianist in a prohibition era St. Louis speakeasy. His stature as an arranger and songwriter dates from the 1930s. He worked for Paramount, NBC, and radio before becoming staff arranger and eventual musical director of Decca records. He penned a few million-selling songs and lead arrangements for Johnny Cash, Sinatra, The Weavers, Billie Holiday, and Harry Nilsson, among others.

This sublime dreamwork is a concept album--a vinyl musical perhaps, or a radio-play-on-record--that combines detailed orchestration with jingles, ditties, and story-within-story narration: a sonic travelogue through the narrator's seven dreams.

This slice of unsettling weirdness/genius is notable for making the Billboard Top Ten, and for containing the obvious source melody and lyrics for Cash's hit "Folsom Prison Blues" (see "Dream #2 - The Conductor"). Jenkins sued; Cash settled out of court. For us at OWOD, this album represents one of the best conceived, honestly rendered and phenomenologically accurate documents of the human-made artifices we call dream logic. It's also a striking, cross-perceptual (pan-sensual?) representation of the most ineffable of subjects--dreams themselves--and the near impossibility of their verisimilitude.

Dream it...

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

ARZA ANA1AK - TXALAPARTA '75 IR41LA (1975)

The dreamlife of the collector: the addictive, unquenchable desire for the complete, a total archive, a museum of the rare. Our quest for DIVerso albums supplies the requisite fix--the sixth in the series. Follow links here to scroll back through the entries.

This is the album that kicked it all off. A Basque duo conducting serialist, ethno-folk inspired percussion experiments on the txalaparta that are at once simple, wonky, maddening, meditative and beautiful. Stark yet warm, patently "acoustic".... This is eminently dreamy trance music made from regular and irregular tapping systems, and almost non-existent melodic/tonal variation.

Dream while collection dreaming here...

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.

P0LMO P0LPO - THE SC1ENCE OF BREATH (2002)

Ripped from a disc purchased in Montreal in the early years of the Millenium. An album about yogic breathing. Evocative of a time and place, sounds still able to flare both memories and dreams of certain people and events, including those best forgotten. Dry ambient, flecks of glitch, throbbing techno...but then hints of field recording and acoustic instrumentation emerge, cold tones turning warm. A heart pushing oxygenated blood.

Inhale, hold, exhale...dream.

TUXEDOM00N / CULT W1TH N0 NAME - BLUE VELVET REV1SITED (2015)

The soundtrack to a documentary about the making of Lynch's infamous work. The film is not a linear documentary, more of an impressionistic metafilm. This sound collaboration is a suitable, dreamy, counterpoint. More neo-classical, ambient and even jazz-centred than Badalamenti's own haunting score, this work is nonetheless spacious and atmospheric. It pulls the Lynchian universe into a new gravity and orbit.

Dreaming...

WAYNE H0RV1TZ/THE F0UR PLUS 0NE ENSEMBLE - FR0M A WINDOW (2001)

Another subversive work from this keyboard/piano legend, the second here at OWOD. The pastoral, meditative tinge to these tracks belies a brooding intensity and complexity. Sonic landscapes that, at times, move from landscape portraiture to a sort of psychological expressionism. With E. Kang, R. Watts, Skerik, and trombonist J. Priester.

Always dreamy... 

M1D0RI TAK4DA / MASAH1T0 SAT0H - LUNAR CRU1SE (1991)

A stunning lesser-known release by Takada--the creator of Through the Looking Glass (1983) and co-creator of the two fantastic, Mkwaju Ensemble albums--and Satoh, a prolific pianist. Haruomi Hosono guests on all tracks. "Cruise" is an apt title: the songs cut a path of estrangement into seemingly familiar gestures--synthpop, quasi-ritualistic percussion, ambient architectures, improv and jazz angles--leads you at moments into the uncanny.

Dream...

DREAM1ES - AURALGRAPH1C ENTERTA1NMENT (1973)

It is a great friend that helps one with his research. This is the only record by the enigmatic Mr. B. Holt, who, it is told, penned, composed and learned to play all the instruments (guitar and moog, mainly) and parts on this rock-pop collage opera from scratch in 18 months. Written as two responses to The Beatles' "Revolution #9", this recording is structured in two parts, "Program Ten" and "Program Eleven." This album singularly covers much ground of this blog: soundscape, dream pop, avant psych-folk, cut-ups and synth futurism. A perfect way to kick off today's rotation.

Induce the Dreamies...

PAUL1NE OLIVER0S, DAVID R0THENBERG, TIM0THY H1LL ‎– C1CADA DREAM BAND (2014)

Absolutely beautiful...

"2013 marked the arrival of millions of periodical cicadas to the New York Metropolitan area. These musical insects appear only once every seventeen years. On the occasion of this auspicious event, Rothenberg performed a series of concerts together with composer and deep listener Oliveros, overtone singer Hill, and live singing insects brought in from the trees. The ensemble of digital accordion, clarinets with electronically enhanced nature sounds, and harmonic singing is certainly a trio unlike anything heard before."

Dream it...

PENTA SALES C0RP - PLAY IT SAFE! VOL. 4 (1972)

Today's narrative interlude is a spoken-word pièce de résistance that doubles as one of our "dreamwork of capital" entries. This album--a hilarious dramatic dialogue of mundane conversations, banter, arguments and bickering between a married couple from, perhaps, Queens or Long Island--is actually a recording designed to be played loud on repeat when you've left the house as a deterrent to potential burglars. A conversation to give the impression that someone is home. Here, the dream of safety, the home, becomes a sales item that is set into a well developed, banal theatre of the absurd. The script would make an incredible stage play!

Dream...

DRUM ISL4ND - DRUM ISL4ND (1997)

Drum Island was a Norwegian electronic trio from Tromsø. This is their only release. The band Röyksopp is a spin-off. The café music you could have heard in the late 90s, but never did. Addictive.

Dreaming downtempo...

LAPPISH J0IK SONGS FR0M N0RTHERN NORW4Y (1956)

When you need to dream more about Northern Norway, Ethnic Folkways comes to the rescue.

K4NYE WEST - MY BE4UT1FUL DARK TW1STED F4NTASY (2010)

As previously threatened, we end the listening day with a case study of the questions concerning dream vs. fantasy, embodiment vs. escapism.

Pleasant dreams...

PH1LIP C0RNER - SAT1E SL0WLY (2014)

Three works in a 'classical' vein today. For this blog, this offering displays the perfected renditions of Satie's major works (with a few minor ones thrown in as well.) Space, and more space. Corner's interpretations for the Unseen Worlds label steer the composer away from any notion of "furniture music" and instead zooms out, macrocosmically, until the full sonic architecture comes into view: room, building, site. The pieces move between saunter and crawl, notes left hanging in an imperceptible breeze. Just the right speed to, at times, forget the music is there at all. Minutes pass. You realize you've been listening to the inside of your own head.

Dreaming Part 1 here and Part 2 here...

EL0D1E L4UTEN - P1AN0 W0RKS REVISITED (2010)

Our second Unseen Worlds offering today is a compilation building on the artist's 1983 Piano Works album. Swirling minimalism with quite literal sonic undercurrents of aquatic viscosity. Of particular interest is the longish middle work, "Concerto for Piano and Orchestral Memory" (1984) featuring the polymath cellist Arthur Russell.

Necessary dreaming...

CHR1ST0PHER BUTTERFIELD / KURT SCHW1TTERS - MUSIC FOR KLEIN AND BEUYS / URSONATE / PILLAR OF SNAILS (1993)

An extremely rare edition and interpretation of Schwitters' Ursonate (1922-32), his epic vocal/sound composition. The CD was a gift from this Canadian composer himself in 1993 and includes two beautiful works of his own. A Swiss label owned the Schwitters copyright/license, and this album--marked "not for sale"--was nonetheless legally threatened and deleted into obscurity. Butterfield's take on Schwitters is cool, understated and precise, a work of particularity and aural estrangement. Out of Ursonate renditions heard and seen by Jaap Blonk, Eberhard Blum, Christian Bök and others, this remains our perennial favorite.

R1CHARD WAHNFR1ED (AKA K. SCHULZE) - T1ME ACT0R (1979)

Our fourth posting from the Innovative Communication label, another Berlin-School recording of techno-romance and hazy, lazy nostalgia. A spacy, Wagner-influenced side to Herr Schulze's sprawling catalogue.

Dream acting...

PAUL B0WLES - THE P00L K III (2013)

To date, our Paul Bowles post remains the the highest visited page at OWOD. In honor of all you fans, we are pleased to present POOLK3--perhaps the strangest recording in the writer/composer's oeuvre. Although this rare ambient/musique concrète recording was originally mis-attributed to Brion Gysin (and even released under his name), the work has been established as a late 1950s experiment best quoted with reference to Bowles' own autobiography: "a realm of sound that creates a dreamlike journey without a clear point of origin or destination—a sojourn to be experienced in its entirety, without stopping."

Dream...

SENY4WA - MENJAD1 (2015)

A grinding and challenging dreamwork of noise, drone and traditional country by this Indonesian avant-folk duo. Extended vocal techniques, samples, and the bambuwukir--a dual string/percussion instrument designed by member W. Suryadi--formulate this ritual. Dense, a head filled with fog. Submerged melodies, and memories, from a time and place that has never previously existed, before now.

Dream ...

L0REN MAZZ4CANE-C0NN0RS - THE DEPART1NG 0F A DREAM VOL. 5 (2016)

LMC has been working on his "dream" series for decades now--a tribute to Miles Davis' masterpiece "He Loved Him Madly" from the On The Corner sessions, and released on Get Up With It (1974). Another fantastic, moody series of blues mutations from one of our favorite guitarists and inspirations. A work about dreaming that also enacts the theme itself.

Dream it...