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"

JUDE C0W4N M0NTAGUE / STEVE LAYT0N - CA1RO C0MPRESS1ON (2015)

Four short text-based soundworks composed in response to photographs, broadcast on Resonance FM, and released on Linear Obsessions. Layton provides restrained, airy and meditative sonic touches to these poetic snapshots. Cowan's voice is prim and inquisitive, her words forming clear pictures and evocative mini-narratives with what is otherwise hazy washes of text and unclear contexts. In under 12 minutes, this recording put us in a mood.... We put it on repeat. (More of the music for art genre here)

Dreammapping (Dreamsnapping)....

LESL1 DALABA - TIMELINES (2004)

A sonic response to evolutionary history from the origins of life through climactic disasters, natural selection, mass extinctions, ice ages and human migration. Based on the artist's research into geophysics and archeology, the music is composed in temporally relative terms (recording comes with a timeline). The results are spectacular--elemental and beautiful. With Z. Parkins, I. Mori, C. Kihlstedt, and A. Denio.

Dreaming, deep time.

MAR4IS & M1RANDA - NATURE S0NGS (FR0M BALLADS FR0M THE AGE OF SC1ENCE) (1963)

A charming science-for-children album that some of us might have had the privilege to hear when we were young. The few grating melodic moments, and somewhat dated approach to natural science do not lessen the impact of this fantastic educational document, whether you have kids, a deep-seeded nostalgic compulsion, or an interest in innovations in recording, arranging or orchestration. Or, of course, if you are fascinated with the dreamy auratic potential of historical documents themselves.

Dream it...

J0N - J0N (1995)

A low-fi masterwork of twisted lullabies and dissonant, avant nursery rhymes from Japan's Shoko Uehara. These songs are made with pump organ, ukulele, cat meows and a child-like voice that seems to trail off course once or twice per song. Apparently there is a performative element lost in her recording--Uehara often appeared live wearing a dog costume. We LOVE this CD, and are tickled to share its dreamy, lilting, entrancing sounds with you all.

DEL1A DERBYSH1RE - INVENT10NS FOR RAD1O: DREAMS (1964)

Derbyshire added subtle electronic touches to this collaboration with Barry Bermange for, what I can tell, BBC Radio in 1964. The provenance of this work is a bit unclear. I received the files from a friend, but there have been three or four unofficial reissues, one of which has supplied us the cover art. (We have more Derbyshire here!)

This is a mesmerizing project--a collage project of people describing their dreams, set into a the context of a "dreamwork" itself. Another essential research document of our field of study here at OWOD.

Inventions for dreaming...

K1M S0-HEE - P'ANS0RI (K0REA'S EP1C VOC4L ART & INSTRUMENTAL MUS1C (1972)

Music for Korean musical dramas--a blend of classical, folk and pop meant primarily to supplement theatrical performances. Korean national treasure Kim So-Hee supplied vocals next to an all-star band on gayageum, haegeum, flute, janguu, and kuhmoongo (For those who love these sounds and instruments, check out this previous gayageum post).

Music for reverie and revelry...

M4RGARET LENG TAN - THE ART OF THE T0Y P1ANO (1997)

The off-kilter, slightly out-of-tune sound of the toy piano becomes the ground for lullaby-ish takes on classical, avant and popular song...Satie, Beethoven, Klucevsek, J. Wolfe, Lennon/McCartney... A child-like naivety infuses the recording, aided too by the use of whistles, melodica, cheap drum machines and a toy accordion.

Dreamy...

EV1YAN - EVIY4N LIVE (2013)

This trio is composed of violinist/vocalist I. Bittova, guitarist G. Riley, and clarinetist E. Ziporyn. Recorded live in Victoriaville, Quebec, this is a kind of free-folk improvisation, seductive and strange. Bittova's embodied performative style comes across well, as does the wealth of tonalities these three musicians can produce: lament, freak-out, pastoral, rock ballad and soundscape. A must-have item for new music lovers in general, and Bittova fans in particular.

"Short Walk" to an "Odd Meeting"...

H0MLER / FAJT / WAEGEMAN - C0RNE DE VACHE (1997)

Ms. Homler, the mastermind of Breadwoman (find it here), is joined by Czech percussionist Fajt (known well for his work with Iva Bittova), Belgian multi-instrumentalist Waegeman, and (on a few tracks) sax-man Koen Van Roy. Another fantastic live document from Les Disques Victo and the heydays of Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville.

Dream...

ART0 L1NDSAY - CU1DAD0 M4DAME (2017)

Pop day from Mr. Lindsay, one of our perennial all-time favorites. This is his first solo release in 13 years: pure magic, dream and fantasy with atabaques-driven Candomblé textures, lascivious lyrics, spikey guitar and plenty of lush studio wizardry. We have sure missed him!

..... it...

(More Arto here)

G4B0R SZABO - DREAMS (1968)

Jazz to infuse our daysleeps and nightdreams...

This is a gypsy-tinged work of avant-lounge guitar fingerwork, french horn seduction and orchestral longing. And, as it reminds us, "half the day is night."

STEVE L4CY - STRAWS (1977)

Our eighth DIVerso entry (out of twelve) finds Lacy playing multi-part/layer soprano works and tapes, and recorded in the wonderful DIVerso way...the incredible sense of acoustic tonality (and space) of the series thus far.

Check here to scroll back through the series...

In the meantime, chew your pillow listening to this...

JAWB0NE OF AN ASS: MUS1CA DE CUBA PRE-CASTR0 (1955)

Popular Cuban folk-jazz from the pre-revolutionary nightclub days. Features the quijada, the titular instrument--a percussive rattle made from actual donkey jaws, and teeth.

More party music to dream to, as well as of...

H0RV1TZ, MORRIS, PREV1TE w/ FR1SELL & WIESELMAN PLAY R0B1N H0LCOMB - T0DOS S4NTOS (1988)

More 1980s new-music with an all-star lineup of innovators and virtuosi playing the gorgeous music of Ms. Holcomb.

"Nightbirds..."

W4RPED DREAMER - L0MAH0NGVA (2016)

A Belgian-Norwegian quartet that dishes out a kind of jazz detritus (or "residue" as they call it) with sharp improvisation, careful composition, wicked blowing, electronic interventions and noisy diversions.

Dreams, neither bent nor broken, but close...

AFRICA: WITCHCRAFT AND R1TUAL MUSIC (1975)

To purge some of the demons of our last daemonic posts, we present this attempt at exorcism. Of course, it can be easily said this album replicates much of the baroque--and nonsensical--spiritual dreamwork of the albums below. Nonetheless, we in good faith present these fantastic, indeed "spell-binding," Fanshawe field recordings from Kenya and Tanzania as some sort of therapeutic offering for whatever demons we may have attracted or repelled with the last posting. We'll likely have to post another offering later to quell the demons we evoke with this exoticist offering...an exorcism of an exorcism, exoticization of the exotic...infinite regress, progress. (Nonesuch did change the title in later issues, thankfully particularizing the two actual nations from the continent).

ANT0N LAVEY - THE SATAN1C MASS (1968)

The High Priest of the Church of Satan leads this mass in San Francisco on a September Friday the 13th, III Annos Satanas. It's a live recording, and carries the faults of its production. But underneath the unrelenting didactic poetry of the sermon (with, it would seem, its fairly quotidian Libertarian message), is some innovative orchestration and electronic-aided vespers sonority. Like all sermons, this is performance art. The album documents this orgy of propaganda, its fervor of raving nonsense.

This album kicks off a few odes to the dark majesties--a well-rendered dreamworld within our already baroque religious cultural narratives.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law..."

MARC W1LKINS0N - BL00D ON SATAN'S CL4W (1971)

Evocative soundtrack to P. Haggard's film, finally released in 2007. The folk horror aspects of the film are keenly reflected in this work of haunting beauty and pastoral menace, highlighted by use of the Ondes Martenot and the Cimbalom, a Hungarian-style dulcimer.

Dreaming...

A.A. ALLEN - CRYING DEM0NS (c. 1980?)

Put out by Miracle Revival Recordings, the album gives us the controversial pentecostal evangelist himself doing his Voice of Healing type of sermon and exorcism.... These are "amazing recordings of demons speaking through people who are possessed by them."

Dream it to believe it...

THE L0UV1N BR0THERS - SATAN IS REAL (1959)

A well-produced and (at times) captivating slice of country gospel, warning us of Satan's ways, his guises and disguises, and of course an offer of the antidote to temptation and evil. When the songs aren't offering petty judgement, small-minded bigotry they are actually quite funny and catchy. Dreamdevil.

RUTH WH1TE - FL0WERS OF EV1L (1969)

We end our posts of the day with "an electronic setting of the poem of Charles Baudelaire." Ms. White (b. 1925) was an electronic sound pioneer, and a fan of the Moog. She also faithfully translated Baudelaire's poem herself into English. Fantastic!

Dream...

J4GWA MUS1C - B0NGO H0THEADS (2012)

Just a needed dose of kick-ass Tanzanian mchiriku--a particular rapid-fire sub-genre of "bongo flava" street party music from the suburbs of Dar es Salaam. The Jagwa collective has been ripping this music for over 20 years in various incarnations. Mchriku, a kind of hiphop, is a collision of Taraab coastal rhythms, biting social commentary, and megaphone-amplified Casio keyboards. Breakneck swagger.

Dream it ...

DAV1D WATS0N - SK1RL (1999)

Bagpipe saturated mayhem and magic from the long-deceased Avant label, Japan. Collaborations with C. Baptista, A. Haas, T. Buck, C. Bard, J. Pugliese and others.

Dream it...

GREENP0T BLUEP0T - DAYMARES & N1GHTDREAMS (2001)

A studied, self-consciously outré album of folk-inflected noise, off-kilter cabaret, shamanistic lullaby, and cynical artpop. Appropriately titled and seemingly one step ahead of many of the interests and ideas that try, somewhat failingly, to hold this blog together. A smart, moody album that seems to veer slightly in the direction of mares over dreams.

Dreamares, perhaps....

K1M D00 S00 - DANCE 0F THE HUNCHB4CK (2015)

Whispery barbiturate psych-folk with a dose of pastoral new-age existentialism, arcadian dread. Or so it seems: perhaps the lyrics tell a different story. I have no idea. Heart-softening, despondent beauty. Translations welcome.

Dreaming in the land of no wind...

D0UGLAS QU1N - ANTARCT1CA (1998)

"Bernie Krause presents" this wonderful follow-up to the producer's own recordings in Alaska (here). Recorded primarily in the Ross Dependency of the southernmost continent, this album is comprised of faunal vocalizations that would put any sound poet to shame and "deep" elemental field recordings that outpace the most trance-inducing, deep-listening electronic composition.

Another brilliant album of nature sound from Miramar's "Wild Sanctuary."

STEVE MART1N - PURE DR1VEL (1998)

Our narrative interlude comes from Mr. Martin reading from what is seemingly, and mainly, a suite of comedic fictional essays--a kind of speculative non-fiction of the mundane. Conventions of narrative and argumentation are toyed with and dressed in each others clothes. Further lessons in writing, in the ability to guide the brain to dream meaning into what the author declares openly as nonsense.

Dreaming...

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...