All that Egyptian and Mayan Stuff

The top of this week's show started off with a poem written and read by music/art icon Patti Smith called Histories of the Universe. As mentioned on the show I located it via a fantastic website called ubu.com, which a couple of people have directed me to and has proven to be a fantastic resources for all things artistic and interesting. Listening to this poem kind of blew me away just because of the super conversational/informal style Smith has which makes her words sound like a real organic stream of ideas which lends it power. Also I think she's alluded to female orgasm, though maybe that's just what I read into it. I've been really interested in sort of ancient mysticism as of late, so I also enjoyed the way she connected the creative process to a sort of mystical force present inside of us.  But yeah, do check out that site because there is an insane amount of films, music, and other stuff to absorb.

Musicselections for Jan 20th show:
AAM - Later During a Flaming Riviera Sunset from the album AAMMusic
John Cage - Credo in US 7" (Dolor Del Estamago)
Pulp Music - Low Flying Aircraft from Low Flying Aircraft 7" (Pputre Apparente)
U.S. Girls - Me + Yoko from Me + Yoko 7" (Not Not Fun)
The Red Krayola - Say Hello to Jamie Jones from God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It
Robedoor - People of the Book and The Downcast Eye (Not Not Fun)

I've really been into getting into new things and old things I've never given enough ear exposure time to. This has been my main duty as of late and how I came to finally listen to AAM. I don't know where AAM has been all my life. Pretty much just out of my consciousness. I had heard of them a while ago before re-discovering them and this album, which is pretty astounding. I am terrible at describing music, except to say things like it was recorded in 1966 and the band includes Keith Rowe, who a lot of people into experimental music/improv jazz have likely heard of. Definitely worth checking out, just as a source of inspiration and awe for anyone into experimental/improv sounds.

Rare post-punk/avant  gem reissued after first released in 1979. Not much was known to me about this band, except recalled hearing them hailed by someone a while ago. There is a lot of info about the duo, made up of Anne Bean and Paul Burwell, on the inner sleeve included with this disc which you can read on the label's website poutre apparente if you are interested.

Going to have some links to the show posted up soon, but for now it can be downloaded off CFMU's webiste, cfmu.mcmaster.ca under the Wednesday night section of the Programming Guide.

Back to the future

This week's show focused mainly on artists that were ahead of their time, pioneering some futuristic sounds that are even today still pretty far out.  I unfortunately didn't have time to talk about some of the sci-fi novels that I wanted to get into on-air, but I guess that's what the unlimited capacity of the internet is for.

Playlist:
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Struktur IV from Kontakt
Morton Subotnick - Silver Apples of the Moon for Electornic Music Pt 1 from the album of the same name
Conrad and Gregor Schnitzler - track 1 from Conrad & Sohn.
Mort Garson - Capricorn from Zodiac Cosmic Sounds
Silver Apples - Oscillations from S/T
Bruce Haack - National Anthem   to the Moon from Electric Lucifier
Neil Young - We R in Control from Trans
Simply Saucer - Here Come the Cyborgs Pt. 1 from Cyborgs Revisited

The only really out of place selection to me, is Neil Young, which I threw in kind of for novelty and to show the influence that synths/eletronics had on some more mainstream artists. A lot of people deem Trans to be Neil Young's most curious release, but I really dig it because it is such a departure from almost everything else he's released before or since.

I was really fortunate to see Simeon, the surviving member of Silver Apples, while in Copenhagen, Denmark at a venue called Kulturebox back in 2008.   These are a couple of photos I took during the show, plus a photo of some of the gear he used that night.

I have been a long-time fan of certain kinds of Sci-fi type stuff, from films to novels. To me, this genre relates to the kind of music I play on my show because it forces us to suspend our ideas about reality and dream of places beyond our reach. I think it is this kind of thinking and the pairing of imagination and technology that led to a lot of the most pioneering musical sounds.  Also, a lot of old sci-fi novels have some pretty awesome covers.

Books:

A Wrinkle in Time  by Madeleine L'Engle
This novel pretty much changed my life when I read it in elementary school. It introduced kids like me to ideas like telepathy, inter-dimensional travel, and atomic particles that could be moved at will.

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
This was my first introduction to an author that would become one of my favourites. More intro-time travel set against the background of world war II hysteria.

 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep & Ubik - Phillip K. Dick

Phillip K. Dick to me is one of the most far out and visionary sci-fi authors of all time. This is probably while hollywood has stolen many of his books, and except in the case of Bladerunner and A Scanner Darkly, turned them into kind of shitty movies. Ubik is probably the weirder of the two novels. Most people are aware of the premise of Bladerunner, but Ubik also deals with telepathic powers, trips to the moon, and shifting realities.

Deathworld - Harry Harrison
A killer novel about a killer planet. Super strong gravity and plant and animal life that is evolutionary inclined to be lethal to humans.

this week's show

Thank you for visiting the new directions radio blog, which is finally up and running.

This week's show featured a radio play by Samuel Beckett called Rough for Radio II from a recording entitled Seven Radio Plays by Samuel Beckett. These recordings were first heard on the BBC radio.  I really wanted to play All that Fall, however it runs more than an hour. I was inspired to select Beckett this week because I just recently obtained a copy of Nohow On from a second hand bookstore. I have been looking for this for a while during my used bookstore investigations.

I also played some GHQ, a band that has been one of my favourites for a while. I played Sacramento the B Side off of California Night Buning Dreams, which I had playing under the Beckett recording. That was followed by GHQ's Part i from Requiem for Bophal. There was also track by Kites called Baby Fawn with Broken Legs from their album Peace Trials that I tend to favour a lot. I figured I hadn't played/listened to either of these projects in a while which sort of guided my selection. I wasn't disappointed.


I ended things off with a too short excerpt from a Tuluum Shimmering CS called Flowers of the Honey Tree released on the House of Sun imprint. I had no knowledge of this label or really Tuluum Shimmering before I played it on the show, which is sometimes how it goes. I picked it up on the advice of a very wise friend and I am glad I did. Since roaming the internet for some info, I've learned that that this new age drone magic was created in Flintshire, UK and has other releases on Cloud Valley Recordings and Housecraft Records.

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