BLASST 99 - SPACE IV: Strange Sounds From The Past For The Future - TRACKLIST + NOTES

TRACKLIST1. Fuck U Pay Us - "Burn, Ye Old White Male Patriarchy, Burn"
2. NASA - t"Sun Sonification"
3. Meredith Monk - "Do You Be"
4. Body/Head - "Last Mistress"
5. Moor Mother - "This Week x Geng"
6. Noveller - "A Pink Sunset For No One"
7. Alice Shields - "Study For Voice and Tape"
8. Funkadelic - "I Wanna Know If It's Good To You"
9. Ikue Mori - "Birthdays"
10. Annea Lockwood - "Tiger Balm"
11. Aki Tsuyuko - "The Voice of the Night"


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NOTES:
Today's BLASST is our penultimate episode, #99. 

Seeing as we're coming to the end of our run as a music program, I figured we should take one more dive out into the universe to find music that uses space in interesting ways as a contrast to the oversaturation of stimuli in our world that has come to influence our mental processes and by proxy, our creative ones as well. I always wanted these episodes to spark thought of some kind, perhaps a deeper pondering about a particular selection: why was this instrument used? why does the vocal sound that way? why are they playing so little? ...is that what I think it is? —with that final question being perhaps the most important of them all. I'm not sure if I've achieved my goal, as only time will tell. After all, astronauts take note of where they leave their flags, but not necessarily what becomes of their footsteps after they've gone.

Photo by Simone Thompson

Our first selection is by a band that I've been wanting to play on the show for months now: Fuck U Pay Us, a noise punk band from Los Angeles, California. I first heard about them through Instagram when friends posted photos and videos of their set at a punk festival they were playing in Chicago. I thought the name was fantastic to begin with, their message was what I've been wanting to hear in music for so long, especially sung by voices who deserve to have the spotlight on them for a change. I've noticed more and more artists talking about politics and social justice in their music, and in many cases where these artists are men, they're praised for being on the right side of things, or whatever. But that energy should honestly not be wasted on those bands, instead directed toward bands like FUPU, queer people of color who are challenging not just the world of politics but the world of music as well. It's very easy to form a band and make music that has been researched and proven to make money, music that neither engages the world with criticism nor challenges the listener to think harder about the moral fabric of their decision-making is so widespread and commonplace that the extent of it's manufacture includes all of the ignorant, unsuspecting aspiring artists tricked into finding these products meaningful and worthy of replication of their own free will under the guise of "expression". In actuality, this expression is nothing more than the active sedation of a critical mind a.k.a. all part of the plan. I believe that FUPU have a plan of their own, and I think that's truly exciting.


 
Meredith Monk is a composer whose work is beautiful, jarring, thought-provoking, and at times, utterly bizarre. The musical context of her work often involves the use of the instrument everybody knows how to play one way or another, the human voice. Most of her compositions run so long, however, that I haven't had much of a chance to play her on the show without taking up nearly half the program's run-time. Perhaps if I had a 2-3 hour slot to play music every week (like a real radio program) I'd indulge a little deeper into her work. Until then, micro morsels will have to do. "Do You Be" is one such morsel, from Key, MM's debut LP from 1971.That's her in the photo on the left, presumably matching the pitch of the glass she is playing.

 Alice Shields had this to say about her composition "Study for Voice and Tape" from 1968:

“Study for Voice and Tape was composed in 1968, using my prerecorded singing voice synchronized with electronic sounds on tape. The sound sources for the tape part include phrases created on an analog Buchla synthesizer, my own singing voice, and a shaken bell-tree. Pitch and timbral modifications occur through Klangumwandler and elaborate feedback, resulting in spiraling patterns that rise and fall in pitch and speed.”

I personally love the combination of recorded voice and seemingly random (mechanically oragnic?) synthesizer sounds. Especially sounds made by a Buchla synthesizer. Ever since I watched the documentary I Dream of Wires, I've determined that Buchla synthesizers are the greatest in the world, no matter their imperfections nor their marketability (or lack thereof). If only I could afford one. :'(

If you're a regular listener of the program, you'll know of my love for the founding no-wave group, DNA. Ikue Mori, the drummer in the group, has come to be known the world over for her unique playing style (which she began developing on her own—on the fly—upon being asked to join DNA) and her approach to music, which is understandably abstract and free from convention and flowing as purely from her own intuition (and perhaps feelings) as possible. She's released 12 solo albums, several collaborative improvisational recordings with other artists, the most perhaps with NYC-based avant-garde-ist, John Zorn (20 releases in total). Today's selection, "Birthdays", closes her album One Hundred Aspects of the Moon and features a stirring collage of percussion sounds across the sonic spectrum.

Perhaps the most significant selection on today's episode (to me anyway) is Annea Lockwood's tonal and textural sound work, "Tiger Balm". It opens with a sound many will find familiar, though perhaps not one everyone of you can hear up close without falling into a sneezing fit and/or hives. It's the pur of a cat, and with this, the piece moves from one unique sound pattern to another, intertwined with found sound, or field recordings. Throughout a large portion of the piece, we can hear various panned recordings of what sounds at times like a woman moaning and breathing deeply, and at other times, much larger cats (tigers, maybe) growling and breathing on their own. Sometimes these recordings are playing over each other, in a juxtoposition that remains shrouded in mystery to me. This is all part of Professor Lockwood's (oh yeah, did I mention she used to teach music at Vassar College in NYC?) plan to evoke a sensory response in the listener by creating a sense of place through these performances. This is, of course, after she spent her time creating work as part of the Fluxus movement which involved the burning, drowning, and burying of pianos. What an artist. Here's a recreation she did in 2014, complete with an interview about the project. The interview starts at 3:00.
Piano Burning | Annea Lockwood from Pie I Have Eaten on Vimeo.
As stated on the episode, this is our second-to-last episode. Next week we will air our final BLASST for some time. I intend to make it a good one, and hope you, dear listener, enjoy it and perhaps take it upon yourself to learn a little bit more about any of the artists I've played on the show in the past three years. See y'all next week.

-A