Category: track of the day

Symphonies of the Planets

The artist of the above track is in part the Voyager space probes themselves, who collected the raw electromagnetic data from space which were edited into the sounds you hear. The five disc set was released by Laserlight in 1992 and has been out of print for some time now, though it’s possible to hear all five discs on Youtube.

From the liner notes:

This unique series of recordings (5 volumes) is created from Original Voyager recordings of the electromagnetic “voices” of the planets and moons in our Solar System. Although space is a virtual vacuum, this does not mean there is no sound in space. Sound does exist as electronic vibrations. The specially designed instruments on board the Voyagers performed special experiments to pick up and record these vibrations, all within the range of human hearing.

The data that was collected was then further edited to make it a bit more pleasing to the ear than the raw data likely would have been, but the source of the signal itself is still signals from space, which is in-fucking-credible. The liner notes continue describing the sources of signals present in the recordings:

1. From the interaction of the solar wind with the planet’s magnetosphere, which releases charged ionic particles within a vibration frequency in an audible range (20-20,000 Hz).
2. From the magnetosphere itself.
3. From trapped radio waves bouncing between the planet and the inner surface of its atmosphere.
4. Electromagnetic field noise within space itself.
5. From charged particle interactions of the planet, its moons, and the solar wind.
6. From charged particle emissions from the rings of certain planets.

In 2012 the Voyager I probe became the first scientific instrument to leave the boundary of our solar system and, remarkably, still receives commands and transmits data back to NASA. It communicates using the Deep Space Network which is run by NASA and operates facilities around the world for communicating with Voyager and other exploratory and scientific tools in space. NASA has plans to continue using the Voyager probe until 2025, when it will stop producing enough power to continue communication.

The Voyager probe has another interesting connection to music. Unsure what they would find, researchers attached a golden record to the spacecraft in case another intelligent life form should encounter the probe. The contents were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan and were meant to serve as a sort of time capsule of life on Earth. It featured greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, recordings of natural sounds like surf breaking on the beach, crickets chirping, a wild dog, and a tame dog. It also featured a selection of music from around the world, including part of the Brandenberg Concertos, Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, and a sampling of Indonesian gamelan (which I’ve mentioned elsewhere). Interestingly, Sagan originally attempted to have “Here Comes the Sun” added to the record, which the Beatles supported, but EMI blocked because, and I’m just speculating, they’re lifeless monsters who would probably make aliens pay royalties for playing it on their superstructures. The record also had images on it representing mathematical definitions, the color spectrum, a nursing mother, and others meant to show life on Earth. More information on the contents of this record can be found on Wikipedia.

This track is the third in the series and if it grabs you then I highly recommend checking out the other installments. I snagged it a few months ago and would be happy to post any other info from the release notes if people are interested, though admittedly they are a bit sparse.

Craig Leon – She Wears a Hemispherical Skullcap

Craig Leon got his start in music in the mid-1970s working as an assistant producer at Sire Records where he was involved in the discovery and development of New York groups like The Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads. Nommos is his first release and it represents one of the more unique entries in the catalog of John Fahey’s Takoma Records, which is perhaps better known for releasing blues and fingerstyle guitar records more in the style of its founder. Though he was more involved with pop, electronic, and experimental work during the 1980s and 1990s, his material in recent years has been decidedly classical, working with the likes of Pavarotti. He talks about the difference in working in these two worlds in an interview with Moog:

The pop people picked up on synths a lot earlier–I was doing pop at the time–and what fascinated me was the way the so-called pop artists were doing with synths at the time were using synthesizers in their work which was close to what I wanted to do in classical. You would hear something new on a Beatles or Beach Boys album … where yes there would be one or two obvious synth sounds on a given song but theres ton of these little things that shape the sound.

He is still active as a producer, composer, and arranger of classical pieces living in England. Nommos was recently reissued by Harmonia Mundia along with his other early electronic work Visiting. Check out that Moog interview because he talks through arranging Bach for the Moog modular synth and talks more at length about using electronics in classical composition.

M. Geddes Gengras – Magical Writing

M. Geddes Gengras has been active in the experimental scene in Los Angeles for a number of years, releasing material under his own name as well as the moniker Personable. I initially heard this release in excerpted form on the Umor Rex compilation Collected Works Vol. 1 (The Moog Years), though the above represents the full cassette. He works primarily with a combination of modular synthesizers and other non-modular electronics, though he does play bass with Warm Climate. He is also active on the technical side of releases, producing albums for the likes of Sun Araw and Antique Brothers and mixing/mastering releases from Plankton Wat and LA Vampires (with whom he also performs).

Along with Sun Araw, Gengras founded the label Duppy Gun. The label came about following a trip to Jamaica to record an album with the reggae group The Congos. The dizzying blend of dub, dancehall, and Gengras/Sun Araw’s array of experimental electronics is definitely worth checking out on Duppy Gun’s Youtube channel. If you’d like to hear more of Gengras’ experimental works like Magical Writing, check out his Bandcamp.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra – In the Back of a Taxi

Penguin Cafe Orchestra is a collective musical project that was founded and anchored by Simon Jeffes and Helen Liebmann. Their first record, Music from the Penguin Cafe was released on Brian Eno’s Obscure Records int 1976 and gave their first public performance in support of that record by opening for Kraftwerk. According to his son, Jeffes claimed that the inciting incident for the Penguin Cafe was a fever dream where he pictured

a nightmare vision of the near future – where everyone lived in big concrete blocks and spent their lives looking into screens. There was a big camera in the corner of everyone’s room, an eye looking down at them. In one room there was a couple making love lovelessly, while in another there was a musician sat at a vast array of equipment but with headphones on so there was no actual music in the room. This was a very disconnected de-humanising world that people had made for themselves…
However you could reject that and look further afield, and if you went down this dusty road you would eventually find a ramshackle old building with noise and light pouring out into the dark. It’s a place you just fundamentally want to go into, and this is the Penguin Cafe.

Blending Jeffes’ and Liebmann’s classical experience with rock music, and an interest in non-Western rhythms and instrumentations, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra released records regularly throughout the 1980s, albeit with a rotating list of members. “In the Back of a Taxi” was comes off their 1984 release Broadcasting From Home, which features perhaps their best known track “Music for a Found Harmonium,” which has been covered many times and featured in television, movies, and advertisements. Some notable appearances include Napoleon Dynamite, She’s Having a Baby, Capitalism: A Love Story, and, ironically enough, advertisements for major companies like Ford and Hewlett Packard. You can watch a 1989 performance of “Music for a Found Harmonium” at the BBC here.

Jeffes passed away in 1997 from a brain tumor, but members of the group have continued performing Penguin Cafe Orchestra material under the name The Anteaters while Simon Jeffes’ son Arthur has formed his own group called the Penguin Cafe.

Grateful Dead – Looks Like Rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogl_reZlQbk

 

In my younger years I was told I needed to do a book report on a biography of somebody who I admired. Naturally, I chose a memoir of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh entitled Searching for the Sound. Recently I’ve been listening to more live Dead and this time I might not re-emerge. Through the Grateful Dead Archive and a sweet live recordings app called Relisten I’ve been reliving the only cool period in my life, the pubescent deadhead period. Looks Like Rain in particular has really grabbed me, and I thought I’d post this footage from their 06/19/1976 performance from the Capitol Theater in New Jersey because it’s pretty representative of what I love about this song. There are a couple other recordings I’ve been digging, including one from the early 80s, which is a Dead period I haven’t really explored at all. Beautiful guitar work from Garcia and nice vocal work from Donna Jean Godchaux and Weir, who can both get shouty at times in my opinion. On the Europe ’72 recording of this song, Weir introduces it by saying it’s a “crying song,” which it certainly is. Weir also released a version on his 1972 record Ace. The lyrics were penned by John Perry Barlow, a frequent Dead collaborator who also wrote A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace in 1996, which has become something of a rallying cry for groups like Anonymous. You can see a video of him reading it here or read the full text here. It was released with musical accompaniment by Department of Records, who also produced the video. The full footage Dead show that this recording comes from can be found on Youtube.

There’s no need to add another Dead blog to cyberspace, so I probably will not post live Dead very often, but I can’t guarantee it won’t happen again.

Subhaeris – Blue Tokyo

Subhaeris is a future music artist based out of Tokyo. Blue Tokyo comes off a cassette entitled New Tokyo Blue Mood 2 which is excellent from start to finish, though this track stood out for me. If you’re interested in the cassette, it’s available for preorder on December 1st. The first New Tokyo Blue Mood was released on the excellent UK vaporwave label Dream Catalogue, which also put out a release by 회사AUTO that was featured on an earlier post. Those interested in other updates should check out Subhaeris’ Facebook.

Michael Hurley – Lonesome Graveyard

Michael Hurley has been writing songs and performing since the early 1960s, though never in the same place for very long. His first release, First Songs, came out on Folkways Recordings in 1964 and he didn’t release another record until 1971’s Armchair Boogie. Though Lonesome Graveyard features keyboards over guitar, much of his output relies on acoustic guitar, fiddle, and his weary vocals. Before he even began writing songs, he would draw comics for his own amusement which featured two wolf characters named Boonie and Jocko who wear human clothes, drink wine, and generally philander. He paints the art for his albums himself, and many feature these two and other humanoid animals engaged in other forms of debauchery. Over the years he has developed something of a cult following, and as a result he’s been able to release records and perform pretty regularly since the early 1970s. His songs have been covered by the likes of Cat Power and Espers, which has led to increased interest in his work in recent years. According to an interview with NPR:

“They have to have their festivals … [w]henever they have one, they have to have their grandfather with them, which is good for me, because my peers aren’t going to come out that night anyway.”

With over 25 releases, it can be a bit daunting to know where to start. For what it’s worth, I’d check out Armchair Boogie, Parsnip Snips, and Ancestral Swamp.

Skip James – Drunken Spree

This version of “Drunken Spree” comes off Skip James’ 1966 release Skip James Today! The exclamation mark was in order, because it came thirty years after his first and (up until then) only recordings were met with mild response in 1931. It’s likely that the tough economic times played a role, though perhaps his idiosyncratic tuning and playing style were not particularly popular at the time. The lack of success had relegated him to obscurity, though his fingerpicking technique and somber songwriting style endeared him to blues enthusiasts like John Fahey. He was rediscovered during a spell in the hospital, and was thrust into the role of elder statesman for the folk/blues revival that kicked off in the early 1960, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival. You can see some rare footage of him performing at Newport here. Though you may not recognize his name, you might have heard the song “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues,” which he recorded in 1931 and which later appeared as on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack as covered by Chris Thomas King. Capitalizing on this renewed interest, he recorded a flurry of material in the early sixties, much of which has not been released or is scattered on various compilations. You can see a more complete listing of his output over at Discogs. He died in Philadelphia in 1969 at the age of 67.

Henk Badings – Electronic Ballet Music “Cain and Abel” (Abridged Version)

Despite having little formal musical training, Henk Badings held teaching positions throughout the mid-20th centuries and remains one of the most prolific and influential Dutch composers. Unfortunately, he accepted a teaching post at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague in 1942 offered by the Dutch government, replacing a Jewish director who was ousted at the request of the Nazi regime. While this allowed him to remain productive during WWII, it largely destroyed his reputation in post-war Europe and his work has only recently been re-contextualized outside of this decision.

He was born in the then-Dutch colony of Java (present day Indonesia) and remarked later in his life that the native sounds he heard as a child influenced his compositions immensely. I find some of the repetitive elements of his “Cain and Abel” ballet are reminiscent of the gamelan music that was so important to man early 20th century composers. He wrote for more conventional instruments in addition to his electronic compositions, including a cycle of 15 symphonies and various radio operas which share the ominous and frenizied experimentation of this ballet piece.

Danny Kirwan – Misty River

Danny Kirwan began performing live with Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac in 1968 and made his first album appearance on their 1969 release Then Play On. According to Peter Green, Kirwan “was so into it that he cried when he played,” which is awesome. He would perform and record with the band until 1972 when, before a concert he and relative newcomer Bob Welch (who had joined a year earlier) fought over guitar tuning and Kirwan refused to perform. He was promptly fired from the band. According to Mick Fleetwood, he looked at is as “putting him out of his agony,” though it’s likely Kirwan didn’t look at it that way. His sound shifted after his departure from Fleetwood Mac away from blues guitar towards softer, AM pop sounds. Though he recorded three solo records, Second Chapter, Midnight in San Juan (which features Misty River), and Hello There Big Boy! he essentially refused to perform in support of them. He didn’t record or perform again according to most accounts, and allegedly was homeless for spells throughout the 1980s and 90s. There have been talks over the years about reuniting the early Fleetwood Mac lineup with Green and slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer, but nothing has come of them and bassist John McVie thinks it unlikely Kirwan will ever participate. I guess joining the greatest band of all time (and they are, by the way) when you’re 18 is a bit of a double-edged sword.