Tagged: field recordings

November 16, 2013

Sounds of the City

Daniel Blinkhorn
Terra Subfónica
GERMANY GRUENREKORDER GRUEN 117 CD (2013)

With Terra Subfónica, composer and sound artist Daniel Blinkhorn has created a futuristic collection of sub-sounds designed to focus on what we hear in our subconscious. The result is a striking collection of recordings that are combined with Blinkhorn’s instrumental material to create a piece of work that is at once familiar and bizarre. Or, as Blinkhorn himself says, the CD presents a suite of ‘19 dramaturgical, radiophonic miniatures that map a sonic sub terrain’. Phew.

The CD is divided into several series and triptychs covering such terrain as seascapes, tones and timescapes, machines and cityscapes. Other pieces focus on such abstract themes as sonic spaces and even children playing. Some of these tracks, including ‘(sub)urban mantra’, focus on the instrumental; others, such as the seascape triptych, highlight the sounds of nature; and some are just plain weird, like the robotic, machine-inspired, ‘corpus sanus – computare’. On other tracks, the sounds are brought together in a way that combines field recordings, electronic music and experimental sound techniques, manipulated into a radiophonic cacophony.

Blinkhorn also wanted to explore the medium of radio; something that comes across quite clearly on several of the tracks, in particular, ‘place/space threnody’. He’s pushing the boundaries of sound on ‘toy bagatelle i’, which utilises a stereophonic/monophonic/stereophonic structure to accompany the sounds of children playing. The overall feel is certainly one of an artist and relishing the opportunity to experiment in order to present something totally unique.

The result of all this experimentation means that, at first listen, the recordings seem diverse and random, as the ear struggles to reconcile the instrumental work with fragments of the familiar and the alien sounds Blinkhorn has merged. On repeat listens, however, a pattern starts to emerge and the brain starts to get tuned in to these sub-sounds.

It must be noted that while the end result of Terra Subfónica is certainly interesting, it seems more a piece of work to be admired than one to be enjoyed repeatedly. More than mere background, the work demands attention but is quite a challenging listen; especially to those not familiar with this type of sound manipulation.

Overall, Terra Subfónica is an ambitious and highly original work of soundart that has the potential to open listeners’ minds and ears to a whole new world going on beneath what they usually hear.

November 9, 2013

Crossing The Border

The great Aki Onda released South Of The Border (IMPREC309) in December 2012 on the Important Records label…only nine years after the first two volumes in his Cassette Memories series. Nobody could peg this imaginative and free-thinking artiste as “simply” a field recording / phonographer type, even though his exploits in these areas surpass the work of many…one of his distinctive hallmarks is his use of cassette tapes, and hand-held devices like Walkmans, rather than “super-accurate” digital technology…in his hands, the audible soul of a place passes directly onto oxide tape, retaining a depth and meaning which is beyond the reach of a portable high-res digital recorder. Needless to remark Onda embraces mistakes and flaws in the process, which enhance his work with additional patinas of unplanned noise and glitchery. The rumour is that he’s taping constantly, never seen without a machine operating in record mode and capturing whatever ambiences and chance events may come his way on his exciting adventures beyond the seas.

Japanese-American Onda has also been known for his remarkable edit-technique (to the uninitiated, it might seem an exercise in near-random assemblage); on his other works this has resulted in sound events transpiring before your ears which, although strictly documentary in nature, are astonishingly surreal and dream-like in their effect. The editing / collage method is not (as far as I can tell) emphasised so much on South Of The Border, but the listening experience is still a heady and mesmerising one. Turns out Onda feels a personal bond with the country of Mexico, where the raw material for the work was taped. From his youth, he cherishes early memories of the vivid images of Mexico recorded by his Dad on camera and super-8mm film. Carrying these primal pictures around in his head, the personal mythology for him was only deepened when he saw that exemplary piece of Magical Realist cinema and guaranteed brain-fry movie, Jodorowsky’s El Topo. When he finally got to visit the country in 2005, would he be disappointed by the reality compared against the mystical wonderland he had created in his imagination?

On the contrary…he reports that he “was amazed that everything was as I had envisioned” and that “the boundary between reality and imagination disappears” when you’re in Mexico. Aki Onda doesn’t shrink from the difficult task of conveying this impression to the listener, and the uncanny recordings on this CD, while they may not at first listen appear to be the mind-blowing hallucinogenic explosions that you might expect, will amaze and beguile you with their subtle, compelling timbral shifts and ranges. Small fragments of recognisable human elements (voices, machinery, street bands) will leak into an otherwise abstracted and distorted swimming pool full of sonic fragments…in time, that swimming pool becomes an ocean…it engulfs and drowns you, filling lungs with an intoxicating brew…the distortion elements are made even more delicious due to simple fact of malfunctioning machinery, since Aki Onda took three Walkmans to Mexico, and two of them broke down (tape head and motor damage), but he went on using them anyway. Not since Monet and the Barbizon school persisted in painting their canvasses En Plein Air whatever the weather, have we seen such dedication to the craft! My personal attachment to this great CD is of course increased tenfold because Aki Onda personally sent me this copy, signed and dedicated. He tells a story of bodies that change, where the sun clings to the earth and there is no darkness. Prepare for an hour of sheer amazement!

November 2, 2013

Gauzy Dreams that melt away

Robert McDougall
Unfinished Studies
AUSTRALIA ANGKLUNG EDITIONS ANG01 LP (2012)

Now an ultimately absorbing and beautifully realised slice of vinyl hailing from the antipodean quarter, 2012. This comes in the form of the Unfinished Studies l.p. by Robert McDougall, a Melbourne-based electro-acoustician and label boss, who certainly appears to have a fresh handle on investigations into the disciplines of avant-garde composition. A pleasing meld of pre-production treatments, electronics and field recordings can be found on the four long pieces within the somewhat anonymous-looking sleeve art. Starting with “Platter Study No. 2″; in which the platter in question appears to be a recording sourced from some ancient eastern ceremony, where distant gong/metallic bowl (?) tones are under threat of being consumed by a fluctuating foreground hum of unknown origin and, of course, the reassuring crackle that only distressed shellac can produce. “Untitled No. 4″ uses the same brand of disconcertingly blurred perspective as “Platter…”. The shimmer of a gently uncoiling keys/guitar figure is set against the distant hubbub of what seems to be a village market and reminds me of one of those gauzy dreams that’s remembered on the very cusp of awakening, before melting away forever. Further distant metallics are employed in “Installation Study No. 2″ in which the sound of an all pervading outboard motorboat drone is eventually punctuated by some quietly struck drawing-room piano chords, giving added dramatic import. My favourite though, is derived from a piano piece by Anne Boyd, a music professor from the University of Sydney. “Angklung Study” sounds, for all the world, like an outtake from Cluster, during their fields and streams period, circa Sowiesoso. Rather damn fine. A soft insidious assault on the senses, where…more or less, less is more.
A limited edition of 300 through Angklung Editions.

Bandcamp page

November 2, 2013

Travels in my Armchair

Ametsub
All Is Silence
JAPAN NOTHINGS66 N66CD003 (2012)

Ametsub is the Tokyo-based musician and producer, hailed in 2006 with the perfect debut album released by the respected Progressive Form label. All Is Silence is his third CD published by the Japanese Nothings66 label which is quite new on the scene, but which has already impressed the post-IDM crowd with its multifaceted Duskscape Not Seen compilation and further releases of Sketches For Albinos and Moshimoss fame. Throughout those five years, Ametsub achieved appearances on many prestigious festivals and performed with such great artists as Plaid, Fennesz, Alva Noto, Vladislav Delay etc. – his talent gained necessary experience and now is in full bloom, resulting in the exceptional work he did with All Is Silence. The combination of floating melodies and melancholic mood with spacious and aloof beats leaves us with the sense of a dreamy place, where everyone can find his hidden thoughts, and becomes clear and appealing. There is the sort of contemplation stimulated by sonic colours and atmospheres, situated by harmony and ending up with the nostalgic sadness. What really make it different from the other IDM sounding efforts is the peculiar use of field recordings, giving us the sense of travelling and never-stopping movement. The compositional techniques are also far from the standard and boring computer programming – the prepared piano and taped sounds arranged through the old fashioned recorder makes the listening experience kind of unique and unforgettable. If you like soundscape-oriented electronic music with some beats thrown in, you should check out this stuff before exploring the new Tympanik Audio releases schedule.

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Eye Contact With The City
GERMANY GRUENREKORDER GRUEN 108 CD (2013)

Oh yes, the Gruenrekorder label turns 10 this year, and through this decade it gains the deserved reputation as one of the finest European labels dealing with field recordings and electronic music utilising field recordings. Operated by German sound-artists Lasse-Marc Riek and Roland Etzin, Gruenrekorder has released over 130 albums up to this moment, and most of them are highly interesting for all of you phonography lovers. All these releases are on digital format (CD, CDr or downloads), so you can expect outstanding recording quality with each new release, but also very special aesthetics of listening to the world surrounding us, and wonder how musical these ordinary sounds from everyday life can be. One of the most recent outings is the new album by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay – sound artist, audiovisual media practitioner and researcher from India who currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Based on the field recordings made in Bangalore (the capital city of the Indian state of Karnataka), it became a sound/video installation-project involving the audio from old reel-to-reel tapes found at the city’s flea markets. What really differentiates this work from other published field recordings is the narrative quality of music, which flows continuously for about one hour, forming the massive soundwalk without any certain direction, guiding us only by some strange crash/squeak-like sounds and distorted voices. There’s also a bit of processing over there, but not in a soundscape manner, just to sustain certain sounds and create a sort of hypnotic alignment. If you have heard the Buildings New York album by Francisco López, you will feel some similarity in structure. At times the soundflow receives a very ambient-like sonority, ending again with strange Eastern harmonisation and a definitive musique concrete quality. So you see, the music here is something that’s always changing but with no overall progress, just like a state of mind. Interesting album, not to miss out if you like to travel in your armchair.

October 27, 2013

Drift Away

Marihiko Hara
Flora
DRONE SWEET DRONE RECORDS DSD011 CD / NIGHT CRUISING NCD-02_2013 CD (2013)

Marihiko Hara’s Flora is a collection of calming and ambient sounds that evoke images of his native Japan. Inspired by nature, this is music to relax to and be carried away by.

Far from being bold or provocative, Flora sits very much at the other end of the musical spectrum; providing a reflective and transporting experience that forces you to stop for a while and step away from the stresses and frustrations of everyday life.

Recorded in Kyoto and Takashima City, Hara’s elegant piano and electronic compositions are combined with field recordings to produce a seamless selection of tracks that aim to transport listeners through forests, lakes and oceans, and even all the way up to the moon.

More than anything else, Flora highlights Hara’s talents as a composer and musician; with tracks like ‘Camera’ and ‘Curtain’, in particular, demonstrating his abilities as a classical-style pianist. Occasional electronic touches add a bit of an edge, but the overall feeling remains that of serenity and placidity; like a rippling lake or gentle summer breeze.

The ambient sounds, including twittering birds and buzzing insects, simply provide a subtle background to the Kyoto-based artist’s compositions. In fact, the whole CD almost feels like a soundtrack to nature. Only on one track, ‘Ocean’, does the drone take over from the piano; providing a slight shift in mood and ambience.

On some level, Flora might have benefited from the inclusion of more ambient field recordings (especially on the water-themed tracks), but as Hara himself states, the sounds he has chosen are ones that are close to his heart; and this certainly comes across.

For sheer beauty, ‘Ocean’ and ‘Eclipse’ are probably the standout tracks, but there’s no weak link here, as they all glide effortlessly into one another; each distinct, but no one track overpowering or diminishing the next.

Overall, Flora is an unchallenging, gentle and tranquil experience that allows the listener the chance to experience nature, reinterpreted and enhanced. It is a piece of work very much rooted in Japanese culture and conjures up images of the country’s landscape away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

As such, the best way to appreciate Flora is to lie down, close your eyes and let yourself drift off into Marihiko Hara’s world. Once there, you might find you want to hang around for a while.

October 20, 2013

The Best Way to Travel

Kotra & Zavoloka & Dunaewsky69
Kallista
UKRAINE KVITNU 27 CD (2012)

Here is an exotic Eastern European electronic-errr, some sort of luridly packaged three-way hymn to Krakow. It is not sponsored by the city fathers, as far as I can tell, but there is some university connection in there. 24 tracks in just over an hour, alternating between the three artists, although there’s not much to distinguish individual contributions – or, being more generous, it is coherent in its electro-eclectism. Anyway, the whole thing is a mish-mash of various cranky electronics, Geiger counter clicks and aggravated synths being maltreated, sounding on the whole a lot like corrupt mp3s of someone pretending to be Aphex Twin layered with more obsessive-compulsive glitching played by laptops plugged into the wrong voltage. Someone’s probably stuffed MSG in the USB port as well. There’s a rather ramshackle air and fluctuating levels, gratifyingly antisocial frequencies sticking out at inopportune angles.

Sometimes our artists do not sound particularly in control of the electronics (which in fact include custom-built oscillators, according to the packaging). Who wants control anyway, though? Montage and jump-cut, cheesy break-beats and thick melodies cut out or fizzle into corrosive goo as soon as they start. Cumbersome and ragged-cornered takes on collage with field recordings collide with detournings of techno-technique. Which, considering I have been known to complain about overly slick production in electronic music, should please me to some degree.

This does a fairly convincing job of conjuring up an imagined sensory electro-magnetic overload somewhere in a sprawling metropolis, mobile phones and the sticky floor of a bus as you pass through an unfamiliar neighbourhood full of signs advertising who knows what, strange juxtapositions, olfactory collisions, aural chewing gum stuck to a tourist map of the mind, all coloured in with some highlighters. Not in the lines, either.

I have never holidayed in Krakow, but thanks to this garishly packaged lump o’ sound I feel I have, now, and I can confidently report that the streets are paved with energy drink, it’s built of leaking glowsticks, and giant bears lurch up at you from stinking alleyways, displaying their lantern-like gullets before swimming away again with a flick of the tail. Hooray! Boney M would be proud.

Joda Clément
The Narrows
BELGIUM UNFATHOMLESS U09 CD (2011)

In which we encounter a low frequency drone with mid-range textural flecks to keep you dancing derived from field recordings of behind sheds, some fences etc. This is a little like lying above a wide, slowly moving, conveyor belt which has been scattered with lumps of rock and rubble (mostly, say, from the size of a small potato to a little larger than a fist), whilst a feather duvet is draped down on you from above, lying over you and the conveyor belt, its end dragging over the rocks as they trundle past you, meanwhile keeping you insulated from much else apart from the rumble of the conveyor mechanism and the soft clack of stone on stone. There’s a bit of twitching of limbs in the last seven minutes, an adjustment in recumbent position, and then everything fades out at 35 minutes before it can outstay its welcome. I must say I spent a refreshing half hour on the carpet with my eyes closed to this. If I was to be critical I could say that the background drone which provides the ground for most of the rubbley noises was a little too obtrusive bass-wise to effect complete relaxation. It is also overall a bit clean and tidy, as far as drones go, for my liking, although there are moves towards abrasion in the surrounding scrapes. Handy hint: this could be mitigated by listening on a portable system with crappy speakers and no bottom end.

Kotra
Dunaewsky69
Zavoloka
Kvitnu
Joda Clément
Unfathomless

October 15, 2013

Redundant / Rotary / Rotations: running the gamut of electropop, dark minimal techno and harsh noise

Wouter van Veldhoven, Redundant / Rotary / Rotations, United Kingdom, The Tapeworm, cassette (2013)

You’d be surprised to discover, as I was, that all the music you hear on this tape was made with 24 reel-to-reel tape recorders and an analog modular Doepfer A-100 synthesiser: everything here initially sounds like proper electronic music in its various guises and reveals very little of the origin of the found sound recordings used in the creation of this music. The sound sources utilised by van Veldhoven include a faulty TV set from the 1950s, sine wave generators and a broken valve radio.

The music can sound reminiscent of Kraftwerk during their glory electropop days of the late 1970s / early 80s; not surprisingly actually as Kraftwerk have roped in a Doepfer A-1oo synth into their range of instrumentation in the past. Don’t worry too much about trying to identify individual tracks. The mood can vary from playful to quizzical, remote to curious and experimental, eccentric to boisterous – and that’s just on the A-side alone. Rhythms are often very busy and some have a breezy cold abstract air that might be found on a lot of dark minimalist techno / industrial lite recordings. The B-side is especially rhythmic and industrial-influenced and there is a greater variety of more experimental music as well.

An early highlight is the track “Second”, a fairly long piece with a lot of activity that approaches the bombastic. This is followed by “Fondness for Broken Mondriaans” which is a crackly, crumbly, deep-fried noisy piece with a spare percussive rhythm. Flicking over to the B-side, we come across an extended passage of droning power electronics and industrial noise on “Bricks, Corners, Cul de Sac”. After this wondrous piece, we retreat to safer and more friendly (sometimes child-friendly) territory that features playful flubby melody and rhythm loops and toy-like tones. A later track features choppy staccato rhythms that change tone throughout while little effects blink and travelling noises buzz and zing.

Ranging from kiddy electronic pop to the most forbidding harsh powwah electronix, with plenty in-between that recalls and recreates some of the grander moments of Seventies / Eighties synth-pop, Nineties isolationism and current forms of techno, this cassette could well become the modest mouse that roars in years to come as a minor classic. Redundant some of the recreation might be – it could be cleaner and more crispy if done on modern digital machines – but there’s a small-scaled warmth and even intimacy on some tracks that can’t be replicated with a lot of the technology in current use.

October 4, 2013

Entranced

Banks Bailey
Entrances
QUIET WORLD TWENTY SEVEN CDR (2012)

Entrances is Banks Bailey’s second release on Quiet World following on from 2008’s Vibrations from the Holocene. Whereas the previous recording was largely devoted to natural sounds, this new offering features a mix of field recordings from Bailey’s native Arizona and his original tone and drone music. The result is 35 continuous minutes of atmospheric and haunting sounds.

Far from being mere background sounds, this is a CD that deserves a clear mind and undivided attention, which it rewards by introducing and enhancing the sounds of nature to create a spellbinding and transformative experience.

Whilst familiar, when placed this context, these sounds of nature take on an otherworldly vibe; no more so than with the sound hail peppering what sound like metal, which, at one point, gets louder and louder until it echoes in like gunfire. The addition of Bailey’s music provides an ambient undercurrent to the sounds of cascading rain, buzzing insects and twittering birds.

Bailey’s own music also adds an ominous vibe to the random and spontaneous natural sounds; building in intensity throughout like the soundtrack to a sparse and realistic horror film whose true object of terror has yet to be revealed. This is especially true when visitors’ voices are heard in the distance. Whilst jarring to hear human interlopers muscling in on the harmony of nature, the effect is to highlight how we are all at the mercy of the elements and how, in the natural world, we are the ones who don’t belong.

Overall, Entrances manages to create evocative and striking musical images that take on a life of their own when amplified inside the mind of the listener. Listening to the CD feels like a journey into the unknown, where nature takes on a whole new and unsettling persona; with the familiar morphing into the strange.

It’s also wonderfully refreshing to hear a piece of work that does not need to rely on technical wizardry or powerhouse sounds to get its point across. This is simply nature in its purest form; enhanced by an artist who is clearly in tune with his surroundings.

September 1, 2013

Meirino Blanket

Francisco Meirino
Untitled Phenomenas In Concrete
AUSTRIA CAVE12 C12O03 CD (2012)

The information about Francisco Meirino I’ve come across online states; “active since 1994 (as phroq until 2009) in sound and live performance, he explores the tension between programmable material and the potential for its failure by working mainly with the computer, magnetic fields detectors, reel-to-reel tape recorders, piezo transducers and various acoustic devices…” So Untitled Phenomenas In Concrete is quite a departure.

It is a composition for UPIC and field recordings (“…recordings of snow falling, bones cracking, magnetic fields and insects”), assembled and mastered by Meirino between 2008 and 2012. The press release tells us “UPIC is a computerised musical composition tool, devised by the composer Iannis Xenakis. It consists of a digitising tablet linked to a computer, which has a vector display.” No doubt there will be an app for your phone that does that soon.

Untitled Phenomenas In Concrete commences with a noise that sounds like an electrical substation being switched on – it happens a second time at 10 minutes 15 and again around 27 and a half minutes after a minute or so of silence. This is an extremely loud and physical noise which made me feel like I was getting defibrillated by means of a strong electric charge. Not quite what I was expecting as I settled down to listen to this disc for the first time with a glass of wine after a long day, but exciting, nonetheless.

Untitled Phenomenas In Concrete certainly runs the gamut of sounds possible with UPIC. Other electronicists fortunate enough to be able to use the system produce, at least to my ears, quite similar sounding work in terms of sounds rather than composition; Russell Haswell, for example… ¹

The piece begins with a series of ragged encrypted data files shorn of all rough edges angrily, by plastic surform; bought from Wickes, until they once again come to resemble the real-life sounds they were possibly sourced from. Meirino then delves into pseudo academic software composer sounds, like if Stockhausen had designed Korg’s recent fevered re-imagining of the MS20 monosynth; to put it in layman’s terms, then: avant-garde fizzing noises. Then there’s a passage around 24 mins where Meirino lets loose a subtle theme that puts me in mind of Mogwai’s repeating motif for their soundtrack to the French television series Les Revenants, (screened under the title The Returned on Channel 4). There follows a tranche of abrupt and violent noises which put me in mind of those bygone days when fiddling around with synthesiser patches meant playing around with actual voltage and not simply prodding a cursor disinterestedly around a computer screen. This is music that wants to be thought of as shudderingly new and contemporary and yet it still manages to sound not unlike Stockhausen’s Telemusik or Kontakte – pieces that were recorded nearly fifty years ago.

Ultimately, UPIC is a visual control surface, and as such, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that the drawings made by the operator are as important as the resultant music. Happily, the sleeve of Untitled Phenomenas In Concrete features three examples (00’00” – 07’21”) of Meirino’s draughtsmanship used on the UPIC system to produce Untitled Phenomenas In Concrete, plus an inserted folded A3 poster printed, white on black, with the remaining drawings that make up the composition, (07’21” – 34’17”). This is a welcome addition and goes some way to help the listener properly appreciate the composition. The press release points out that Meirino “…spent nearly four years composing/drawing line by line…listening to every line, gradually adding on lines and sounds, erasing, reassembling…”

A nice package – a gatefold card sleeve with a wraparound sticker applied to it holding all the black and white printed visual information; you have to carefully slit the sticker on one edge to access the disc and poster.

Franciso Meirino
CAVE12

[Editor's note: of course there is no such word as "Phenomenas". The plural of Phenomenon is Phenomena, so the addition of the plural "s" is redundant. Meirino's computer compositional skills are not in question, but he doesn't know his Greek!]

See this post for Haswell and Hecker’s work with GenDyn. ↩

August 8, 2013

The Further Somniloquies of Dion McGregor: hear the movies behind one man’s shut eyes

The Further Somniloquies of Dion McGregor, Torpor Vigil Industries, TVI-CD03 (2004)

Holding my breath for over a decade for another collection of slumber soliloquies by Dion McGregor was excruciating at times and threatened to pop my eyeballs but the wait’s been worth the damage: this set of 25 would-be one-man drama performances definitely does not disappoint. Fully formed scenarios that might come straight out of day-time soap opera or prime-time reality TV, often transmitted in ways to suggest two entities were at perpetual war within McGregor’s feverish unconscious mind, range from party games to bizarre lists, a tour inside a labyrinthine TARDIS-like house, visits to the future and visits from little extra-terrestrials in one’s backyard. Compared to the “Dion McGregor Dreams Again” CD (Tzadik, 1999), this one is slightly cleaner though it does have its hair-raising moments and just might pass muster as general family entertainment with an MA rating. The emphasis seems to be on multi-dimensional travel through time and space.

Leading off with “The Scavenger Hunt”, in which participants must find the most improbable items such as the Chattanooga Choo Choo, the swan from Swan Lake, David Susskind’s mum and someone called Nobody along with his sister, we slime our way through a new dance called “The Snail” and spin a tray of chocolate eclairs, of which one is laced with poison, in “Food Roulette”. We watch Myrna Mango performing the “South Sea Squirm” while surrounded by cat-calls and stare with voyeuristic relish at the tiny inhabitants of “Midget City” along with the proud pet-shop owner-narrator. We’re hurled into the future world of “Tenses” for which the expression “be careful what you wish for” is never more apt as life is measured out in beads on a string. Another whimsical SF fantasy is “Snowflakes” in which McGregor discovers each snowflake on the ground is a planet with its own people.

Funniest track of all though has to be “Snail Time” which reprises the dance of “The Snail” with the appropriate dance rhythms and accompanying song and adds a deliriously demented dialogue in which McGregor instructs his female dance partner on how to say “I am Dolores” in English. (Of course, the mincing shy-lady talk is McGregor’s own voice.) The “Mansion For Sale” runs a very close second: a real estate agent shows prospective buyers through a house that turns out to be a veritable torture chamber of fiendish instruments of punishment. The “Raining” track features idioms and free-forming word associations that turn into reality as raining cats and dogs come alive only to be impaled by pitchforks and drowned in urine. “Down From the Wall” features unusual abseiling activity that literally ends in objects falling and crashing as does also “The Horseshoe Crabs”.

As expected, several of these tracks end in McGregor screaming himself awake – small wonder that he ever got much sleep or was able to function properly during his waking hours. One thing with this CD is that it has to be played fairly loudly as the age of the original recordings when they were transferred to CD and the background traffic noise ambience on them – McGregor was living in New York City in the 1960s at the time – can soften and blunt some of what he says and obscure the tone of voice. Each track follows its own logic which can sometimes be dictated by the words used and their multifarious meanings and associations. Etymologists and psychologists will have a field day trying to sort out the train of word associations and their possible meanings.

Recent sleep research suggests that McGregor would not have been dreaming during his ramblings but instead his unconscious mind would have been processing and sorting out all the various inputs past and present received by his senses. That his somniloquies have a strongly cinematic structure is not at all surprising when one considers that McGregor loved watching movies; some of the dialogue heard and most of the scenarios he goes through sound very much as if they were lifted from Hollywood flicks and made to serve whatever his unconscious mind was mulling over.

Once again, if you need something to hold your friends spellbound at parties – plus some ideas for party games like scavenger hunts, spin the cake stand or how to decorate the house for prospective buyers to inspect – don’t go past this bizarre collection of screaming (not dreaming!) mad mono-slumber-logues!

Contact: Torpor Vigil Industries