FULL HARVEST MOON (23 September 2010)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

CHURCH UNIVERSAL AND TRIUMPHANT INC. (THE) FEAT. ELIZABETH CLARE PROPHET

THE SOUNDS OF AMERICAN DOOMSDAY CULTS (VOL. 14)


Original Issue: 1990 Faithways International (No Number)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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from Synrecords.com:

A document of the spellbinding chants, call-and-response decrees, hypnotic invocations and prayers performed against the demon rock'n'roll by the ultra-conservative new age church universal and triumphant, led by charismatic, gun-hoarding nutjob elizabeth clare prophet--who is believed by her followers to be divinely inspired by a host of ascended masters, including merlin the magician, hercules, william shakespeare, jesus christ, gautama buddha, the archangel michael, and other emo legends. humorous for its damnation of seemingly harmless rock stars like billy joel, which explains why negativland and other experimentalists would sample it, this mesmerizing, all-vocal performance should fascinate listeners interested in la monte young's drones, kurt schwitters' "ursonate," or the stringent choral works of ligeti, penderecki and scelsi.

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from Aquarius Records:

It's hard to believe this is real. In fact, it took a lot to convince Andee, who was sure this was some sort of elaborate prank. But it's one of those things that just makes you proud / embarassed to be an American. Elizabeth Clare Prophet purchased 24,000 acres in Paradise Valley, Montana and started The Church Universal and Triumphant, a creepy new age doomsday cult in which Prophet channeled spirits such as Jesus, Buddha, K-17, Morya, Quan Yin, Afra, Hercules, Mighty Victory, Astrea, Shiva, Pope John XXIII, and more. (Sort of like J.Z. Knight of Yelm, Washington and her channelling of "Ramtha" except even more scary.) Prophet and her husband stockpiled arms, built giant bomb shelters, and coerced their devotees to purchase their own survival equipment at exorbitant prices. Throughout its existence various members of CUT were indicted for kidnapping, lost custody of the children who belonged to the church and were investigated for tax exempt status and firearms violations. In 1995 former member Joeseph Pietrangelo Jr wrote a book condemning CUT entitled "Lambs to Slaughter: My Fourteen Years with Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Church Universal Triumphant".
But the thing that really puts CUT on the map for us is their way of conducting their religious services. The tapes of these services have been floating around for years already. Those of you familiar with Negativland's 1989 album "Escape From Noise" will already be familiar with an excerpt of one of the tracks on this album, as they used it for the track "Michael Jackson", and Steve Fisk has been using these tapes for years as well. This record features live recordings of Clare Prophet 'speaking' out against the evils of rock music. She sounds perfectly normal as she introduces her 'psalms' or 'songs' or 'speeches' or whatever they are. But when she gets going, it's amazing. And so goddamn insane sounding. Her rapid fire high pitched testifying sounds a bit like an impossible mix of an auctioneer, a yodeller, the guy who sings the directions at a square dance, Neil Hamburger huffing helium and variations of baseball's 'hey batter batter' chant only faster. It's like that sound you make when you sort of hum/breathe out and move your finger up and down between your lips making a sort of 'bebubebubebubebubebubebubebubebu' sound. It's one of the most amazing things we've ever heard! A must for all cult fanatics, new age withdrawal victims, seekers of the truly strange, and fans of extended, trance-like vocal techniques. Ever so highly recommended! We'd almost have made this cd edition our Record of the Week if we weren't certain that it would probably bug the heck out of more people than (like us) would love it!!

YULE (21 December 2009)

The musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

SCHÜTZE PAUL (feat. Köner Thomas)

THIRD SITE (46 Deg 37' 00'' N 9 Deg 12' 00'' E)


Original Issue: 1999 Rykodisc (RCD 10464)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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1 The Surface Of The Eye 8:47
2 The Skin Of The Face And Neck 3:19
3 The Head, The Soles Of The Feet, And Arm 11:10
4 The Palms Of Both Hands 14:23
5 The Breath 9:37

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from http://www.paulschutze.com/:

The recently completed Thermal Baths complex in the Swiss alpine village of Vals is already regarded as a structure of international architectural importance. A remarkable building which is embedded in the mountainside and fuses both the local stone and the thermal spring water into an environment where all the senses are sharpened by the acute intelligence of the structure and its conception.

My aim in continuing the Site series with this particular structure is to explore in detail the experience of the baths in the context of sense memory, sound mapping/recording and the shaping of a poetic narrative within the rooms and cells at Vals.

As with the Jantar Mantar project (Second Site) I want to evoke the physical and poetic presence of this site using sound and spoken text. Peter Zumthor's work is distinguished by his exemplary use of materials and I have attempted to draw analogies between the ways in which our memories of touch and sound connect to the sense presence of complex man made spaces. I am also interested in the parallels between the internal organisation of thoughts and sensations and the external experience of moving through designed spaces.

The end product of this process is both a stereo recording and a more complex split channel version made to be installed within another space. The idea being to superimpose the presence of the first space within the volumes of another unrelated space. The "libretto" contained within both of these works will be published along (I hope) with some notes by and an interview with the architect. It is my intention when installing this work within another space to incorporate video material generated at the site as well as still images. The design of the installation will also try to reinforce the experience of the original space.

Paul Schütze

FULL COLD MOON (12 December 2008)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ORDO EQUITUM SOLIS

ANIMI ÆGRITUDO


Original Issue: 1991 Music Maxima Magnetica (eee-12)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

The Godz only know how much I love this record...thank you Leithana & Deraclamo for producing such a timeless masterpiece!

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1 Our Lady Of The Wild Flowers (5:20)
2 Message To Pan (3:08)
3 Notre Solitude (4:58)
4 Vacuum Quaerens (6:40)
5 Animi Aegritudo (4:47)
6 Reis Glorios (6:07)
7 Silence For Hell (3:58)
8 The Blood, Tomorrow (3:15)
9 Final (4:03)

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from Electric Shock Treatment:

I'm not too sure about this one. I find it very hard to shrug off the images and greenery of "Robin The Hooded Man" which arose while listening to these medieval, mythologically inspired compositions. The actual music (harp, lute, piano, guitar, zither) does work extremely effectively, but Leithana's vocals are a little flat. The track titles might give you an indication of the OES sound: Message to Pan, Notre Solitude, Reis Gloria and Vacuum Quaerens. Assisted by Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus, this is a fine album with an original and emotional content.

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from Rusmetal:

I don’t know if this LP should be reckoned to ‘black metal archives’, but what the hell, I always considered so-called ‘dark ambient’ as a part of BM, and since ORDO EQUITUM SOLIS play exactly this kind of music and this album is rather old, the review on “Animi Aegritudo” is placed here. If I’m not mistaken, this duo (Leithana (vocals, keyboards) and Deraclamo (guitars, voice)) comes from Italy and their style is dark, barocco (am I mistaken, tell me?!) ambient stuff. This LP consists of nine songs, some of them are really dark, few others bring the reminiscences of early DEAD CAN DANCE, others are somewhat romantic… Since such acts as ARCANA, ELEND, ILDFROST and RAISON D’ETRE were conceived much later, ORDO EQUITUM SOLIS inevitably gathered some attention back then. And they deserved it. This duo created something undoubtedly inimitable, too bad that I haven’t heard anything from them for a long time…

PINK MOON (feminine musick)

WHITE RUTH

FLOWERS OF EVIL (An Electronic Setting Of The Poem Of Charles Baudelaire)


Original Issue: 1969 Limelight (LS-86066)

Reissue: 2006 Creel Pone (#47) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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1 The Clock (3:03)
2 Evening Harmony (4:05)
3 Lover's Wine (3:01)
4 Owls (2:48)
5 Mists And Rains (2:10)
6 The Irremediable (4:58)
7 The Cat (3:31)
8 Spleen (2:56)
9 The Litanies Of Satan (6:56)

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from Mimaroglu:

... back again after last week’s mishap (don’t ask) with an absolute corker of a creel pone - the setting of a set of poems by charles baudelaire to electronic instrumentation & vocal treatments, as realized by ms. ruth white in mid-1969.

a sampling of any of the text(s) below (baudelaire was heavy, man...) should tip you to just how creepy & dark the vibes emanating from within this record are exactly. ms. white’s posessed monotone-through-echoplex-through-vclfo-gate throughout is just bone-chilling, her howling synth & noise backdrops so perfectly capturing the “southern” essence of the text that it’s hard to believe that these poems weren’t conceived in the era they were realized here (the just pre-altamont “downer” hippie zenith), but in fact in the middle of the 19th century!

certainly a creel pone more on the psych-end of things, but nonetheless a bizarre and terrifying vision into futures past-future that should speak to the inner satanist. those who felt the “doomy” waves warping out of the warren jepson creel pone should follow suit herein...

PINK MOON (feminine musick)

REIKO IKE

KOKOTSU NO SEKA


Original Issue: 1971 Teichiku

Reissue: 2006 Tiliqua (TILAR-5002)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

...and to make this magnificent post even more spicy, you can find an undraped picture of your favorite witch at the bottom ;-)

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1 女はそれをがまんできない (3:21)
2 よこはま たそがれ (2:47)
3 めまい (2:37)
4 雨がやんだら (3:04)
5 夜明けのスキャット (3:03)
6 さすらいのギター (2:44)
7 私という女 (2:40)
8 雨の日のブルース (3:09)
9 恋の奴隷 (2:55)
10 経験 (2:40)
11 天使になれない (2:49)
12 愛のきずな (3:22)

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from Boomkat:

Just in time for that ever-creeping Christmas season we’ve managed to secure a VERY small handful of this utterly crucial piece of Japanese musical history. This disc is one of a series of releases from the stunning Tiliqua label, and documents an area of Japanese culture most of us know very little about – erotica.

Yup you heard me right, and although many of the internet-savvy amongst us will be more than familiar with Japan’s strange take on the world of the naked lady often being compromised by something tenticular and from a distant planet, this is an era more focused on titillation and shattered innocence than anything you might find knocking around on a Hentai babes calendar.
This particular lady named Ike Reiko was only a mere 17 years of age when she recorded this record, and was already a star in the world of Japanese erotic movies. Yup in that age old tradition of lying about your age, Miss Reiko did it to slide her way into the seedy world of porn – not exactly buying a packet of fags and a 6 pack of Strongbow is it?

Apparently these movies were somewhere in-between the girl-gang revenge movies of the Blaxploitation era and the Women in prison style savage eroticism and dubbed ‘Pink Violence’, with tooled up honeys wearing just little enough to bare their ample breasts while they laid waste to the enemy (men?). I can’t say I’ve managed to track down any of these movies but after reading about them I feel almost duty bound to observe them closer, I mean it’s my job as a reviewer surely to make sure I have as much background as possible is it not? Funnily enough then, with all the tough-gal image the music is pretty darn life-affirming, but don’t think for a second you’re getting an easy listening album here – this is about as sexual as music can get.

Throw ‘French Kiss’ out of the window and kiss goodbye to your Serge Gainsbourg records goodbye, Ike Reiko is more sizzling than a branding iron as it makes it’s mark on the farmer’s herd. The sex is literally dripping from every note on this record – I’m told that the style is ‘Iroke Kayôkyoku’ or erotic kayôkyoku (kayôkyoku being a style of Japanese pop) but the sort of naïve jazz and pseudo spy theme movie music is all draped in a shroud of sexual shouts, screams and coos from the clearly excited Reiko. One must assume that she was in some kind of state of euphoria in the recording studio from the evidence on offer here, either that or she’s a pretty realistic faker – it’s a smouldering collision and that’s about all that needs to be said. ‘Kôkotsu no Sekai’ has to be one of the finest gifts for the music fan in search of that killer oddity – not only is it a fabulous record but it’s so wonderfully presented with gorgeous artwork and extensive liner notes, I can’t think of a saucier and more appetising delight this Christmas. Buy, before it’s gone for good.

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from Tiliqua Records:

Tiliqua Records continues its quest of digging up lost and forgotten sonic gems out of the bowels of oblivion. This time Tiliqua Records is more than thrilled to be granted the permission to unleash one of Japan's rarest erotic artifacts being Ike Reiko's sole recorded album out of 1971.

Heralded by those few who have been blessed with an original copy of this ultra rare disc as the ultimate Iroke Kakyoku album that even surmounts Sandra Julian's "Sexy Poem" on the brutality scale as far as unabashed, urbane eroticism, a calculated addition of licentious overtones and unbridled carnal insinuations are concerned.

Ike Reiko is mainly known as one of Japan's finest early seventies porn and pink violence starlets, tearing up screens with her naked presence in such films as "Sôkatsu Rinchi" of Ishii Teruo, the The "Sukebanchô" series and "Onsen Mimizu Geisha" of Suzuki Norifumi. Until now, this sonic gem has never been reissued and Tiliqua Records acquired the legal rights from Teichiku Records in order to restore this masterpiece to its former glory and introducing it anew.

In an attempt to describe the sonic sleazyness the disc venture into, here is a snippet out of the extensive linernotes. "Her erotic presence flutters across a multitude of erogenous non-verbal modes - moaning and uttered shrieks of ecstatic pleasure, sibilating suffocated whispers of excitement, and grunting and growling like a bitch in heat. When Ike does sing, it is in a subdued, husky voice about sex, submissive love and seduction. Although all the songs are cover versions, Ike confines herself to whispering but a small part of the original lyrics, spending the remainder on guttural erotic incantations backed by the desolate sound of a cheesy organ and a muffled yet ecstatic mellifluous vocal sound that is reminiscent of the 13th Floor Elevators’ Tommy Hall breathing down a jug. The entire recording is suffused with a unique atmosphere, a ripe and heady Japanese eroticism now sadly overwhelmed by the intrusive and infelicitous import of cheap Westernized thrills and assorted uneuphonious cultural junk. Nevertheless, Kôkotsu no Sekai launched Ike as the nightingale of the pink new wave."

FAREWELL MOON (epitaph musick)

BANASIK CHRISTIAN

IGOR'S SMILE



Original Issue: 1993

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

After visiting San Michele cemetery in Venice and, in particular, Igor Stravinsky's grave (see my picture below), I'm in the need to pay my respectful hommage to this unforgivable Maestro of modern music.

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1 Igor's Smile (14:59)

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from Christian Banasik homepage:

This piece can be interpreted as bridge and metamorphosis between digitally mastered tape-recorded music and a radio play. The theme of the piece is the osmosis of language and music - and of narrative linearity and purely tonal speech material. The musical sections are created through the medium of a sampler.

Brief interludes of Igor Stravinsky´s most well-known ballets are sampled, partially transformed and varied by way of a number of different transpositions and loops. In each case the individual passages from various pieces are moulded into a specifically adapted harmonic context within the respective position.

The linguistic plane is represented by Stravinsky´s original voice from interviews and rehearsals (recorded between 1962 and 1965) as well as by commentaries of the premiere performance of "Sacre du printemps" in Paris (1913) which play a key role here. In turn, striking woodblock sounds serve as mediation between the two planes, accentuating the beginning or end of tones as well as to creating the third, superordinate plane distancing the audience from the historical material. The piece was produced at the Synclavier System of the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt.

List of orchestra samples:

sample 1: "Firebird" - "Infernal Dance" measure 1

sample 2: "Firebird" - "Infernal Dance" [15] m1-m4

sample 3: "Firebird" - "Finale" [16] m3/4, [17] m1

sample 4: "Petrouchka" - Part 1, "Dance Russe" m1-4

sample 5: "The Rite of Spring" - Part 1 (Adoration of the Earth, "Ritual of the Rival Tribes") [57] m1/2

CRAZY MOON (incredibly strange musick)

BERNSTEIN STEVEN JESSE

PRISON

Original Issue: 1992 Sub Pop (SP 101) Buy it here!!!

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Margot-meter: ? moons / 5

According to The Wire, one of the 100 records which set the world on fire (but no one was listening)

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1 No No Man (Part One)
2 Morning In The Sub-Basement Of Hell
3 More Noise Please
4 The Sport (Part One)
5 Party Balloon
6 Face
7 This Clouded Heart
8 The Man Upstairs
9 The Sport (Part Two)
10 No No Man (Part Two)

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Excerpts from Amazon reviews:

Quite simply put, Steven Jay Bernstein (his real name) was one of the most fascinating and talented poets in the last half century.

I used to put this on at the record store I worked out to clear everyone out at closing.

Steven Bernstein was completely unhinged and used that freedom to observe the world from strange points of view and with a level of perception and honesty that is a little disturbing.

Poverty, drugs, self hatred, misogyny, its all here if you like that sort of stuff.And who doesn't?

Prison will not only spin in your CD player, it will make you're heart go in circles.

Forget Rollins, Jessee is where Burroughs & Bukowski meet, & his eyes are not averted.

This is an important voice that will enlighten your sense of imagination, make you laugh, get nervous, and maybe change the way you think or see the world.

Makes Bukowski sound like he had an easy life.

FAREWELL MOON (epitaph musick)

This post is dedicated to Hector Zazou (11 July 1948 - 08 September 2008)

ZAZOU HECTOR

SAHARA BLUE

CHANSONS DES MERS FROIDES

Original Issue: 1992 Made To Measure (MTM 32) & 1994 Sony Music (COL 477585 2)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

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Tracklistings: Sahara Blue and Chansons Des Mers Froides

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from Wikipedia�:

Zazou first came to international attention as part of the ZNR duo with Joseph Racaille, where both played electric keyboards. Their 1976 debut album Barricades 3 was notable for its "strong Satie influence, stripped to minimal essentials, everything counts".

Long-time collaborators include trumpeter Mark Isham; guitarist Lone Kent; cellist and singer Caroline Lavelle; trumpeter Christian Lechevretel, who has appeared on all of Zazou's albums after Sahara Blue; clarinetist and flutist Renaud Pion, who has appeared on all of Zazou's albums since Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses; drummer Bill Rieflin; and Japanese recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

His discography demonstrates his affinity for cross-cultural collaborations, and incorporated modern techniques and sounds in re-recordings of traditional material. He was influenced by Peter Gabriel's album Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ in his fusion of musical polarities (traditional and modern, electronic and acoustic) on his own album Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses.

Zazou regarded his work during the 1980s as his time of apprenticeship in the studio. On his 1986 album, Reivax au Bongo, he experimented with fusing classical vocals with an electronic backdrop. On his 1989 album, Géologies, he combined electronic music with a string quartet.

The albums that he has released under his own name from the 1990s onwards are usually concept albums that draw from literary or folk sources and revolve around a specific theme. The collection of songs on each album assemble contributions from a diverse and global range of pop, folk, world music, avant-garde, and classical recording acts.

Zazou's 1992 offering, Sahara Blue, was based on an idea by Jacques Pasquier. Pasquier suggested Zazou commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of author Arthur Rimbaud by setting music to Rimbaud's poetry. Contributions included spoken word from Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Dalcan and music by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, Tim Simenon, and David Sylvian. He even adapted a traditional Ethiopian song.

In 1994, he released the album Chansons des mers froides (called Songs from the Cold Seas for the anglophone market). The album was based on ocean-themed traditional folk songs from northern countries, such as Canada, Finland, Iceland, and Japan. It featured vocals by pop and rock artists such as Björk, Suzanne Vega, John Cale, Värttina, Jane Siberry, and Siouxsie Sioux in addition to recordings of shamanic incantations and lullabies from Ainu, Nanai, Inuit, and Yakut singers. Musicians included Mark Isham, Brendan Perry, and the Balanescu Quartet. A cameraman accompanied Zazou on the project and they shot and recorded in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Japan, Scandinavia, and Siberia. The single "The Long Voyage" was the only song to be an original composition from Zazou. He wrote it in gratitude to his record company Sony who gave him complete artistic liberty. Performed by Suzanne Vega and John Cale, it was released as a single in 1995. The single featured remixes by Mad Professor as well as Zazou himself.

His 1998 album, Lights in the Dark, showcased ancient Celtic music sung by Irish singers.

Zazou's collaborative 2000 album 12 (Las Vegas is Cursed) with Sandy Dillon was regarded as a financial and critical failure. In the book "Sonora Portraits 2", which accompanies the CD Strong Currents, Zazou says that 12 (Las Vegas is Cursed) was his most elaborate album. He describes it as a work of black humour and regards his instrumental composition "Sombre" on the album as one of his best songs ever.

Strong Currents was released in 2003 and featured an all-female vocal cast which included Laurie Anderson, Melanie Gabriel, Lori Carson, Lisa Germano, Irene Grandi, Jane Birkin, and Caroline Lavelle. Musicians included Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dennis Rea, Bill Rieflin and Archaea Strings. The album took six years to complete.

In 2004 Zazou released a companion CD of sorts, L'absence, which included instrumentals, many of the same female vocalists that were featured on Strong Currents, and one male vocalist, French singer Edo.

Zazou has recently been a member of the musical collective named Slow Music. The lineup also included Robert Fripp and Peter Buck on guitars, Fred Chalenor on bass, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Bill Rieflin on keyboards and percussion. He contributed electronics to the group's music, and much of his recent work, including a soundtrack for Carl Théodor Dreyer's silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc and the multimedia collaboration released as a CD in 2006, Quadri+Chromies, has focused on electronic sounds produced on computers.

A number of recent projects are documented on the Music Operator interactive multimedia web site, which graphically documents his recent collaborations while in the background his recent music plays. In january 2008 Hector Zazou released his newest album, Corps électriques, featuring "one of the original riot grrrls" KatieJane Garside, Bill Rieflin, Lone Kent and fusion jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær.

CRAZY MOON (incredibly strange musick)

CONET PROJECT (THE)

RECORDINGS OF SHORTWAVE NUMBERS STATIONS

Original Issue: 1997 Irdial (59 ird tcp 1) (Be notified when the reissue is available)

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Margot-meter: ??? moons / 5

For sure, one of the most chilling and frightening aural artifact ever released!

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Tracklisting here

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

from Hauntedink:

Static. Faint voices. Seven slow, monotonous tones. A pause. Suddenly, you hear music--one of those wind-up songs played by a child's toy. The melody repeats three times. A pause. Suddenly, you hear a female voice counting off the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 in German. A pause. She repeats the numbers. A pause. The children's toy melody returns.

So begins The Conet Project, perhaps the greatest collection of found art ever produced. This is not only a monumental work; it is also a monument, a testament to 50 years of Cold War espionage, a living document of the world's most secret agencies. That most of these agencies are still around today merely enhances the importance of this work.

To explain this collection, I have to explain the concept of numbers stations.

Numbers stations transmit coded messages through shortwave radio. These messages are transmitted from places all over the world, yet the basic numbers station message is remarkably uniform. It usually consists of a voice (most often female) reading off a series of numbers. On many occasions, this reading of numbers will be preceded by a song--usually familiar (like the English folk song, "The Lincolnshire Poacher") or distinct (the weird children's toy music I mentioned earlier, which is called "The Swedish Rhapsody"), though there are signals without music and signals that simply transmit Morse code messages. Above all else, one thing remains constant: nearly every transmission begins on the hour, lasts between ten and fifty minutes, and is almost invariably repeated several times over a 24-hour period.

What are these messages? Well, no one has ever come forward to prove that these stations are linked to spy networks, but almost everyone who has ever studied the signals believes that they are. But why would a spy network like the CIA or the KGB or Israel's Mossad or Osama BinLaden's Al-Qaeda--with all their money and resources--bother transmitting messages through something like shortwave radio, a cheap technology that would allow anyone in the world to listen in? There are two reasons. First, shortwave is not only cheap but also common, meaning a spy can easily carry around a good shortwave radio without attracting any attention whatsoever. Second, the messages use what is called a one-time pad, which is generally considered the most secure cipher ever created--provided that the sender and the receiver are the only ones in possession of the key to unlock the message.

Knowing that the tracks on The Conet Project are actual messages sent from a government or group to a spy, and knowing that those messages might contain orders that, at one time, probably instructed that spy to go kill someone or dig up dirt on a politician or just stay where they are, makes for a rather enticing listen, to say the least. But the meaning behind these messages will remain a mystery because there is just no way to ever come across a one-time pad key (they are destroyed after use), and though it is fun to speculate about these sounds, that speculation gets tiring after a while for all but the most die-hard listeners.

However, this historical context--the secret agent messages--is not really the point of this work. This is, first and foremost, a work of art, a work founded on challenging our conceptions of history and documentation. The artists at Irdial who selected the tracks and compiled the work did everything they could to choose tracks that were interesting to listen to; the listening experience, then, was more important than the clarity of the signals. As a result, many of the tracks here are filled with static and other noises floating in and around the sounds of voices and music, obscuring the messages to such an extent that it often takes several listens before you can discern which language the voice is speaking. They did not choose these tracks because they were the only ones available--I've heard plenty of clear recordings of numbers stations on other compilations. No, there was a reason to make the music muddled here. They wanted to recreate the experience, the thrill that must have come to those lonely souls who, over the past few decades, discovered these signals and recorded them.

Shortwave radio has never received the credit it deserves for shaping electronic music. Most early electronic musicians--especially those in Europe, where shortwave radio is more common than in the US--will tell you that their early musical education came from trying to sift through shortwave bands to pick up pirate stations all over the Atlantic. No doubt the act of sifting through walls of static to pick up a faint but hip signal can be seen as the inspiration for at least some of electronic music's obsession with distortion, aberration, and noise. A lot of electronic music, in fact, can be read as an elaborate attempt to give shape and purpose to random noise: to turn static into a signal.

If you think about it, number stations are doubly encased in interference. Not only are the signals themselves hard to pick up, but the messages are impenetrable. The artists behind The Conet Project understood both of these mysteries. By creating a work that is not only historically important (being, really, the primary introduction of numbers stations to the world at large) but also musically relevant, Irdial has created a powerful, evocative work that has, in recent years, inspired artists as varied as Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky) and Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) to tap into some of its power. This is a classic in every single sense of that word.

RISING MOON (japrocksampler musick)

CAESAR J.A.
JASHŪMON

Original Issue: 1972 Victor (SF-1021)

Reissue: 1999 Blue Interactions (PCD-1465)

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

Impossibly hard-to-find (even the reissue) masterpiece by J.A. Caesar ranking #10 in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler bible!

Recorded live at a theatrical performance by Tenjo Sajiki at Shibuya Kokaido on January 30, 1972.

This guy was a graphic design student, who adopted the name J.A. [Julius Arnold] Caesar, often also found spelled Seazer and even Ceazar [just to confuse internet searches even further!], and was known by the late 60's as one of the few 'true hippies' on the local scene. He apparently won a competition for hair length!

His music often featured elements of Japanese percussion, 'sekkyobushi narrative music', progressive and psychedelic rock, raw heavy rock, and other influences as diverse as Carl Orff and Pierre Henry.

1 Kyōjobushi
2 Jin
3 Shishi no Ko
4 Tōkyō Junreika
5 Haraisō
6 Kyōchō
7 Hahasute Hannyakyō
8 Okasaretara Nakeba Ii
9 Doko e Doko e to Satsu!
10 Kurama Tengu
11 Jashūmon
12 Bokoi Jigoku
13 Karasu
14 Kanokeburo
15 Wasan
16 Tsuru no Tēma
17 Kuchibue Sanka
18 1970 nen 8 gatsu
19 Wasan

from Volcanic Tongue:

Beautiful book/CD Japan-only reissue of a particularly inspired side from Tenjo Sajiki, the Japanese avant guerrilla theatre company founded by legendary poet/film maker/counter-cultural provocateur Shuji Terayama that existed contemporaneously to first wave avantists like Flower Travellin’ Band, Keiji Haino’s Lost Aaraaff and Les Rallizes Denudes and that featured dusted acid/rock/folk/avant moves composed and executed by the young wunderkind JA Seazer.

Alan Cummings rates this particular one as a real early peak for Seazer’s music. Written for a series of foreign performances in 1971 – Nancy, Rotterdam, Belgrade, Zagreb and other areas of the Balkans – Seazer is rumoured to have composed and recorded all of the music for Jashumon/Heresy in the space of a few hours the night before the troupe left.

This particular recording is drawn from the only Japanese performance of the play, January 1972 in Tokyo. Released at the time on a now very rare side by Victor, this massive new edition adds a clutch of new material, including two powerful performances by Kan Mikami.

The music is fairly astounding throughout and for the most part defies any attempt at pithy generic description but the piece include flashes of huge, organ-led marches supported by clouds of choral song and throat-shredding death/folk vocals, brief episodes of forlorn traditional breath lost in a thin soup of electronics and gongs, massed acid chants ala Ya Ho Wha 13 and bursts of modal guitar psych.

The accompanying book is a beauty, featuring a ton of performance shots and all-Japanese text.

Highest recommendation.

REVOLUTION MOON (groundbreaking musick)

LUCIER ALVIN

I AM SITTING IN A ROOM

Original Issue: 1981 Lovely (VR 1013)

Reissue: 1993 Lovely (LCD 1013) Buy it here!!!

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

1. I Am Sitting In A Room

from Rate Your Music:

Alvin Lucier steps into a room and sits down on a chair. He relaxes himself. And confidently he starts reading the following text. He even stutters a couple of times.

"I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice, and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear then are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity, not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."

On the other side of the room is a tape recorder that records the text that Mr. Lucier has just read. After having recorded it. The tape recorder plays it back. On the other side of the room the process is repeated.

Overall there process is repeated 32 times. Alvin Lucier even leaves the room after some time.

Thus the explanation of the piece is the actual piece. Can’t think of any other work of art where that is the case.

But how does it sound?

Well at first the words are clearly heard. You can even make out every phrase without any difficulty. After a couple of repetitions the words begin to sound muffled. A bit odd because of the several layers. A slight echo is almost heard but not yet. A couple of repetitions later it starts to get hard to understand the actual words. They have become a bit deformed and stretched out. New sounds seem to be emerging out of nowhere. But nothing has been added to the original text.

A repeated hollow ringing drone becomes apparent. As the words become indistinguishable after about 15 minutes. This constant pulsating hollow, ringing drone comes more and more to the foreground. A constant slight gentle drone becomes apparent somewhere in the background. This sounds/drones become more and more distinct as time passes by. Almost a carefully constructed pulsating melody. But we know that there is no such things.

The natural resonating frequencies of the room have become apparent. The drones keep on pulsating. Slowly expanding and ringing in your ears. The words have dissolved long ago. There are only these drones. The sound of the room itself. And then it stops.

Recommended to fans of drone and experimental music.

77 Ships

HALF MOON (medioriental musick)

BENNETT JUSTIN
THE MOSQUES OF TANGER

Original Issue: 1997 Staalplaat (STmCD 009)

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

A CD-Single, released on Staalplaat, it contains a single recording of the mosques of Tanger at sunrise. Recorded high up on a rooftop, the calls from the many different mosques mix and resonate as they cross the city.

BELIEVE ME!
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THIS SHINY JEWEL!

1 The Mosques Of Tanger (20:36)

from The Wire:

Record of the month, no question.

Released on miniature 3" CD - after the 12" single my favourite format - this is 20 minutes of North African muezzins calling the faithful to prayer through their lo-fi mosque-top PA systems.

It begins and ends with Mediterranean dawn ambience, cicadas and cockerels. We hear the first call, maybe a mile away; gradually other calls are layer in, but the best moments are to do with the eerie beauty of sound heard at a great distance.

Presumably the recordist, Justin Bennett, has discreetly stitched the whole thing together from several recordings. The ear can roam freely though the soundscape rather like exploring a city on foot, enjoying aural accidents.

Clive Bell

SACRIFICE MOON (offering musick)

kindly donated by Craig S.

REVOLUTIONARY ARMY OF THE INFANT JESUS
THE GIFT OF TEARS

Original Issue: 1987 Probe Plus (PROBE 12)


Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

1 Come Holy Spirit (9:29)
2 Tales From Europe (4:06)
3 The Miller (4:09)
4 De Profundis (3:37)
5 The Singing Ringing Tree (2:06)
6 Beauty After The Fall (9:16)
7 The Dream (4:47)
8 Lament (Ashes In The Water) (3:11)
9 Transfiguration (5:31)
10 Communion (3:14)

from Opuszine (find more here and here!)

“Mystery”, “whimsy”, “confusion”, and “otherness” are all words that could easily be applied to the strangely-named Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus (indeed, if the name alone made you roll your eyes, you may just want stop here).

The Liverpool-based RAIJ is often lumped in with the rest of the “apocalyptic/experimental folk” genre, alongside groups such as Current 93, Death In June, Sol Invictus, and The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud.

Like those artists, RAIJ’s music is a blend of folksy, acoustic instrumentation, cryptic lyrics full of sacred/apocalyptic imagery, and trance-like vocals that seem more like invocation. However, the band also incorporates ambient and industrial sounds a la Les Joyaux de la Princesse, as well as plenty of samples from European films (Andrei Tarkovsky and Jean Cocteau seem to be as big an influence as anything), old Russian speeches, and tattered radio broadcasts.

from Amazon

This record is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. It's proof of an unjust world that this album has scarcely been available over the past ten years. Except those rare copies offered at prices of an arm and a leg.

Eschewing economics, the beautiful music of RAIJ has bucketloads of passion, mystery, innocence, and is rife with an adventurous spirit of experimentation. You can literally hear the joy in their musical discoveries, from track to track. In it, you'll hear a valid attempt invoking the spirit of Europe: From otherworldly Gregorian-style chants to madrigal acoustic guitars/flutes to echo-chamber percussion and floating electronic soundscapes, even excerpts from Cocteau's movie ORPHEE. That is, a musical journey from medieval times to our electronic era. And it's breathtaking to hear such imaginal leaps through their sound.

It wouldn't be too off the mark to consider their music in the "apocalyptic folk" tradition of, say, Current 93, Death In June, etc. And like this style, it takes acoustic instruments and collides them with electronic manipulations. But this collision is done in a way that is totally singular and without peer.

Only an anarcho-Christian collective like them could have brought all of these elements together: Acoustic-electronic, innocence-wisdom, lucidity-confusion, Christian-pagan.

Michael Thomas Jones

SACRIFICE MOON (offering musick)

ASWYNN FREYA
THE FRUITS OF YGGDRASIL

Original Issue: 1987 Eyas Media ( EYAS 006)

Reissue: 2002 Edition Ananael (Ananael Audio 01) Buy it here!!!


Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

Well, this one was a big big surprise for me and I really have to thank one of this blog readers for "donating" this shamanic jewel; unfortunately I'm not able to remember his/her name.

This is magick musick of the highest degree - a true bridge towards arcane (and mighty) forces!

1 Havamal
2 Voluspa
3 Wotan
4 Invokation Of The Gods
5 Knighting
6 Sigdrifumal
7 Northstar
8 Ragnarok
9 Panzer Rune
10 North
11 Futhark
12 Nietzsche
13 Seeker

from World Music Central

If you find you have an interest in the magical properties of rune songs, Freya Aswynn's Songs of Yggdrasil, released by the metaphysical book publisher, Llewellyn is worth a listen.
This CD delves deeply into the actual chants performed by the Nordic shaman Freya.

According to the CD liner notes, "In Shamanism one of the most valued techniques is the use of sound. There are two main techniques: chanting and drumming, which are combined with breath control and synchronized with a heartbeat. The main reason for employing these techniques is to achieve an altered state of consciousness... There are two different kinds of trance states. One is exhilarating and leads to tremendous amounts of energy; in this state magic acts can be performed usually on the spur of the moment..."

Freya goes on to describe the second kind of trance which is a journey state and the shaman's attentions are turned inward.

The chants that appear on Songs of Yggdrasil recount the shaman's journey and in this case the shaman journeys through nine worlds, where various Nordic gods/goddesses and entities such as Odin and Freya are evoked. In the past, I had read a book that described the journeys of seidr (Nordic seers) in which the seidre would sit on a high chair and drop into a trance where the seidre would journey through the nine worlds bringing back information for those ceremonial attendees seeking answers.

I'm not sure how Freya's recording fits into this practice. However, the chants included on the CD represent particular runes and vibrations associated with those particular runes. Freya cites, "Through chanting the runes, one can express the meaning of that rune." Her recording demonstrates the galdr technique.

Whipping wind and howling wolves accompany Freya's chants. This creates a gothic atmosphere and easily sends its listeners on an inward quest. Freya also explains what and whom she encounters on the journey as well as, performing various invocations and chants. Also note that the chants on this CD are not melodic. While drums appear on at least one of the tracks, this recording represents sound healing through the use of shamanic chants.

However, if you are interested in pursuing the sound healing aspects of rune songs and would like to explore the Northern Mysteries, then picking up Freya Aswynn's Songs of Yggdrasil along with her book, Northern Mysteries and Magick (Llewellyn), will get you off on the right foot. Working with sound and loving intentions could transform the world we live in for the better.

I am certainly not an expert on rune songs and I can find very little in the way of books on the subject, at least ones written in English. I will say that rune songs are worth exploring as both a musical and a magical practice.

EOSTRE (21 March 2008)

The Musick dedicated to this Sabbat is:

GIOVANNI PAUL & MAGNET
THE WICKER MAN SOUNDTRACK

Original Issue: 1998 Trunk (BARKED 4P)

Reissue: 2002 Silva Screen (FILMCD330)



Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

To celebrate the Vernal Equinox I post the two existing versions of one the most controversial cult movies of all times..."The Wicker Man" by Robin Hardy.

Personally I prefer the Trunk version, but the inclusion of "Gently Johnny" in the Silva Screen release is worth the price alone.

from Wicker-Man.com (click here for further details):

Paul Giovanni had intended to release an LP of Magnet songs from The Wicker Man in the 1970s. However, this project was shelved.

The first release of a soundtrack album didn't arrive until the 1990s when Trunk Records issued a CD of music sourced from a music-and-effects reel for the short version of the film. Such reels are created in order that non-English speaking countries can create their own dialog and yet retain the original film's score and sound effects.

Although this album was welcomed by fans, it was far from ideal due to the source from which the music had been lifted. Finally in 2002, Silva Screen Records released the recently located studio versions of the songs that were originally intended for Giovanni's aborted 1970s album. The Silva Screen issue is by far the better of the two releases. Completists are also interested to obtain the earlier Trunk release as it does have some incidental music which is unique to this issue.

CRAZY MOON (incredibly strange musick)

CROWLEY ALEISTER
THE GREAT BEAST SPEAKS

Original Issue: 1999 M.O.D. (Disgust 1)


Margot-meter: ??? moons / 5

1: Intro
2: The Call Of The First Aethyr (Enochian)
3: The Call Of The First Aethyr (English)
4: The Call Of The Second Aethyr (Enochian)
5: The Call Of The Second Aethyr (English)
6: La Gitana
7: The Pentagram
8: One Sovergin For Woman
9: The Poet
10: Three Hymns for Man
11: Fingernails
12: The Titanic
13: Hymn To The American People On The Anniversary Of Their Independence
14: Collects From The Gnostic Mass
15: Viva La France

I think that audio documents of such historical importance are impossible to rate, especially if they're centered around one of the most controversial human being of all times...
"the Wickedest Man in the World"!

Click here for track-by-track details & transcriptions.

from Wikipedia:

Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, (12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947, pronounced /ˈkroʊli/) was a British occultist, writer, mountaineer, philosopher, and mystic.
He was an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A∴A∴, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), and is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. He gained much notoriety during his lifetime, and was infamously dubbed "The Wickedest Man In the World."

Crowley's other interests and accomplishments were wide-ranging—he was a chess player, mountain climber, poet, painter, astrologer, hedonist, bisexual, drug experimenter, and social critic. Crowley had claimed to be a Freemason, but the regularity of his initiations with the United Grand Lodge of England has been disputed.

from Ambience for the Masses:

20 minutes' worth of devious recitations, transferred off the original wax cylinders.

Wonderful piece of spoken wordedness, with the only drawback being that it's a horribly crackly lo-fi recording (though faithfully bootlegged into the digital medium). It sounds spooky, and it's definitely the Man, though it's really hard to hear what he's saying. Then what do am I supposed to expect, right; it was made in 1920.

More poetry than ritual, I'm afraid, but you do get to hear Uncle Crowley sing in the last track.