SOUNDTRACK: HISS TRACKS-Shortwave Nights [CST104] (2014).
The Hiss Tracks album begins with a rumbling roiling and yes a kind of hissing sound. There was a moment of concern that this would be literally 40 minutes of static . But no, there are some interesting electronic blips and phrases amidst he roiling rumble.
Some context about this band from the Constellation site:
Hiss Tracts is an ongoing collaboration between “sound sculptors” David Bryant and Kevin Doria. Both players are known for their work within various strains of drone-inflected and experimental music: Bryant as a member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Set Fire To Flames, Doria as a member of Growing and for his solo work as Total Life.
Hiss Tracts opens new collaborative, procedural and narrative pathways for these fine musicians to continue exploring soundscape-based composition and production. Both are guitar players, and the electric guitar figures as both recognizable and unrecognizable source instrument on Shortwave Nights, but the deployment of a wide range of additional analog sources and signals ensures that there is no confusing this for a guitar-based drone, noise or post-rock record.
So there you have it. Once the rumble of that first song, ‘…shortwave nights,” dissipates there are some ringing guitar sounds quietly repeating amid a low static and other sounds. The song ends with some dissonant guitar notes. It’s eight minutes in total and has the feeling of an ambient soundtrack, but not a relaxing one or of background music.
“half-speed addict starts with broken wollensak” does indeed begin slowly, at about half-speed, with more rumbling sounds. The song speeds up at the end, with muffled sounds keeping a very fast pace and a keyboard note rings out as the song finishes. “slowed rugs” has a kind of one note drone while some vibrating drones continue over it—it’s a gentle electronic sound manipulation. The oscillating notes fold in on themselves and mutate into some thing else. As the song nears its end, a repeated series of unusual notes seems to rise from the din.
“drake motel / “9 gold cadillacs”” is a one minute interstitial that opens and closes with someone playing a harmonica. The player offers it to someone else and then the rest is a series of statements from an unnamed person:
I would never put my mouth on something that you had put your mouth on.
The more you love people the worse they treat you I am so tired of it.
My daddy spent million of dollars trying to by a friend and he died without one.
You can give a sumbitch a million dollars cash tax-free and tomorrow they wouldn’t give you a cracker if you were starving to death. That is a bible prophecy.
“windpipe gtrs.” sounds like a bunch of didgeridoos trying to overtake each other. “halo getters” is an ominous piece, with more of that rumbling static and some portentous chords over the top. The five-minute song doesn’t change much although about a minute in some guitars ring out sounding very outer spacey. The song repeats and eventually warbles to and end which somehow feels warmer than the rest, like little explosions of quiet sound which almost sound like car horns.
“for the transient projectionist” opens with ringing bells/gongs. After a few minutes of this peaceful sound, some music bubbles up—waves of warm keyboards and washes of mild static. It seems to have a natural progression before ending.
“ahhh-weee dictaphone” is a 41 second interstitial of what sounds like vocal goofing around. “test recording at trembling city” has mechanical ringing tones coming on in waves. The song builds in intensity as it sounds almost like a high-speed-something about to crash, or a siren going off. It is rather unsettling. “beijing bullhorn / dopplered light” is mostly staticy radio and voices muttering under some gentle washes of chords. It is a relatively pretty ending to a somewhat unsettling disc.
The instruments included on the disc include: guitar, tape machine, piano, mellotron, portasound, bowls, field recordings, oscillators, sampler, synthesizer
This is a pretty esoteric disc that many people won’t enjoy, but if you like experimental ambient textures, it’s worth a listen.
[READ: March 10, 2016] “Undecided”
After last night’s debate, in which evidently there are some 36% of the population undecided about whom to vote for, here’s a political piece from the 2008 election. What I especially loved about this one was just how relevant it all seemed 8 years later. The “undecided” voters aren’t getting as much airtime yet, but one wonders how poll numbers can shift when the candidates are so radially different. I recall in the 2008 election how people seemed genuinely undecided about the two candidates and Sedaris (and myself and many others) just ask: HUH?.
Sedaris notes how the undecideds get interviewed about being undecided and they all look “very happy to be on TV.” And oh dear, they just can’t make up their minds.
“I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?”
And then he says to imagine their perspective as if you were on an airplane. The attendant brings the food cart over and in what may have been the most apt analogy:
Can I interest you in the chicken? she asks. Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?
To follow through he says that being undecided is to “pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.” Continue Reading »
