We get the ball rolling with a cut from Boards of Canada. The sound of "Pete Standing Alone", from Music has the Right to Children. I got a suggestion a few weeks back from listener deGen that Boards of Canada would fit nicely into the Strange Music format and I do agree.

Our next selection is from the ever popular host of these musical forays. This week I diced up a pseudo documentary on how the Zulu warriors destroyed a better equipped British Army (only to be later destroyed by more of this same British army). Though when you hear this mix none of that stuff really comes through. The only interesting voice in the show was an African guy talking about ritual and fusing together as one. Let me know what you think. Oh yeah and thanks to Calexico for adding twangy guitar sounds in the middle of the mix!

Our third selection comes courtesy of Thighpaulsandra. The piece is titled "Heaven lies about us in our infancy" and its from the Brain in the Wire compilation CD that came with one of my issues of The Wire. As you might have guessed I find alot of my music through this wonderful magazine and also from their "free" "Wire Tapper" compilation Cds that showcase new sounds. A mag worth every cent you pay for it.

Tonites triad begins with the sounds of Tortoise off of the 2001 album Standards and the cut "Seneca." The members of Tortoise have roots in Chicago's fertile music scene, playing in various indie rock and punk rock groups. Their music blends many styles and influences into a very unique sound.

The Inkxpotter mix gets it going with an interview featuring Les Paul telling the story of how he unlocked the riddle of the delay. Along with pioneering multi-track recording and inventing the solid body electric guitar he also found time to be one of the most popular guitar players in the world.. Inkkxpotters pays homage to the master by chopping up the interview on the delay invention (with delay, of course), layering some acoustic and electric guitar noises using the multitrack technology and leaving it up to you to interpret as you wish.  All hail to the master.

The final piece comes from San Francisco based group Deerhoof with the title cut off of their latest CD Milk Man. Last week I was fortunate enough to see them play live and they were great. They opened a show for Electrelane and in my humble opinion 'blew them off the stage." Their unique blend of nelody and noise and superb musicianship really came through in the live xhow. Don't miss them if they find their way to your neck of the woods.

Forgetting the obvious we enter the world of Prefuse 73 and his battle with Pedro. This cut, "Gratis", is off of a Cd that gave an overview of the ten day Domino Music Festival in Europe. Prefuse 73's latest album is "Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives" and is out on Warp records. He has his hand in many projects but he claims that the Prefuse 73 work is more a "kick in the head" than the others. I agree.

Bridging the gap between these two cuts is a brief detour into the world of baseball. Taking a few choice sounds from a game Inkxpotter layers and collages these into the excitement of almost being there. The sound of the ball hitting the bat. The crowd cheering. The announcers showing extreme amounts of excitement for small things. Priceless.

Mouse on Mars rounds out the trio with the piece Distroia from Niun Ninggung. Their fourth album shows off their evolution toward Mars and beyond. Percolating beats ascend to the surface only to pop like soap bubbles, while tacked-together melodies are as likely to disintegrate midsong as they are to wobble to the conclusion

Tonights three act episode begins with a cut from Four Tet off of the Pause CD, "No More Mosquitoes". A sentiment I am sure we all can agree on. "Four Tet's combination of acoustic and electronic elements sounds fresh and unique, particularly at a time when so much electronic music is conceived and produced without ever leaving the digital realm. With its extensive use of field recordings and acoustic samples, Four Tet's music sounds truly organic and alive. " (Epitonic)

Act two was cultivated from the seeds of this years national spelling bee (cutting up the voices of the young spellers was more tedious than I had imagined), a cool docu on Patty Hearst (those audio messages sent to her parents and broadcast to the world when she was kidnapped are sure to reappear in future pieces), and a card drawn from the Oblique Strategies deck that read - "Children - speaking - singing". Take a listen and see what Inkxpotter has come up with in the new mix titled "Fustian."

For the final act we meet up with Max Nagl. An Austrian saxophonist whose inspiration for his 2001 cd The Evil Garden was cult American writer and illustrator Edward Gorey who in 2000.  Gorey's delicate and detailed black ink drawings inhabit a sinister world of amoebic monsters, elderly Victorians and deformed babies depicted with razor sharp wit and delicious dark humour. We listened to the piece "The Disrespectful Summons."

 

UBUWEB The extensive Mp3 archive is a mixers paradise. Imagine cutting up the words, phrases and thoughts of former heroes of avant thought! Claiming over a terabyte of Film, sound, and image. You know who will be splicing and dicing away. Trolling through the site I wasn't able to clarify the what of the project but it went on for ten years and created an amazing catalog of clickable gems. Alas a recent check of UBU reveals that they are off the web until fall. But soon will have a permanent home where I can cut up whenever I want to!