(Above: This episode’s collage — double-click to view fullscreen + scroll)

For Transmission #10 of Arthur Radio, we started by visualizing ourselves in a black void, lost in time somewhere between the 1970s and today. Using LED-powered building blocks, we constructed a musical pathway in order to make sense of our surroundings. Brick by colorful brick, we bridged the gap between the oily rainbow pools of German psychedelic krautrock jazziness all the way to the shimmering mists of other-worldly electronic noise being produced by the likes of contemporaries Jonas Reinhardt, Arp, Stellar Om Source, and our very special time-traveling guests, Blondes.

Standing on the other side of the bridge in the murky “now,” we found that transversing between the two realms was easier than we thought. In fact, it seemed that they were always connected by an invisible passage, for the electronic explorers of today were born of very same primordial space sludge that spawned krautrock pioneers Dorothea Raukes, Jean Michel Jarre, Manuel Göttsching and friends, some 40 years ago.

The following description was taken from the back of “The LYTE,” one of the very first audiovisualizers of its kind made in the 1980s. Its sentiment echoes how listening to Transmission #10 makes us feel, and we recommend that you meditate on it for a second before you take that irrevocable plunge, hit “play,” and start time-traveling on your own:

The written word cannot fully describe what the eye and ear can perceive. Tone by tone you see an exact, shimmering definition in light of what you hear. Exotic patterns are born, grow, contract and change shape through an infinity of dazzling complexity; each momentary image a precise electronic expression of the sound you hear…

Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Arthur-Radio-Transmission-10-with-live-jam-by-Blondes-3-21-2010.mp3%5D

Download: Arthur Radio #10 with live jam by Blondes 3-21-2010

Songs played this week…

[Ivy Meadows DJ set]
Interkosmos – “Übertragung” / Sensations’ Fix – “Metafel + Mafalac”
Popol Vuh – “Der Grosse Krieger” / Carl Craig & Moritz Von Oswald – “Movement 5” (Music by Maurice Ravel & Modest Mussorgsky)
Margaret Dygas – “Invisible Circles” (played @ 33 rpm) / White Rainbow – “BUMPER UP RAW” / Ursula Bogner – songs from Recordings 1969-1988
Vidna Obmana – “psb constructions”
Zomes – “Zomes”
Forest Swords – “Miarches”
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom – “Live November 18th 2005” / Desmond Leslie – songs from “Music Of The Future” / Stellar Om Source – “Team X”
Tangerine Dream – “Journey through a burning brain” / Karlheinz Stockhausen – Opus 1970 / Jean Michel Jarre – Oxygene (side b)
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom – “Live November 18th 2005” (continued)
Brian Eno – “Ba-Benzélé” (played @ 33 rpm)
Cluster & Eno – “Schöne Hände”
Arp – “Potentialities”
CFCF – “half dreaming reprise” / Bienvenue Au Conseil D’Administration – “Epreuve No 2” / Harold Budd – “Bismillahi ‘Rrahman ‘Rrahim”
Jonas Reinhardt – “How To Adjust People”
Harmonia – “sehr kosmisch” / Jean Michel Jarre – Oxygene (side a)
Terry Riley – “A Rainbow in Curved Air”

[live jam by BLONDES @ 1:01]

Manuel Göttsching – Die Mulde (live at Mt. Fuji)
Cloud One – Spaced Out