Category Archives for MP3

Music for the worm moon: "Raagini Robot" by Ken Camden

kencamden

Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/02-Raagini-Robot.mp3%5D

Download: “Raagini Robot” — Ken Camden (mp3)

Slow circuit burnage from guitarist Ken Camden’s rather excellent debut Lethargy and Repercussion, out now on LP and digital via Kranky of Chicago. More info and ordering here.

Re “Worm Moon”: According to folklore, tonight’s full Moon has a special name—the Worm Moon. It signals the coming of northern spring, a thawing of the soil, and the first stirrings of earthworms in long-dormant gardens. Step outside tonight and behold the wakening landscape. “Worm moonlight” is prettier than it sounds. (spaceweather.com)

Arthur Radio Transmission #10 with live jam by Blondes

(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…
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Arthur Radio Voyage #9: Forest Dwelling with Overture

Above (left): Collage by Aya & Jason (Overture), created live in the radio station during the broadcast of Arthur Radio Voyage #9. Double-click to view fullscreen.


Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Arthur-Radio-Voyage-9-Forest-Dwelling-with-Jason-Aya-3-14-2010.mp3%5D

Download: Arthur Radio Voyage #9: Forest Dwelling with Overture

This week we arrived at the Newtown Radio studio to find it transformed beyond recognition… emerald green vines blanketed the walls, and a lush carpet of multi-colored mosses and swamp grass covered the floor. We pushed our way through a thicket of elephant ears into a sun-dappled glade, where our guests Jason & Aya (otherwise known as Overture, the minds behind the cover of the recent Six Organs of Admittance/Azul split LP), were seated on bed of soft purple and magenta leaves. We listened under the shade of a poplar tree as they read tales of fantastical landscapes where landslides, floods and rainfall had created a boggy wonderland full of dancing musical animals, rhubarb babies, and a wise old vegetable lady…

After the storytelling, we ventured into the glade to ask our enchanting guests more about these worlds they had woven before our eyes. The first reading, it turns out, was inspired by a spine-tinglingly beautiful animation that the the super-artist duo made for Múm‘s song “Rhubarbidoo” from their 2007 album Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy.

The second reading was inspired by the following three animations, which the artists made for experimental piano maestro Hauschka‘s 2008 album Ferndorf:

The third reading, a story in which “An old man confronts his fears, traveling across a personal landscape to realize and accept his path,” was based on an animation Overture made for the song “Bless” by Icelandic musician Kira Kira, which is featured on her 2008 album Our Map to the Monster Olympics. This video was just released to the world officially yesterday — Enjoy!!!

Learn more about Jason & Aya’s work and future escapades at http://www.opertura.org and on their blog.

This week’s playlist…
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Arthur Radio Voyage #8 with Bobby Bouzouki

Last Sunday Arthur Radio embarked on its eighth voyage, this time to the wind-swept deserts of Greece, Morocco, Arizona and beyond… Special guest Robert Damore (aka Bobby Bouzouki) graced the Newtown Radio studio with the warm, nostalgia-inducing sounds of his bouzouki, and even took the time to tell us some of the narratives behind the rebetika (Greek folk songs) that he played during his set.

Before your journey begins, dear listeners, we have the following message to deliver from ye olde writing desk of DJ Hairy Painter…

The sun is here and opens the curtains slowly! It brings the slow glowing dust! It springs the earth out of polar jail, the winds blow the desert sand to make for better traction. If you sit, it will make your hair look sexier! The tectonic plates are shifting all around us, their quakes make the planet spin faster, and change the pitch! If you jump, you can land in buttes, the plateaus, or the Isle of Cyros! Through our earth’s muzak, the winds blow Bobby Bouzouki up to the Arthur radio treehouse for a jaunt upon rebetika mountain. Happy trials!


Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Arthur-Radio-Voyage-8-with-Bobby-Bouzouki-03-07-2010.mp3%5D

Download: Arthur Radio Voyage #8 with Bobby Bouzouki

This week’s playlist…
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ARTHUR RADIO VOYAGE #7: Alien Receptor

Another freeform blast set off from a location hidden deep inside the Newtown Radio labyrinth…sit back and allow the soundwaves to reverberate over you as the Arthur Radio team busies itself with scooping musical gems out of the debris.


Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Arthur-Radio-2-28-2010.mp3%5D

Download: Arthur Radio 2-28-2010

This week’s playlist…
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Excepter on Arthur Radio, Transmission #6

Sunday was a very special day for Arthur Radio. We never thought that co-host Hairy Painter would return to Brooklyn after spending a month building Mardi Gras floats and dancing to “sissy bounce” music in Nola, but he surprised us at the station door — out of breath, suitcase in hand — right when we were about to go on. And we never thought we would be able to cram one sound engineer, one baby, five DJs, half a dozen synthesizers, and all six members of Excepter inside the Newtown Radio studio, but somehow we pulled the whole production off without a hitch. Following the release of their new double album Presidence on Paw Tracks last Tuesday, (“Presidence Day observed”), Excepter graced the Arthur airwaves with a set so on point it caused unnoticed seismic shifts beneath a 24-hour techno-rave in Istanbul. Emilie Friedlander (Visitation Rites) engaged Jon Fell Ryan in a wobbly Q&A, and Ivy Meadows and Hairy Painter piled on layer upon layer of elliptical wax to set the scene…


Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/EXCEPTER-on-Arthur-Radio-2-21-2010.mp3%5D

Download: Excepter on Arthur Radio 2-21-2010

This week’s playlist…
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