Arthur Radio Transmission #38 w/ LAUREL HALO + BRYCE HACKFORD DJs

Staring into the open end of a computer circuit, we suddenly find ourselves evaporating into a sparkling stream of 0’s and 1’s. In a swirl of stars and blue lights, we feel ourselves becoming weightless; like a magnetic force, the circuit sucks us into it with a single breath and we enter a mirror world where technology reigns, and to our delight we realize that we have once again left our physical bodies behind us. There we meet our very special guests, who one by one guide us through what we can only hope is life after the singularity.

Our first host Bryce Hackford (of Behavior) begins our journey by leading us into a shiny field of electrified plasma, where the local time is set to no higher than 33rpm. We dance in slow-motion leaps and bounds, taking our time to spin and roll in the air, spreading and condensing as the music changes.

After around 45 minutes, we encounter our second host, known on Earth as electronic solo songstress LAUREL HALO, who appears in a flash as a flickering face above a bank of silver clouds. The image mouths to us to follow her into a stream of white lasers, which is pointed directly upwards, disappearing into the unknown. All sense of memory–past, present, and future–is wiped.


STREAM: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Arthur-Radio-w_-LAUREL-HALO-BRYCE-HACKFORD-DJs.mp3%5D

DOWNLOAD: Arthur Radio #38 w/ Laurel Halo + Bryce Hackford DJ sets 1-09-2011

Back in the human realm, you can catch Bryce’s transcendence-inducing DJ night STEPS with Kyle Garner on the last Monday of every month at Home Sweet Home in NYC.

You can follow Laurel’s tour schedule and happenings here, and if you are in New York in April you can see her perform alongside Harald Grosskopf, as well as past Arthur Radio guests Arp and Blondes, at the monumental debut of Grosskopf’s 1979 Synthesist reissue on RVNG Intl (more info here). Look out for her upcoming 12″ Hour Logic, to be released in May of 2011.

Timeline + Bonus Laurel Halo DJ set below…

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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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Saturday, June 6th at WEST NILE in Brooklyn, NY

Come to Paris London West Nile on Saturday to be enveloped in a curious medley of pulsating waves and beats, courtesy of experimental guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Mario Diaz de Leon, ethereal Berlin-style electronic duo Blondes, Porkchop (Jon Nicholson of Excepter) and Freddy Niteliker.

Saturday, June 6th, 9:30PM
West Nile
285 Kent Ave b’tween South 1st and 2nd / Brooklyn, NY 11211
Free (By donation)