We are all friends here. We share how we feel and talk about how we can help each other. But you and I…this is different. You are the wind and I am the trees. I love to pass the days with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. This is something you must always remember: you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. When all is said and done, you are a part of me. Help me put an end to what is killing you. You dream while wide awake. Your actions are disconnected from your emotions and conscience. What then must be done?

When a man has purposed to make a given thing, and has brought it to perfection, his work will be pronounced perfect, not only by himself, but by everyone who rightly knows. Our experience is not unique. As the fates unfolded, your vision became clear. This is not your great jubilee. Nowhere may you find the silver or the gold once promised. Every word that is spoken here points to this one thing: that this humiliating age has not succeeded in winning our respect. We are lost in a city of poets where the rain is milk and the sunshine is wet paint upon the soul.

Your sin is hardly original, your every move calculated for the weight of its trangression. But what is it that is inherently wrong? You long for your days in Europe when you walked with your hands in the air as if to hold the hands of God. A world away, a lost reality. You make it up as you go along. But your history is too contrived to recall. Like repeated genetic mutations, its very core changes with every revision. The so-called facts are too erratic to even repeat.

Yours is a random sorcery, beautiful lies fabricated from the brutal truths of a former life. Fling open the windows and let the birds fly away. You have no way of knowing where they are going or if any of them will ever return. The salty air blankets you and eases the torture you feel as you watch them depart. You run and hide as the soldiers approach, but the field is thick with roots and weeds too dense to cross.

We are all friends here. Nothing is sacred. You are under constant surveillance. The right words will save your life.

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[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/fmbroadcasts/20110302/wzbc_20110302.mp3]
Originally aired on March 2, 2011 on 90.3 FM WZBC Newton
This is Jukebox Heart Podcast #23
2:51:24 | 160.69 MB

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This week’s Jukebox Heart concentrated on the art of the compilation. Each track presented was culled from a compilation or anthology. Compilations are often maligned in the music press for reasons that have always confounded me, that being a lack of cohesiveness. By nature, compilations often feature a widely varying offering of sounds, often combining more than a dozen artists and styles. The real art of the compilation is making these styles come together in a way that has some kind of purpose that is not so arcane as to be completely missed. We featured classic compilations such as The Elephant Table Album and Fruit of the Original Sin, all the way through to current compilations on the WZBC playlist.

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Playlist

Z’ev “Untitled Excerpt” from QED LP (NL Centrum)
Andrew Lewis “Project One” LP ALBUM (Produkt Korps)
Nam Jun Paik “My Jubilee ist Unverhemmet” from Fluxus Anthology CD (Anthology 1995)
Richard Huelsenbeck “Inventing Dada” from Futurism & Dada Reviewed CD (Sub Rosa 1990)
Marcel Fengler “Shiraz” from FUNF CD (Ostgutton 2010) –
Swamp Children “Flesh” from Fruit of the Original Sin CD (Interphon 1981)
DokUMent “Hand In Hand” from The Oblique Collection LP (xxx 1983)
Frohliche Eiszeit “Realitat!/Die welt ist Die Mehreit/Machden in der Eisbar” from Main Herz Ist Rhein LP (WNP1980)
Konstruktivits “Andropov 84” from The Elephant Table Album CD (Xtract)
Spartan Lover “Sex With A Woman” from Skweee Tooth CD (Ramp)
Goodiepal “Mutate” from Cashier Escape Route CD (City Center Offices)
Wicked Witch “Erratic Behavior” from Chaos 1977-86 CD Anthology
Dark Arts “Egeria” from The October Country LP (Nate Starkman & Son)
Orphx “RND” from Teknoir CD (Hymen 1999)
De Fabriek “Chase 2000” from Strength LP (Azteco 1986)
Bernard Hermann “Prelude/outer space/radar” from Forbidden Planets CD (Chrome Dreams)
Vivenza “Bruitiste” LP (RRRecords)
DDAA “The Big Apes” from Let the Pigeons in LP
A Tent “No Way of Knowing” from Perspectves & Distorition LP (Cherry Red)
Ultra Banda “Salinity & Brine” from Twenty Centuries of Stoney Sleep CD (Rune Grammofon)
The Hafler trio “Blanket Level Approach” from The Fight Is On LP (L. A. Y. L. A. H.)
Nocturnal Emissions “Ancora Icone” from TRAX XTRA LP (Trax)
Death in June “The Torture Garden” from From Torture to Conscience LP (New European Recordings)
The Duruttii Column “Hare Hunter Field” CD (Johnny Blue)
Can “Sunday Jam” from The Grandfather Paradox CD (BBE 2009)

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It was something I did not say. Here is what I mean. What I meant to say. I watch the clock. I wait for words that never come. He was so busy trying to figure everything out, he hadn’t noticed that time was running out. She scratched his face during the confrontation. He fell to the floor. His high endeavors are an inward light. He fell to the earth. Still I say nothing.

Do not be anxious. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow is a drag, man. Tomorrow is a king-size bust. Stay up all night and watch one infomercial after another, with lonely-hearts ads for beautiful-people wishes. More beautiful than you will ever know. It’s free to try. It costs nothing to play. Low risk, high consequence. Send random texts to people on your friends list to see who else is up. You’re under the delusion that you are safer staying awake and you’ll do anything to avoid the silence.

It was something I did not say. This time the words well up inside. Stand your ground and keep your distance. Empty anthems and silent cries. My dreams are tortured silhouetes. More beautiful than you will ever know. The bed feels as cold as ice. And as I rise, I step on landmines. Here is what I meant to say. Some days the faith eludes you. Do not close your eyes.

[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/fmbroadcasts/20110223/wzbc_20110223.mp3]
Originally aired on February 23, 2011 on 90.3 FM WZBC Newton
This is Jukebox Heart Podcast #22
2:57:44 | 162.31 MB

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Featured Release:

K. C. Accidental – Captured Anthems For An Empty Bathtub + Anthems For The Could’ve Bin Pills

An exciting new reissue from Arts & Crafts records in late 2010, the double CD package we featured tonight compiles the two long out of print releases from K.C. Accidental. K.C. Accidental was the original basis for the better known post rock ensemble Broken Social Scene. Formed in 1998 from Toronto, the core of the band consisted of Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin, and Began as just the two of them; The “K. C.” in the band’s name was taken from the initials of their first names. They released only two albums of mostly instrumental music. The duo’s debut album Captured Anthems for an Empty Bathtub was sold by Drew and Spearin exclusively through one shop in 1998 and quickly sold out.

KCA released a second album in 2000 entitled Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills on Noise Factory Records, with the track listing featuring six blank tracks of 4 seconds each before the six music tracks, the blank tracks representing the six tracks on Captured Anthems. When Captured Anthems was reissued by Noise Factory in 2003, the opposite was done (i.e. six music tracks followed by six blank tracks).

Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills also included contributions from Jason Collett, Evan Cranley, Emily Haines, Jason McKenzie, Jessica Moss, James Payment, Bill Priddle, James Shaw and Justin Small. Many of these musicians went on to work with Broken Social Scene, who released their debut album, Feel Good Lost on Noise Factory in 2001. Broken Social Scene also added a song with the title “KC Accidental” on their album You Forgot It in People.

The image above is of the original cover for Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills. The same image was used on the reissue, but additional text was added for the new cover.

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Featured Artist:

Piano Magic

Piano Magic is a loose collective of sorts, with an ever-changing lineup originally inspired by bands like This Mortal Coil. Core member Glen Johnson formed the band in 1996 with Dick Rance with Dominic Chennel. Over the years the quiet bedroom project has expanded and changed as Johnson enlisted the help of friends, acquaintances, and moonlighters from other bands. The evolution of the band is quite complex due to its affiliation with so many artists, and a full bio for the band and and intricately detailed timeline of their activity and releases may be found on the band’s website. Their most recent recording as the entity Paino Magic, “Ovations”, features contributions from Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry and Peter Ulrich, and in he past have featured collaborations with Low’s Alan Sparhawk, among others.

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Featured Label:

Toytronic

One of the best IDM labels to emerge at the end of the twentieth century, London’s Toytronic was founded in 1997 by Martin Haidinger and Tony Douglas. Martin Haidinger is a key figure in IDM and is also a member of Basic End, Das M, Das Programm, Der Raum, Die Kleinen Gärtner, Die Monotonen, Gimmik, Low Profile Society, M, Marvin Kirk, Num Num, Tape, TV-Vision, Wundertüte, and in a former incarnation also operated Tonträger Tapes while still living in Linz. Chris Cunningham, of Abfahrt Hinwil, also joined the operating staff of Toytronic at about the time the Neurokinetic compilation was released. He has recently released material on Toytronic as Point 7. One of the most important IDM imprints, Toytronic was known for Martin’s graphic designs as well as their habit of releasing a multitude of extremely limited edition hand-rendered versions fo each of its releases, as well as for their inclusion o limited edition comics and candy, included in a small portion of their general releases.

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Other Notes:

Of particular interest to long time NCP listeners is the Narki Brillans record we played tonight. It is a recording from one of the original members of The Homosexuals, originally released in 1981 on cassette on the now legendary It’s War Boys imprint (Sarah Goes Pop, Milk From Cheltenham, etc). Remastered by Narki Brillans and reissued onto this lovely red vinyl LP, this recording has been shuttered away for 30 years. At a limited run of 265 copies, this LP will be harder to obtain than the original cassette. Go shopping!

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Playlist
Locust “Jukebox Heart” from Morning Light CD (Apollo 1997)
Gol & Charles Hayward “Dust” from Gol & Charles Hayward LP (Planam 2010)
Narki Brillans “I’ve Got U.S. Dollars” from Narki Goes into Orbo LP (War Extension 2010 (1981 Reissue))
Joachim Nordwall “I Am The Beginning Of Every End” from Ignition CASSETTE (Ash International 2010)
Pauline Oliveros “Performance 1970” from To Valerie Solanas And Marilyn Monroe In Recognition Of Their Desperation LP (Roaratorio 2010)
Piano Magic “Untitled – I” from Son de Mar CD (4AD 2001)
K. C. Accidental “Save The Last Breath For Me” from Captured Anthems For An Empty Bathtub + Anthems For The Could’ve Bin Pills CD (Arts and Crafts 2010 (2000 Reissue))
Barbez “West Rogers Park” from Barbez CD (Important 2004)
Rothko and Caroline Ross “Traces of Elements” from A Place Between CD (Lo Recordings 2005)
Piano Magic “You and John Are Birds” from artists’ rifles CD (Rocket Girl 2000)
Miles Tilmann “Mid Point” from 3D Concepts, Pt. 1 – CD (Toytronic 2004)
Low Profile Society “B2 – Example 6” from 3D Concepts Part 3 CD (Toytronic 2004)
Abfahrt Hinwill “Triology” from Programm 2 7-INCH SINGLE (Toytronic 2001)
Piano Magic “Bad Patient” from Low Birth Weight CD (Rocket Girl 1999)
K. C. Accidental “Tired Hands” from Captured Anthems For An Empty Bathtub + Anthems For The Could’ve Bin Pills CD (Arts and Crafts 2010 (2000 Reissue))
Piano Magic “The Canadian Brought Us Snow (Isan remix)” from Panic Amigo 12-INCH (Morr Music 2002)
OCHRE “Sticklebrick Symphony” from Everything Is Green CD (Toytronic 2004)
Gimmick “Waveflies” from Neurokinetic CD COMP (Toytronic 2000)
Accelera Deck “U Can’t Skam the Twin” from Signal Flow LP (Toytronic 1999)
Piano Magic “Non-Fiction” from Wrong French 12-INCH (I 1996)
Piano Magic “A Trick of the Sea” from A Trick of the Sea: Bliss Out, Vol. 13 CD (Darla 1998)
K. C. Accidental “Silverfish Eyelashes” from Captured Anthems For An Empty Bathtub + Anthems For The Could’ve Bin Pills CD (Arts and Crafts 2010 (2000 Reissue))

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[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/fmbroadcasts/20110216/wzbc_20110216.mp3]
Originally aired on 90.3 FM WZBC Newton, February 16, 2011
This is podcast #21.
2:58:33 | 164.57 MB

Free from static and jammed signals, his spirit error is fixed. Fixed in air with resolute intellect, he joins the community of the healed. He communicates the Love of God in the language of healing. He shall not be afraid. He shall not be moved. He is certain in his purpose. He has searched his soul for the new eternal answers. Soul-searching is actually personal goal setting in its infancy. The problem at hand is that for many people that infant never grows to maturity. Yet, he is a righteous man; he shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed. His spirit is fixed. iFixer v1.0. His soul is no longer broken.

Your faith may not fail. Situation ethics always supposes some kind of hypothetical circumstance in which there is no solution that is morally right. No temptation has overtaken you that hasn’t confronted anyone else in the past. The only way out is through. And I would walk through fire for you. Can I not, at least, expect the same in return? Herein lies the dilemma: what is not true?

Once you have experienced a failure of faith, nothing is ever certain again. Even the smallest incongruity is a suggestion of deception perpetrated by a figure of relative importance. You have been lied to, that is certain, but by whom? You exist in that realm of self-doubt where action is not necessarily governed by reason, where myth is often mistaken for knowledge and where truth has many interpretations. This is at once a place where one bridges gaps and assigns meaning according to one’s own personal science.

We understand exactly what it is we’re doing and what effect we’re having. We tend to accept the blame for problems that are not of our own making. We reconsider those assumptions which meaning and purpose to who we are and what we do. Prescriptive. Causal. Paradigmatic. In many ways we are our assumptions. We take actions on the basis of assumptions that are unexamined and we believe that others are reading into our actions the meanings that we intend. We justify what we do by thinking that the unconfirmed evidence of our own eyes is always accurate and valid. We build bridges and we wait for them to twist and collapse in the wind, like so many other shoes that drop at exactly the wrong time. We sit and quietly listen to an isolated moment. And we hope for the best.

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We are almost finished catching up to the current FM broadcast. Meanwhile, we’ll post each past broadcast until we are up to the minute…

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Featured Releases:

Brume – End of Symptom Dump

While Christian Renou, aka Brume, had a multitude of cassette releases predating this LP, this single side of an LP shared with La Nomenklatur was his first outing onto vinyl. It remains one of my favorites, and we chose to play this early piece as a Happy Birthday wish to him.

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Sonic Youth – Simon Werner A Disparu

Just how a band can remain intact for thirty years and develop a signature sound which is continually updated to remain fresh is a one of life’s glorious mysteries. Receiving lots of mixed reviews, I’m personally grooving on a lot of the old school style material to be found here on which I cut my sonic teeth. This expands and augments a lot of the music made for the movie of the same title. It’s admittedly rough edged and demo-sounding, like most of the output on the band’s SYR imprint, but as such, ultimately, that is one of the more endearing qualities of this thing. We are loving it…

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Last Trax:

Data Bank A: “Spiritus Sanctus”

Local (well, Lowell, anyway) artists loosely associated with Boston’s early 80’s post-industrial scene (see: The Oblique Collection and Drastic Perversions compilations.) Andy Szava-Kovats’ Data Bank A project began in 1983, releasing several cassettes and LPs before escalating to international attention. The track played tonight is culled from their recently released Greateas Hits collection but is also the title track to their debut cassette album. The image shown above is from the original cassette.

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Playlist

Robert Hampson “Umbra” from Vectors CD (Touch 2009)
Mountains “Map Table” from Choral CD (Thrill Jockey 2009)
Mountains “Telescope” from Choral CD (Thrill Jockey 2009)
Nurse With Wound “A New Dress” from A Bead to A Small Mouth LP (Barooni 1990)
Brume “End of Symptom Dump” from Split LP w/ La Nomenklatur LP (La Legende Des Voix 1989)
Sonic Youth “Simon Werner A Disparu – I” from the self-titled LP (SYR 2011)
Geist Erfahrer “Watery Return to the Children’s Land” from The Quiet Failings of Geist Ehrfarer CD (Backpack Evolution)
Merzbow “Kimigayo” from Anthems LP (Trax 1983)
Helios “Come With Nothings” from Caesura CD (Type 2006)
Cindytalk “Debris of A Smile” from The Crackle Of My Soul CD (Editions Mego 2009)
Near the Parenthesis “Good Night” from Music For The Forest Concourse CD (n5MD 2010)
Haammock “The Backward Step” from Chasing After Shadows, Living With the Ghosts CD ALBUM (Red Eye)
Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words “Himmelscheibenden Herzen” from Lost In Reflections CD (Killer Pimp)
Sonic Youth “Simon Werner A Disparu – II” LP (SYR 2011)
The Caretaker “Petsistent Repetition of Phrases” CD (Install 2010)
Data Bank A: “Spiritus Sanctus” from The Best of Data Bank A CD (True Age Records 2010)

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a.k.a: Disambiguous Din, Disingenous Drums and Other Deleterious Dissimulations
Originally aired February 9, 2011
This is Podcast # 20.

[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/fmbroadcasts/20110209/wzbc_20110209.mp3]
2:58:57 | 163.84 MB

In acoustics and specifically in acoustical engineering, background noise or ambient noise is any sound other than the sound being monitored. Calling some signal or sound noise is often a subjective distinction. One person’s maximum-volume music listening pleasure might be another’s unbearable noise. By measuring the spatial relationships of elementary domestic sound, composition and construction is immediately assisted. In this case the product of the investigation is a sound level contour map. “We’re so conditioned to experience the world through our eyes that the other senses really suffer,” English says. “It’s always interesting to go into a space you know very well and then close your eyes.” The following objects use the seemingly trite sound of a door bell as its starting point to create and suggest alternatives to the generic sound-scapes of everyday life that we often take for granted. Money. Coffee. Cigarettes. Utopia.

And yet, I was desperate to rid myself of these irritating, annoying sounds. Cerumol ear drops. Earex ear drops. Otex ear drops. Nothing works. The pounding never stops. Pushing deeper, the eardrum buzzes. Fill your ears with wax and wicks. Burn the candle at both ends. Even before the 16 careening dancers come into view, even before the explosion of swirling, brilliant colors, you feel it. The drumming. The pulse of drumming rhythms hits in the chest, shivering and shimmering, the spine ignites. See the robot drummer who prefers playing drums to squashing humans like flies. This machine rages against you. Striker. Slider. Solenoid Motor. USB Connectivity and Wifi Compatible. His ardor never sours.

Here and now, the beat goes on. The lies expand into canyons. The canyons become streets. The streets are wet with the rain of days and glimmer with the lights of night. You cannot stop us. Our drumming is a blindsiding distraction making way for the soundless message of death. Unplug your ears; there will be no fireworks.

February 9, 2009. A quiet night at the Z. Long luxurious expanses of drums and madness. An icy cold night. The Antagony IS the Ecstasy…

Playlist:

Locust “Jukebox Heart” from morning light CD ALBUM (Apollo)
Locust “Folie” from Morning Light CD ALBUM (Apollo)
Dirtbombs “Bug in The Bass Bin” from Party Store CD ALBUM (In the Red)
William Hooker “The Spirits Return” from Radiation CD ALBUM (Homestead)
Rova Saxophone Quartet “Thats How strong” from The Removal of Secrecy LP ALBUM (Metalanguage)
ANP “Live in Binsparck Tokyo 2003” from Absolut Null Punkt CD ALBUM (Important)
zZz “Ecstasy” from the Sound of zZz (Howler)
Keith Fullerton Whitman “Disingenuousness” LP ALBUM
Black Dice “Big Drop” from Beaches and Canyons CD ALBUM (Dfa)
Trevor Wishart “Imago” SINGLE (Pan)
Hazard “Wire Netting” from north CD ALBUM (Ash International)
Seefeel “Seefeel” CD ALBUM (Warp 2011)

Mark Twain said, “There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist,” but I disagree. I’m more inclined to agree with Voltaire who said that Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. Optimism is often the space between what we wish to be and what we are; the difference between half-full and half-empty. It is a trick of the perception. It would seem that still, afer all these years, perception is thought to be a passive porcess. Rather this is just an excuse for laziness. It becomes an issue of having to choose between two evils and selecting the one you’ve never tried before. It is guilt coupled with pleasure, and pleasure coupled with guilt. Some view caution as pessimism while the optimist is blind to the thorns of the rose. I view pessimism as a healthy dose of realism and optimism as a messenger’s bag of magic trix slung over your shoulder, always at the ready but never in the way. Just what makes that little old ant think he can move that rubber tree plant…

February 2nd marks the week that Jukebox Heart became part of the regular programming on WZBC. Wednesday Nights at 10PM eastern time. We are back after a long absence from the WZBC frequency. While Jukebox Heart will still pull out the occasional hourlong-mix podcasts as we have been doing all along, these FM broadcasts, being a regular weekly event, will quickly outnumber those. As such, I’ll be treating these just like those others, giving each a unique name and mini-rave essay cut-up thing as before. Long time readers know that these are drawn somehow from the audio content. It’s left as an exercise to the reader to figure out just how…

So, this week, let’s all take a breath now and then, let’s nurture our secret easy magic power and get in touch with our optimism, and most of all, let’s resolve to trust in our pessimism, our personal yin and yang, as each struggles for dominance…

[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/fmbroadcasts/20110202/WZBC_20110202.mp3]
Original Air Date: February 2, 2011
2:56:55 | 166 MB

Playlist

Locust “Jukebox Heart” from Morning Light CD ALBUM (Apollo)
Bookmobile “InYrWindow” from Keys CD ALBUM (Woodson Lateral)
Wechsel Garland “Grosse Erwartungen” from Wechsel Garland CD ALBUM (Morr Music)
King of Spain “Seamless Spotless Sidewalks” from Entropy CD ALBUM (New Granada)
Bumcello “Involuntary Slavery” from Bumcello CD ALBUM (COMET)
Efterklang “I was Playing Drums” from Magic chairs CD ALBUM (4AD)
Bows “King Deluxe” from Blush CD ALBUM (Too Pure)
Remote Viewer “I Think I’d Like It On The Other Side” from PARAPULSE TUCK
Schema “We Think We’re Sane” from Schema CD ALBUM (5 Rue Christine)
Toe “cELLO” from Variant CD ALBUM (Truckstop)
Merzbow “Tadpole” from Merzbeat CD ALBUM (Important)
Dr. M. G. Morgan “Dawn Chorus with Whistlers” from Out of This World LP ALBUM (Road Recordings)
Perrey & Kingsley “Fallout” from Kaleidoscopic Vibrations LP ALBUM (Vanguard)
Jean-Jacques Perrey “Island in Space” from The Amazzing New Sounds of… LP ALBUM (Vanguard)
Perrey & Kingsley “Spooks In Space” from The In Sound from Way Out LP ALBUM (vanuard 1966)
Jean-Jacques Perrey “The Mexican Cactus” from The Amazing Electronic Pop Sounds of… LP ALBUM (Vanguard)
Perrey & Kingsley “Girl From Venus” from The In Sound From Way Out LP ALBUM (Vanguard)
Pluxus “Electroplux” from FAS2 CD ALBUM (Slowball)
Stewart Walker “White Noise On The Horizon” from Reclamation CD ALBUM (Persona)
Yeasayer “Sunrise” from All Hour Cymbals CD ALBUM (We Are Free)
Antioch Arrow “Too Bad You’re Gonna Die” from Gems of Masochism CD ALBUM (Three One G)
Neptune “Donkey Skin” from Patterns CD ALBUM (Self Release)
Castanets “This is the Early Game” from In The Vines CD ALBUM (Asthmatic Kitty)
Various Artists “Records Digest” OTHER ALBUM (People In A Position To Know)
Prints “Easy Magic” from Prints CD ALBUM (Temporary Residence)
Simpatico “Arrogance” from The Difference Between Alone and Lonely CD ALBUM (Matinee)
Mahogany “Optimism” from The Dream of A Modern Day CD ALBUM (Darla 2001)
Mid Air “Tape Loop Dance Party” from Tape Loop ep CD ALBUM
Marumari “Super Botany” from Supermogadon CD ALBUM (Carpark)
Bitcrush “Every Sunday (Winterlight remix)” from From Arcs To Embers CD ALBUM (N5md)

Featured Release:

“Out Of This World”
Another “Sounds Of Out Times” recording by Cook Laboratories.

Presented here following a Merzbow track and as a tongue-in-cheek precursor of Power Electronics, this fascinating record was released in 1956. I was going to be a bad boy and just play the audio track and make up a lugubrious artist and title and send all my friends into a rush looking for their own copy. But the rest of the record was so much fun, I just kept it all in.

From the liner notes:

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Featured Artist:
Gershon Kingsley & Jean Jacques Perry

I was lucky enough to obtain three LPs by these prolific artists in a 99 cent bin at our local cool record chain. These records are wacky fun but also the stuff of genius. I featured a few tracks from each, see the playlist above. Right click on any of the album covers below to see a larger version of the image.

German-born Kingsley fled Deutsches Reich to Israel and began his career in music as a pit conductor for Broadway musical shows after graduating from the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. Perrey was a French accordion player and medical student who abandoned his studies after meeting Georges Jenny in Paris in 1952. Jenny was the inventor of the Ondioline, a vacuum tube-powered keyboard instrument that was a forerunner of today’s synthesizers and was capable of creating an amazing variety of sounds. Its keyboard had a unique feature — the keyboard was suspended on special springs that were capable of introducing a natural vibrato, if the player moved the keyboard from side to side with the playing hand. The result was a beautiful, almost human-like vibrato that lent the Ondioline a wide range of expression. The keyboard was also pressure-sensitive, and the instrument had a knee volume lever as well. Jenny hired Perrey as a salesman and demonstrator of the new instrument. As a result he came to the attention of French singer Édith Piaf, who sponsored him to record a demo tape that later facilitated him access to work and live in the United States between 1960 and 1970.

Perrey and Kingsley came together during Kingsley’s stint as a staff arranger at Vanguard Records, an independent label in New York City that specialized not in avant-garde music, but in folk music. At that time, Perrey was experimenting with tape loops, which he had been introduced to by the French avant-garde musician Pierre Schaeffer. Each loop was a laboriously hand-spliced assemblage of filtered sounds, pitch-manipulated sounds and sometimes even animal calls. The end result of their first collaborative effort in 1966 combined Perrey’s tape loops, and his inventive melodies with Kingsley’s complementary arrangements and instrumentation. The resulting album was filled with tunes that sounded like music from an animated cartoon gone berserk. Their first LP was titled The In Sound From Way Out! and was released on Vanguard Records that same year. Since this was decades before the advent of widespread digital technology, each tune took weeks of painstaking editing and splicing to produce.
The twelve rather whimsical tracks bore names like “Unidentified Flying Object” and “The Little Man From Mars” in an attempt to make electronic music more accessible to the general public. In fact, “Unidentified Flying Object” and another of the album’s cuts, “Electronic Can-Can” eventually became theme music for “Wonderama,” a Metromedia Television children’s program of the early 1970s. Though most of the melodies were original, two borrowed from the classics. “Swan’s Splashdown” was based on Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Little Swans” while “Countdown At 6” borrowed from Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours. The final cut on the album, “Visa To The Stars” is co-credited to “Andy Badale,” who would go on to fame as Angelo Badalamenti, arranger of the music in many of David Lynch’s movies. In contrast to the rest of the album, “Visa To The Stars” is a more serious gesture and lacks the unusual sound effects of the other eleven cuts. It is highly reminiscent of the style of Joe Meek and his hit, “Telstar” by The Tornados. Perrey’s Ondioline carries the melody throughout.

Their second and final collaborative effort came in 1967 with the release of Kaleidoscopic Vibrations: Spotlight on the Moog. This was a similar sounding effort, but instead of all original compositions, the album was mostly versions of popular songs of the day. In this album, Perrey’s tape loops and effects were added in post-production after Kingsley’s orchestrations were recorded, a technique now commonly used by electronic artists to this day. The album was one of the first to use the new Moog modular synthesizer, a massive, complicated electronic instrument resembling an old-style telephone switchboard. The album also bore two notable singles. In fact, the Moog album was released a year and a half before the release of Wendy Carlos’ ground-breaking Switched-On Bach. “The Savers” would go on to fame in 1968 as the Clio Award-winning music for a television ad for No-Cal diet drinks, and in 1972 as the theme to the American television game show “The Joker’s Wild”. About the time “The Savers” was being used on television, engineers with the Walt Disney Company were at work on a new parade at Disneyland Park, the “Main Street Electrical Parade.” The idea was to cover floats with thousands of electronically-controlled colored lights and to set the show to music. Paul Beaver and then later Disney musician Don Dorsey helped rework a Perrey-Kingsley composition called “Baroque Hoedown,” an upbeat, almost sparkling number best described as “harpsichord gone country.” It would become the underlying theme song of the parade for the next three decades at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Disney’s California Adventure Park and is still in use today at Magic Kingdom.
Several segments of Sesame Street produced in the 1970s also made use of music from The In Sound from Way Out, as did other television programs, such as “The Red Skelton Show.” A skit from the October 23, 1979 airing of Saturday Night Live titled “Jeopardy! 1999” used “Unidentified Flying Object” as the opening and closing themes.

Though Perrey and Kingsley never enjoyed tremendous commercial success, their music inspired a generation of musicians and was used (and still is used) extensively in advertising. Moog Indigo, a Jean-Jacques Perrey solo album from 1970 featured a cut called “E.V.A.” (also co-written by “Andy Badale,” aka: Angelo Badalamenti). This slow, funky track is one of the most sampled in hip hop and rap music history. In the U.K., pioneered by Kenny Everett, DJs extensively used their tracks as continuity music or took clips for use as jingle backing from the late ’60s and early ’70s. In the U.S., it is currently being used in a TV ad for Zelnorm, a prescription medication for female irritable bowel syndrome. The same album produced “The Elephant Never Forgets” which is still being used as the theme of the Televisa sitcom, “El Chavo del Ocho.” Even the Beastie Boys (who asked permission from Perrey and Kingsley) used both the title and cover art of P & K’s first album for their own The In Sound From Way Out! album in 1996. Gershon Kingsley’s biggest contribution to mainstream pop music came in the early 1970s as the composer of “Popcorn,” the single biggest hit of the German phantom-band “Hot Butter”, led by American Stan Free.

Their work for Vanguard is available on a three-CD set called The Out Sound From Way In! The Complete Vanguard Recordings. The bonus CD features two remixes of “E.V.A.” by Fatboy Slim, remixes of “Winchester Cathedral” and “Lover’s Concerto” from Kaleidoscopic Vibrations as well as “Electronic Can-Can” and “Unidentified Flying Object,” each by techno artists Eurotrash.

Perrey has released four new CDs since the year 2000: Eclektronics – recorded in 1997 with musician David Chazam (Basta, 2000), and Circus of Life – recorded in 1999, with musician Gilbert Sigrist (PHMP, 2000). Perrey released The Happy Electropop Music Machine (2006), and Destination Space (2008), with musician and arranger Dana Countryman.

Perrey lives in France, and is in high demand for lectures and concerts all over the world. In August 2006, Perrey gave a concert tour with Dana Countryman, of Seattle, San Francisco and Hollywood, to support the release of “The Happy Electropop Music Machine” CD. Perrey performed in Russia, in April of 2007 with David Chazam, and Perrey and Countryman did a concert in Norway in September of 2007. In 2008, Perrey and Chazam performed in Bucharest, Romania, and in 2008, Perrey and Countryman gave concerts in Newcastle, England, New York City and Montreal, Canada to support the release of their “Destination Space” CD, also on Oglio Records.

Gershon Kingsley lives in New York City, and in 2007 was a featured performer, and received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at “MOOGFEST”, an annual celebration of Dr. Robert Moog and his synthesizers.

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