KZSU's "Voice of Doom", June 16, 2002

The playlist for another intersession fill-in show, this one on Sunday June 16, 2002, noon-3pm. This was broadcast on KZSU, the Stanford college radio station (90.1 FM in the SF Bay Area, and kzsu.stanford.edu elsewhere).

I was going on the air after an extended set from Kesha of the "Lift Jesus Higher" show, who had also done the board operation for KZSU's broadcast of Stanford's commencement ceremonies. When I signed up for the show, there was no assurance that I wasn't going to be pre-empted by a baseball tournament, so there isn't much of a plan to this one.

I fell back on my usual game plan: three-song sets, mixed genre with seques smoothed over as well as I can.

And for background music to talk over during sets, I fell back on some standard "Voice of Doom" theme music: the Zoviet France album "A Flock of Rotations" (just for a change, I gave "Shouting at the Ground" a rest.)

the playlist

set the first: a funky world

Khaled - "E`Dir E`sseba"
off of Kenza
track 5
A modern Algerian-based band that I though would make a good match with the funk-soul stuff that Kesha was playing. This turned out to be an excellent invisible seque I owe entirely to Decca's review stuck on the front cover of this disk, which I grabbed out of the A-file.
Spaceways Incorporated - "She Just Got Here"
off of Version Soul
track 5
A Ken Vandermark side project, unusually straight and restrained for him. Funk jazz in 11/4 time.
Another good transition, if I do say so myself, though once again this is from the A-file, and I owe it all to the excellent Wedge review.
Garmarna - "Greenest Branch"
off of the Nordic Roots compilation
track 14
Really nifty music with a jungle/funk touch to the rhythm and ethereal female vox (something like celtic-Bjork).
(I kinda blew the seque here. I made an attempt at previewing the track and got the idea that it took a long time to kick, so I started it way too soon: the vocals almost cut in at the same moment that Spaceways Inc cuts out.)
From the the A-file.

set the second

Geert Waegeman - "Potato Eyes"
off of Vegetable Digitables
track 14
This track is with lyrics and vocals by Anna Homler: "Dark drawer dreaming, potato eyes/dark drawer dreaming, strong and wise".
Recorded in Leuven (Flanders-Belgium), 1999-2000.
The Êdê - "Spasm of Sobs"/"Gong Playing Imitation"
off of Vietnam: Anthology of Êdê music
tracks 7 & 8
Some odd polyphonic bamboo flute playing from the Êdê, of the Dak Lak plateau in Vietnam.
(By the way for you non-iso8859 enabled folks, without the hats on the "e"s, that name is: Ede)
Carrier Band - "Automatic Inscription of Speech"
off of Automatic Inscription of Speech
track 1
A recent release from a Pauline Oliveros project (with Peer Bode, Andrew Deutsch and Dick Robinson).

set the third

Matmos
off of Live
tracks 1 & 2
Some tracks recorded live at KZSU at the annual "The Day of Noise" event that I organize.
Some water noises (this was a duo, electronics and bucket of oatmeal) followed by some heavy electrical drone music.
Weird bit of trivia: that's my voice that they led off this CD with, a fragment of me introducing their set. I'm saying something like "--let's turn it over, and see what it sounds like".
Six Organs of Admittance - "Regeneration"
off of Dark Noontide
track 2
Local SF group (though really I think it's pretty close to being a solo project, by Ben Chasny). This is slightly atypical track without vocals.
Plinth - "bracken"
off of the You don't need darkness to do what you think is right compilation
track 16
On the Geographic label.
Slow, closing-of-the-day type instrumentals, horn and piano.

set the fourth

C.J. Reaven Borosque with Rent Romus' Lords of Outland - "Contemplation"
off of The Metal Quan Yin
track 4
Largely instrumental with wordless female vocals. Leads up to a recitation of the poem Contemplation: Tomorrow I crash/On a moon/This side of envy/The other side of sleep/I am rising like literature...
New release from this local bay area group, setting some of the poetry from last year's book "Metal Quan Yin" to music.
Label: Edgetone Records.
Peter Murphy - "Just for Love"
off of Dust
track 4
From the A-file
Tom Heasley - "On the Sensations of Tone"
off of Prelude
track 1
Second release from Tom Heasley, local Bay Area artist (and regular on KZSU's "Day of Noise").
Really interesting ambient music using tuba and electronics... Tom Heasley's style of long atmospheric tones is the total opposite of stereotypic tuba oom-pah music.

set the fifth: satellite of loaf

The silly legal ID at the start of this mic break is me trying to sound like I'm screwing around on purpose while what I'm really trying to do is figure out why my headphones aren't working:

      "K--.   K--   K!   Zeeee...   S.   U!   Stanford"

764 Hero - "Satellites"
off of Nobody Knows this is Everywhere
track 7
Folk-rock with male vocals from the A-file
"You never did anything different/just sat there in your armored chair."
(Sounded good at first glance, but man it's repetitious, and I hated this guys voice before it was over...)
Masonic - "Sattelite tonight"
off of Never stood a chance
track 3
Yeah, they spelled it that way: "sattelite"
From the A-file.
This is a group of where more than half of the members are named "Mason", hence the witty album title. Jennifer Christen on vocals: never been too sure/if I like it/here in my world/looking for adventure...
Sun Ra Arkestra - "theme of the stargazers/the satellites are spinning"
off of Live at Praxis '84
(Disk II/track 8)
(leads up to a nifty, stacatto male chant version of "the satellites are spinning")
(I'd forgotten about this version, though I see I played it on the air two years ago.)
Delicate piano lead that makes a nice interlude after the indie rock pair there.

set the sixth

Alvin Curan - "Spare Ribs & Short Circuits"
off of Oasis: Music from Mills
track 8
From the A-file
The title of this CD aptly expresses the way the I feel about the Mills College music department: an Oasis of real culture in the SF Bay Area.
This track is a nifty, choppy sounding, collection of samples.
From the A-file
Bob Zander - "Water Wheels/Daffodil Hill"
off of Skyline to the Sea
track 8
From the A-file
A local artist, using the kalimba as his main instrument, here with some pretty sweet strings (we will not compare this to "New Age" or "Windam Hill" because they really don't deserve the negative connotations).
William Parker Quartet - "Song of Hope"
off of Raining on the Moon
track 2
From the A-file.
Vocals: Leena Conquest
"My name is hope/I'm daughter of fate/mother of time/father of harmony"

set the seventh

Be'vinda - "Ter Outra Vez 20 Amos"
off of the Queens of Fado compilation
Disk I, track 2
From the A-file
Knotworking - "not bigger"
off of Notes Left Out
track 2
From the A-file
Nagisa Ni te - "Me, On the Beach"
off of the You don't need darkness to do what you think is right
track 7
From the A-file
Folk with female Japanese vocals
On the Geographic label.

set the eighth

Fred Frith's Maybe Monday - "Image & Atom"
off of Digital Wildlife
track 2
A guitar wailing, rocking track, harder than you usually get from Fred Frith.
Maybe Monday was originally a trio with Fred Frith (probably the world's greatest living guitarist), Miya Masaoka (an excelellent creative performer on the koto, aka "the japanese zither"), and Larry Ochs (one of the members of the Rova saxophone quartet). This release gives Fred Frith top billing (I would guess they were tired of being thrown in the "Misc M" section) and adds a fourth member on cello: Joan Jeanrenaud.
Some of the more brilliant work from The Scene Without a Name (usually it gets called something like "bay area improv/creative/new music").
C.J. Reaven Borosque with Rent Romus' Lords of Outland - "The Metal Quan Yin"
off of The Metal Quan Yin
track 1
Poetic ranting (cyber-beatnik?) with some electronic processing: Acid bath running clay flesh away and leaving behind/Strips of gold wire/Mesh/Where she wore them/As under panties/And bled oil through them...
Label: Edgetone Records.
Six Organs of Admittance - "Spirits Abandoned"
off of Dark Noontide
track 1
This is a slightly atypical track for Six Organs, in that it has vocals, but it's musically very simple, largely just folky guitar.

set the last

Wobbly
off of Playlist
track 1 & 2
A 3 inch CD release.

? - "Esemmu"
off of Campur Sari Gunung Kidul Vol. 2
Side A, track 1
A cassette tape of some popular music from Indonesia. "Campur Sari" is the name of the genre. The track title is pretty clearly "Esemmu" (presuming I was really playing Side A, there's no obvious way to tell), and has the additional notation "CIPT. MANTHOU'S VOC. MANTHOU'S".
I don't really know how to interpret the rest of stuff on the cover of the cassette:

closing theme

Thirteenth Floor Elevators - "Dr. Doom"
off of Bull of the Woods
track 9


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