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TOTAL_IMMERSION

                                            August 11, 2004

Records I bought as a teenager,
even the bad ones, are burned
into my brain; they've become         They are not quite
a backdrop of trash melody and        as overwhelming as
lyrics that pattern my life.          television theme
                                      music however.
The music I listen
to most often now     IMP_PERVERSE          Including that one
seems much less                             insidious theme
infectious...                               that plauges my
                                            internal aural
  Is that because it's                      landscape, whose
  inherently lacking in                     title I will spare
  the mannered                              you for now...
  structural "hooks"
  that pop music is                              (Annoy me not,
  engineered with?                               or I will speak
                                                 the dread name
  Or is it just a function                       of power.)
  of economics:  I have access
  to more recordings now,
  hence I lavish less attention
  on each one.

  Alternately, it could just
  be the calcification of age,
  the youthful mind soaks up
  it's surroundings, the adult
  mind is less porous...

      This musing suggested to me
      an experiment in listening:

      I would choose a recording
      that I liked a lot that was
      extremely obscure, and much          Obscurity is important here:
      unlike any form of pop music.
                                           (1) I'm unlikely to hear
                                           it from other sources)
        If I listen to it
        repeatedly,                        (2) To add something to my
        intentionally                      bedrock consciousness
        overplaying it, as                 that's different from what
        bad or worse than                  everyone else carries with
        any top-40                         them.
        station's
        playlist...

        What would happen?

          I chose something from the
          "Limited Sedition" label,          The philosophy of the
          which does CD-R releases           label is to treat the
          in numbered editions of            music as ever-changing
          around 100:                        and ephemeral.

            P.I.S.S.                            So I chose to lavish
                                                attention on it, and
            Perkis  - electronics/samples       fix it in place.
            Ingalls - clarinet
            Shiurba - guitar
            Sperry  - stand-up bass

    And now, I am happy to report that
    I can recall to mind at will many of
    the blips and burbles of clairinet or
    electronics that dominate this CD.           A little while back I was
                                                 listening to a live
                                                 performance of a small
                                                 ensemble including three
                                                 performers on laptops,
                                                 including Tim Perkis.
The experiment goes on.
I continue to listen.
                                                   It dawned on me that I
                                                   could recognize the
                                                   electronic signature of
    The next stage might                           Tim Perkis, even
    be to expand the group                         against a background of
    of test subject beyond                         two other muscians
    just myself.                                   using similar
                                                   electronics...

                                                         PLONSEY_IN_THE_OCEAN
       I could do a series of
       radio shows where I
       play the same P.I.S.S.
       track every third song.



                     What other experiments
                     in listening might there
                     be?

                           What other experiments
                           in general?


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