Oud master from Iraq collaborates with Bill Frissell, Peter Buck, Guy Klucevsek, Yavouba Sissoko, and others. 2 hours of music; currently on sale for $5.
For more than 30 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of Numbers Stations.
Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.
These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round.
The voices are of varying pitches and intonation; there is even a German station (The Swedish Rhapsody) that transmits a female child's voice!
One might think that these espionage activities should have wound down considerably since the official end of the cold war, but nothing could be further from the truth. Numbers Stations (and by inference, spies) are as busy as ever, with many new and bizarre stations appearing since the fall of the Berlin wall.
Why is it that in over 30 years, the phenomenon of Numbers Stations has gone almost totally unreported? What are the agencies behind the Numbers Stations, and why are the eastern European stations still on the air? Why does the Czech republic operate a Numbers Station 24 hours a day? How is it that Numbers Stations are allowed to interfere with essential radio services like air traffic control and shipping without having to answer to anybody? Why does the Swedish Rhapsody Numbers Station use a small girls voice?
These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.
Re: The Conet Project. . .
It is number one on the most downloaded list (Downloaded 540,322 times) in the netlable section @ Archive.org and released by the somewhat bizzarre and now defunct label Irdial that released a number of CD's around 1990. Anthony Manning was one of their artists.
- Parts of the irdial catalogue (if not all) is available for free download @ the Archive.
Edit: Maybe not so defunct after all ? -> Irdial HP
This morning I'm checking out the Dying for Bad Music label, which has some presence on Bandcamp.
Right now, it's Least Carpets.
Least Carpet play Eastern European influenced psych folk in vein of Hala Strana or Thuja. It makes you feel sitting on a bench in front of an old shack, surrounded by nature with sun in your face, daydreaming.
Cool folk-inspired instrumentals, though the concepts don't development enough. This is the Hylozoists sounding like REM. Free.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is Hollis Smith, former model and alltime artist and musican.
A mysterious person with many faces, guitars and quirky stories.
Her songs are sparse, dark and haunting, somewhere between Jandek and Diane Cluck.
A voice, a guitar, a lap top. This reminds me of Come and America-era Cash, with passing notes of Language of Stone. Drunken, bluesy, intimate, minor-key, free.
A dark, brooding meditation on electro-symphonic minimalism, Manning's Chromium Nebulae is his most accomplished, satisfying work to date. Manning's aversion to presets translates his music into a collection of alien, sometimes threateningly synthetic soundscapes, giving the listener little footing in the predictable, but also offering much to those willing to abandon prejudice. Chromium Nebulae, along with the entire Irdial back catalog, was reissued in 1997
- Allmusic.
Five different pieces showing the bands mastery from crafting simple acoustic folk songs to the construction of walls of sound.
Psychedelic folk tales from the dark age, mystic and natural without being retro-visionary or overdramatic. The center piece of this EP, "Lost Summer", starts with a shimmering organ drone chord and shifts into a moving tribal theme.
The theme of traveling is picked up again in Oakmulgee Creek which leads to the end of this wonderful EP. The Goner leave you alone with a peaceful field recording of lonely bird calls.
Textbook case of starting out on the wrong foot: the first track seems like uninspired folk rock, but it quickly switches up into more of a Scott Tuma affair, with rock guitar textures surrounding a droning accordion. Free.
Anthony Manning - Concision (Irdial - ird061 - 1997)
Manning's third Irdial album shows he hasn't stopped expanding his methods. Although he's still pursuing the kind of fusion of post-classical and ambient/experimental electronica evident in his previous work, Concision finds him adding rhythmic elements more immediately recognizable to the post-techno lot -- machine-bound breaks set in a downbeat electro lope. Where these appear (on only a handful of cuts, actually), they are less the bleating pulse of a dance track than the sketching of a framework (an unfortunately underdeveloped one) for the interlocking explorations of melody and timbral nuance that organized his previous recordings. Recurring themes seem to tie much of Concision into a solid, coherent package, while the tracks switch restlessly between austere solo piano, haunting drones, and stolid, fuzzy, Blade Runner-esque atmospheres. A nice listen now and again.
- Allmusic.
Anthony Manning - Islets In Pink Polypropylene - (Irdial - ird054 - 1994)
"Of Anthony Manning's releases on Irdial, the awe-inspiring "Islets in Pink Polypropylene" album continues to impress and bewilder with its intricacy, originality and emotion wrapped up in an organo-classical rigor that is unheard of in his contemporaries."
- And last but certainly not least: Anthony Manning - Elastic Variations Vol.1 - (Irdial - ird051 1994)
"The music of Anthony Manning is vivid, and can be used to illustrate the most delicate of ideas and concepts; it is timeless, priceless and ready for the widest of audiences."
Listening to the first track. Gorgeous, melodic drone. The tracks that are album-only on emusic are not so on Amazon making the first track a 17 minute taster for a dollar.
Comments
Billy the Mountain Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3
Plaintive ambient from Lost Children Netlabel-- FREE.
A nice start to the blizzard.
Thank you 7digital!
Craig
Definitely lives up to the hype as far as weirdness goes. It'll take a few to several listens before I can figure out if it's actually good or not.
Craig
Oud master from Iraq collaborates with Bill Frissell, Peter Buck, Guy Klucevsek, Yavouba Sissoko, and others. 2 hours of music; currently on sale for $5.
Thanks, Bad Thoughts.
Thats vol. 2 of The Silent Ballet - Italian Compilation.
Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague - The Uncle Meat Variations - Nine Types of Industrial Pollution - Project X - King Kong part Vl
It is number one on the most downloaded list (Downloaded 540,322 times) in the netlable section @ Archive.org and released by the somewhat bizzarre and now defunct label Irdial that released a number of CD's around 1990. Anthony Manning was one of their artists.
- Parts of the irdial catalogue (if not all) is available for free download @ the Archive.
Edit: Maybe not so defunct after all ? -> Irdial HP
Being snowed in means I can dedicate a sometime to working through this...
Right now, it's Least Carpets.
Cool folk-inspired instrumentals, though the concepts don't development enough. This is the Hylozoists sounding like REM. Free.
A voice, a guitar, a lap top. This reminds me of Come and America-era Cash, with passing notes of Language of Stone. Drunken, bluesy, intimate, minor-key, free.
Anthony Manning - Chromium Nebulae - (Irdial - ird056 1996) (free @ archive.org) Gemstore.
- I had almost forgotten how brilliant this guy is. Thanks to Daniel for putting my rusty memory to work.
Man ! I love this thread.
(xp)
Anthony Manning - Concision (Irdial - ird061 - 1997)
- Yeah !
Anthony Manning - Islets In Pink Polypropylene - (Irdial - ird054 - 1994)
Anthony Manning - Elastic Variations Vol.1 - (Irdial - ird051 1994)
Evan Bartholomew - Caverns of Time
Listening to the first track. Gorgeous, melodic drone. The tracks that are album-only on emusic are not so on Amazon making the first track a 17 minute taster for a dollar.
On Mainstream, via Amie.
Skream - Freeizm
Free, and can be found here, among other places.
Craig