You can now download Return to the Wasteland for free, or just pay whatever you want. Before there was a $5 minimum.
I was going to release a new track today for X-Day, but I’m not happy with the material. I was also planning on making Wasteland free when the next Psychetect album is released – but that’s still at least a couple months away. So, to support your slack, I decided give away Wasteland a little early.
Of course, X-Day is all about profit, so feel free to pay money for it. You can also buy the album from iTunes, Amazon.com and a bunch of other places.
Cover art by Ian McEwan, color by Danny Chaoflux
Sound produced and mastered by Klint Finley
Peter “Sleazey” Christopherson – of Throbbing Gristle, Coil and Soi Song, -died on November 24th:
The sad news has reached us that Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson has died in his sleep last night at the age of 55. Chris Carter twittered “Our dearest beautiful Sleazy left this mortal coil as he slept in peace last night. Words cannot express our grief.” and the TG site simply displays the message “Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson 1955 – 2010”.
Chris Carter from Throbbing Gristle has put together a promo video (above) for TG’s current tour. Be sure to check Carter’s Chemistry Lessons if you’re interested in making electronic music.
For the past decade, Nolon Ashley (aka Cult of Zir) and Ogo Eion (aka An Exquisite Corpse) have been gracing the pacific northwest with their audio experiments. Now the two have release an album together: Shortwave Ministry for Theatre Noir (available for free, I might add).
The duo talked to me from an undisclosed porch in Portland. Hit play on the embedded album above, kick back and do whatever you do to get into that special headspace, and read what they have to say about their latest work.
Left: Nolon Ashley. Right: Ogo Eion. Photo by Gabriel Schroder
Klint Finley: How did this collaboration come about?
Nolon: The material itself was requested by a man named Nathan HG who is putting together some theatre noir pieces with a troupe of dancers he’s assembled. He came to me and wanted the central theme to be “white” noise, and the first thought that hit my head was Ogo’s impeccable shortwave radio toys. It was an easy decision. Ogo and I have been friends for years and have worked together in several different ways.
Ogo: Yeah – Nolon asked me to bring my shortwave radio over to the Octopus Templi (his house) and we sat down and he recorded some samples.
Nolon: I did a bunch of work for other performance troupes last year, probably more than I did as Cult of Zir itself, and this time I meant to at least make sure more folks heard it than those who just went to the performances.
What equipment and/or software did you use? How was it recorded?
Nolon: We used a lot of SCIENCE. It’s all done in Ableton. No plugins.
Photo by Gabriel Schroder
Ogo: I brought my “trademark” shortwave radio, which i scored at a thrift store some ten years ago maybe – it’s seen much use since then. It’s a Sony FM/AM multi-band receiver ICF-5900W. It never breaks and keep battery charge for years. And I’ve always been quite impressed by the variety of sounds I can conjure up from this little beast.
Nolon: For this volume of the Shortwave Ministry, I gave the radio sounds the lead, and all my synth/vocal/guitar work is more or less there to reinforce the textures that came from that. Volume 2 will be more focused on abrasive sounds, with pianos instead of guitars.
Is the shortwave radio modified in any way?
Ogo: It’s not circuit bent, no. Though it’s seen some wear over the years that has seemed to affect it.
Nolon: I ran it through the same filters and delays and reverbs as everything else. There was some ham radio christian we tapped that night a few times. Something about homosexuality, a real bigot.
Ogo: Right. Mostly I ride those “sweet spots” between channels – static frequency sweeps and whatnot. But there’s some real interesting stuff that happens when a channel starts to bleed through and intermix with that. Sometimes I swear it’s channeling alien transmissions.
Nolon: He’s playing it right now, in fact! I thought we were listening to the album. I went “Wow it sounds so different than it does thru my system!”
Ogo: It’s the remix.
Was it recorded on the porch?
Ogo:It was recorded on the porch inside Nolon’s bedroom.
Nolon: Chez Cephalopod is a porch inside a bedroom built into an attic, in the bottom of the ocean, floating in space…
Ogo as his character Zero in Bogville. Photo by Chrisopher Perez
Some of it reminds me a lot of Bogville [a live musical that Nolon, Ogo, and several other PNW artists were a part of].
Ogo: Well, the radio made its theatrical debut in the Bogville series. It was both a ‘prop’ and an instrument for the Prophets of Doom contingent of the swamp.
Nolon: I loved that. He used it to find the dead reverend at one point, like Ghostbusters. ‘Cause his character was blind.
Ogo: Recordings of it appear on the Bogville soundtrack compilation for chapter one.
Nolon: Yes, please buy that. Several copies.
Actually, my wife and I each bought a copy of it not realizing that the other was buying it, so our household has 2 copies. I hadn’t realized his character was blind. So he used the radio as both a means of expression, and as a way of sensing the world.
Ogo: Right. That and the static noise emitted had a forceful sonic quality, so it was used to intimidate/indoctrinate our “cult followers” (in the play, not the cult in “real” life).
Nolon: I’m pretty sure it worked in real life, too, right? Like, my character didn’t, but I certainly joined the cult of doom, at least privately.
Yeah, it convinced me too. I’ll sign up for the Prophets of Doom.
Nolon: The Prophets have their pitch down damn well.
Ogo: Heh. I think we disbanded last year. But feel free to start your own Doom Cult, please.
That’s sad, so we won’t be seeing the Prophets of Doom on stage any more? That was a great outfit.
Ogo: Well, I suppose I can’t really say anything with certainty. But the myriad of creative creatures involved in that outfit have sort of gone different directions now. I mean, some of the stars of the show don’t even live in Portland anymore.
We’re all still collaborating together though, in different forms and times. Myrk and I have some experiments we are conducting.
I was hoping Prophets of Doom would do more shows independent of Bogville, actually.
Ogo: Oh totally. We did toss that idea around. Scott’s up in Olympia these days and seems pretty busy revitalizing Hall of the Woods at the moment.
Nolon: I’d like to see them take over city hall
Then the state building!
Ogo: P.O.D. initially came about as sort of a theatrical parody of pre-existing projects at the time anyway. There was also this real life cult that inspired a lot of our imagery: Do Not Seek the Light. Though I don’t really know much about the group’s origins or extensive history.
Ogo, you and Scott were working on another project together weren’t you?
Ogo: I performed with Scott, and at times other collaborators, as Blood Seeks Blood for a time, yeah.
I thought the first track from Shortwave Ministry had a distinct krautrock flavor. Was that deliberate or did it just happen? (Or am I crazy?)
Nolon: I’m not going to say you’re not crazy. I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m a mad artist. The album kind of made itself. I’m inspired by that movement though, yeah. Terribly. It’s the first time I’ve used a guitar on a Cult of Zir recording if that’s what you mean.
Was it actual guitar or was it sampled?
Nolon: There’s actual guitar. The shortwave really lended a sort of analogue synth and/or theremin feel that reminds me of early psychedelic stuff, and I balanced that with some virtual analogue synth work in the software domain.
It also reminded me a lot of musique concrete, and that was definitely the radio.
Nolon: Yes.
Photo by Gabriel Schroder
How did the two of you meet? What was your first collaboration?
Nolon: Oh shit, I guess it was the first CACOPHONY. I was in a band called Autism for a minute.
Ogo: I booked Nolon’s first show (right?) as Cult of Zir for CACOPHONY. After getting to know him over various porch sits at Doll House.
Nolon: Oh that too!
Ogo: Oh right, I forgot about Autism.
Nolon: It was porches, whatever it was.
Ogo: That was really the first CACOPHONY, in the vacant space that became Someday Lounge.
Nolon: Autism. It was spearheaded by Guy Tyler who had done work with John Zorn and still plays with the Portland Opera. He’s an incredible cracked academic musician and Autism was his way of shrugging that all off in favour of getting out of his brain. A kind of throbbing sound. He played bass and sang. Noah Mickens played scrap metal in Autism, and Andrew of Sonic Alchemy and Stalking Jane played synths.
Ogo: Then later you played the first CACOPHONY as Cult of Zir, in Someday Lounge once it had become an actual legal venue and everything. So you were there “at the beginning”, both times.
Cult of Zir at Pocket Sandwich in Portland 7/11/08
Nolon: Ogo lured Cult of Zir out of the basement.
Ogo: Totally, that was one of the goals of the series: luring noise musicians and other audio/performance experimenters out of their basements and getting them out in front of people.
Nolon: That show was on Friday the 13th of October, the anniversary of the Knights Templar execution (at least mythically,) and Maya Deren’s death as well.
2006?
Ogo: Autism played May of 2005. Then Cult of Zir was October (Friday the 13th) of 06.
With this album in the can, what’s next for the two of you?
Nolon: There’s another two on the way. This is a series. If you notice, the tracks mark out the major cardinal quadrants on the compass. The next one will fill in the other four: SE, NE, NW, and SE. And the third release will be above, below, and center. I basically want to get Nathan as much material to choreograph to as possible and exhaust my need to obsess on these gorgeous shortwave samples ever again.
Cult of Zir has two more records in the works too, now that I have lots of free time. One is the material I made in the last two years, mostly experienced on stage. The other is a release of all the other stuff I’ve already done for performance troupes. One being the Bogville material, perhaps reworked a bit, and Meghann Rose’s Mirror Milk being the other. Lots of great stuff got made outside of Cult of Zir last year, as I was saying.
Cult of Zir live at the Seattle Occultural Music Festival
So it will be released as a Zir record?
Nolon: With appropriate hat tips to the projects the material was made for.
Ogo: I’m trying to put out a solo album as An Exquisite Corpse this year, but I said that last year too.
What about live work? Will both you be performing, or are you focusing on studio work?
Nolon: Nothing booked right now. I’m unemployed and taking advantage of the time I can spend creating. Thanks mostly to only having time to perform outside of the office grind, I’m pretty prepared to record the material that mostly only Portland has heard now. Seattle and Olympia seem to like it though.
Exquisite Corps at the Oceans Within event at Christoff Gallery in Seattle, 11/16/07.
Ogo: My process has always been focused on performance. Getting out there and making something in the moment. It’s only recently that I’ve even thought about studio work. But it’s a definite goal, though a different yet useful process. More mediated. Spontaneity vs process of Refining. Actually, all the recorded tracks I have released have been one-take recordings.
Nolon: Seems the “responsible” thing to do, anyway, no? For that matter, Shortwave Ministry was done pretty one-off. Every track was done in one take. It took a single evening to produce, once the samples were taken down.
So the radio samples were recorded before that session?
Ogo: Yes. I sat down with Nolon and we spent maybe an hour recording samples, I gave him some different dynamics. Slow sweeps and more active spastic channel switching. How he put it all together, up to its release date, was all a surprise to me.
Nolon: Yeah, there were some minor directional cues or whatever but mostly I wanted Ogo to do his thing. The production process happens pretty naturally at this point. I mean, you can map any function to any knob you want then get into an altered space and intuit the direction in the moment. That’s pretty much how it all happened, an immediatist process.
Ogo: Totally. Like the hardware as a sensory extension of your body.
Nolon: The album made itself, I almost want no fucking credit for it.
Ogo: Nolon gets all the credit.
Nolon: But I’ll take the money, all zero dollars the record costs. I think it’s just that we’re that comfortable with the process at this point this is the way we live, we breathe this stuff. It’s second nature.
Oregon Music News interview with Pulse Emitter, one of my favorite noise artists:
What or who was it that inspired you to start making the music that you do as Pulse Emitter? What attracted you to the world of modular synths?
It was a desire to not play in groups any longer and also to stop making music with beats. The start of the project coincided with the first synthesizer module I made, a Paia VCO. This was around 2003. I had become uninspired by the synthesizers I owned and wanted an analog synth but could not afford one at the time. Interest in synthesizers is part of what motivated me to start going to electronics school and that gave me the courage to start soldering. Building a modular was the best way I found to get the sounds and flexibility I wanted, cheaply.
You’ve released an impressive amount of music over the years. How much of it is prepared/written ahead of time and how much of it is improvisational?
My early recordings are more improvised. I don’t do that anymore. I used to record an entire album in a night or two. Now it takes months. I’m a little ashamed of how prolific I used to be, but those releases were in extremely limited editions anyway. I really take my time now.
Pan Sonic, originally known as Panasonic until the electronics company made them change their name, was a collaboration between Finnish electronic musicians Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. The pair recently announced that their new album Gravitoni, now available from Blast First Petite, will be their last. Mika spoke with me by phone about the reason for the split, the new album, and his plans for the future.
Klint Finley: I guess I’ll start with, just to get it out of the way, the announcement has been put out that Pan Sonic has split up, so was this an amicable split?
Well, let’s say that we don’t have any plans to start again, but maybe we do one day. It’s still open, but I don’t think, at least for a couple years, we will not do it.
So are you willing to talk anymore about the reasons behind the split or do you want to leave it at that?
Yeah, why not. There has been no argument or bad spirit or anything like that. It’s just that after, we’ve been doing this for over 15 years, it’s time to stop and concentrate on our own solo things.
So is that what you’re going to be concentrating on now, solo work?
Yes. Solo work, then I work with a couple of other people also. There are lots of projects going on.
Will Jari Lehtinen still be working with you and/or Ilpo?
Not really, not for a long time actually.
What can listeners expect from the new Pan Sonic album?
Compared to the one before, it’s more minimal and basic. We kind of wanted to go back to the old style, minimal tracks with quite strong sounds.
Are there any guest artists on it or is it only you and Ilpo?
It’s only me and Ilpo this time, yes. It’s quite basic.
Did you collaborate long distance on this album, with you working in Berlin and him working in Finland, or did you get together in the studio to work on it?
No, we were working here in my studio in Berlin.
Pan Sonic is known for recording live instead of using overdubs and sequencers. Has that changed at all?
Well, since the last album before this new one we’ve been using multitrack, so we’re doing overdubs now.
Have you experimented with using software – like software synthesizers or sequencing – or are you still using only hardware?
I’m using only hardware. I don’t really want to do any computer thing. I think it would change my whole approach to the music. It feels quite boring for me, I don’t want to go for that.
The record business has been going through a lot of transitions lately through music piracy through the Internet and there’s also the economic crash that makes it harder for people who might want to pay for music to actually pay for music. Has than been affecting you at all? Do you have any thoughts on that?
No it’s not affecting me that much, I think it’s only a problem of the record labels and big major artists. But for smaller artists and people like me we get very little money from the record sales altogether. The main source is playing live, that’s where the income is coming from. And I possibly think the music is available on the net because there are a lot of people, for example in South America, who could not afford to buy any CDs but this way they can hear the music, the music is available.
Mika playing live at In Touch Festival, Minsk. 2009-02-28
So you say most of your money comes from playing live, so will be touring solo to support your new work?
Yes, and I’ve been doing different things also. I’ve been working with a dance company making music for them. And I do sound installations too from time to time, so there’s income coming from that also.
Can you tell us about some of your sound installations?
Yes, sure. I would like to do them more often now that Pan Sonic is over, if I have more time. My last piece was in Brussels in November. It contained 6 off-tune radios. And I created the sound in the gallery with these radios.
Do you have any advice for new experimental musicians who are just starting out?
I would say they should just trust themselves and not think too much about what others think.
Front: Justin Landers Back: Ben Blanding. Photo by Tony Vu.
Justin Landers is Portland based artist and musician who records and performs under the name The Steven Lasombras. His new EP A Diamond Eye Shines in Failing Light was released today on To the Neck Recordings. You can download the EP for free here or buy it here. Disclosure: I’m opening at the CD release show 4/30/10.
Klint Finley: What’s the meaning of the name Steven Lasombras?
Justin Landers: Oh Jesus… Should have seen that one coming! “Steven Lasombra” was a fictional character in a long-running Vampire: The Dark Ages campaign. When I originally started recording songs I labeled them Steven Lasombra Recordings, right around when a lot of “The” bands were getting big (The Strokes, The White Stripes, etc. etc.) so taking the name The Steven Lasombras was a really satisfying goof. I always meant to change it when I found a better name, but after a couple years it became a thing where nothing else fit.
Basically, it started out as a really stupid in-joke.
So he was one of your characters or one from a published series of books?
Sighh… it was my first character.
C’mon, do you think SPIN is going to be any easier on you?
“LOL”! It’s true.
How would you describe The Steven Lasombras to someone who’d never heard your music?
I would say I write and illustrate stories in the form of “songs”, and that they usually end up big and loud and dark, with lots of different parts. And I would feel like a pretentious ass. But that’s the quickest way to put it.
You’re also a visual artist. How has that impacted your approach to making music?
I have no training as a musician or anything, all my training is in visual arts. So I approach recording in the same way I would a painting – begin with the initial idea (whether it’s a half-finished story, imagery from a dream or a movie, a phrase, something from “real life”), then flesh it out and heap on as much detail as I can.
Moving forward, the visual element will be a bigger part of it. I’ve always made all the accompanying artwork for SLs releases but the new thing I’m working on which should be finished by the end of the year) is a bit more involved, the visual and sound elements are equally important. In that way, The SLs should become less of a “band” and more… I don’t know, something else.
That probably answers my next question – You spent some time last year studying wayang kulit in Indonesia, will that find its way into your work?
YES, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The new EP is a transition between my way of working before going there and the way I’m going about it now. The next project I mentioned definitely has some elements of wayang, especially in the visual side. I started compiling ideas for a wayang show to try here, but I am not sure if that’s ever going to happen. Not only would it be insanely expensive, I was a severely mediocre dalang.
So The Steven Lasombras is just you in the studio, and you work with various musicians for live shows, is that right?
Correct. The live line-up has shuffled a bit, mostly between friends or relatives who I’d played with in other bands (my brother Alex, our cousin Chris Ryan, who I played with in Animal Beard, Jevon Cutler from Chevron and Animal Beard, Michael Ferguson, Ben Blanding…) and who I was comfortable giving orders to. Since I’ve been back, everyone’s schedules were hectic enough that I just ended up playing alone live, and I think that’s been reasonably successful. With a guitar/bass/drums band the songs come across as a little more straightforward, the one-man versions pull them to a slightly weirder place.
How long have you been performing and recording under the name?
I believe the earliest four-track recordings date back to 2001 and the first proper live performance was March of 2006.
We don’t play live too often since a lot of the songs are tricky to learn. The parts themselves are simple enough (I think), but getting them practiced to a point of being really presentable is a challenge, especially when everyone has a job/school/wife/whatever.
(I should find some unemployed believers and then get comfortable giving them orders.)
It shouldn’t be that hard to find unemployed musicians in Portland.
How did you get your first gig?
First gig was by request! It was the release party for the Dragging An Ox Through Water record “Rebukes!”
Brian Mumford is actually one of the first people who really seemed to like the SLs stuff when he heard it, going back to like 2003. He had a CD-R label for a while called Publisher’s Clearinghaus that put out an Animal Beard record. He was going to put out another SLs record in 2004 but the project folded or he lost interest or something… He was really nice about it, though. He apologized to me for years.
Left: Justin Landers. Right: Alex Landers. Photo by Tony Vu.
So were you passing recordings around to friends or actively seeking local labels?
Just to friends, and barely that! At that time Chris Ryan was still living in Eugene and was friends with Brian and the other guys in (the sadly now-defunct) Chevron, I believe that’s how he heard it, probably by accident. It’s only fairly recently that I’ve been comfortable actively sharing this music with people outside of my immediate circle of friends. That might be a mental thing on my part, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m much better now and know what I’m trying to do.
When were you in Animal Beard? Was that before The Steven Lasombras?
Yes! Animal Beard started when Chris was still living in Eugene, during my two terms at U of O, late 2000. That also started as a bedroom four-track recording project, but… in more of an indie-rock style. Chris wrote perfect little pop songs and then sang them in a bizarre, often kind of ugly way. I played bass with him, when he was in town Jim Edwards played drums and keyboard (often at the same time)… We played a lot and made some really nice recordings that just fell flat. We played a fair amount, the line-up changed (added upright bass and Brian Mumford on theremin) but people just didn’t know what to do with us. To this day, I still think Animal Beard was solid gold and everyone else was crazy.
There’s an Animal Beard full-length that’s 99.9% finished that I think I’ll be able to put out this summer. It’s weird and lovely.
Was that your first band? You said you don’t have any training as a musician, how did you get started?
I bought a bass in 2000, I think because I thought it would easy to teach myself. Outside of aimless “jamming” with friends I think Animal Beard might have been the first “band” situation, where we were focused on writing and making something good.
Was bass easy to teach yourself?
It definitely was! I mean, it’s not easy to play *well*, but it’s not too hard to figure out.
