A 125-Year-Old Echo

The posts here have been focused on music lately, so I will continue that theme with the following artifact.

Edison Wax Cylinder

We talk a lot about artifacts – usually those of other, extinct cultures, and less often of those of our own. And of course the latter is the focus of this blog. In both cases, however, we normally encounter physical remains of another time. The sufficiently distant past is usually represented by objects or images.

The Internet Archive contains a number of examples of very early sound recordings. Most of the older examples date to the 1910s or 1920s. One in particular, however, is a rare and haunting example of a true audio relic. In fact, it is one of the oldest known recordings of human voice. In 1888, or just over ten years after Edison introduced his phonograph, an agent for his company attended the Ninth Triennial Handel Festival at Crystal Palace, London. A note on the wax cylinder that he recorded that summer day reads “A chorus of 4000 voices recorded with phonograph over 100 yards away.”

Handel Festival, London, 1888.

Click HERE and listen to the sound from this 125-year old cylinder. The circumstances of its production – a distant recording of so many human voices coupled with the very physical, noisy nature of the wax medium, have resulted in a powerful sonic window into us as ancient. And it is a lovely sound.

Listen to A Duck in a Tree

If you haven't yet heard it, "A Duck in a Tree" is a weekly internet radio show programmed by :Zoviet*France: and broadcast by Basic.fm. The show features some remarkable music, much of which you will have a hard time finding elsewhere. We are pleased to report that this week's edition includes an unreleased Fossil Aerosol track - a Duck in a Tree exclusive. Have a listen at Mixcloud.

If you haven't heard this kind of music before (but as a reader of this blog are interested in post-industrial or post-apocalyptic culture), you will probably find something of interest here. Much of the work is relevant for the simple fact that it often begins with the intentional collapsing of most forms of musical or cultural convention.

Sonic Damaged Goods

We've uploaded another playlist on Mixcloud. "Damaged Goods" includes more sonic artifacts, debris and compromised environments. Also a previously unreleased track by the Fossil Aerosol Mining Project. Grab your headphones and have a listen HERE.

New Fossil Aerosol Mining Project Release

I'm pleased to announce the release of a new set of recordings by the Fossil Aerosol Mining Project.

Very Early Fragments is the second release to observe our 25th anniversary. Recent tracks created from very early fragments: bits of tape and recorded experiments made a long time ago. Pieces of late twentieth century media, decomposing to the quiet roar of chromium dioxide as it clings to the tape heads. 

You can find it HERE.

Podcast for October

We have uploaded a new podcast at Mixcloud. "Certain Contexts for the Use of Modified Bone Tools" features artists such as :Zoviet*France:, Mnemonists, Jeff Greinke, as well as a few selected audio artifacts. 40 minutes of music for October. Hope you enjoy....

Fab Four Appropriation

The Fossil Aerosol Mining Project makes music from audio artifacts. The idea is essentially one of a sonic version of an archaeological midden – a suite of interrelated artifacts, fragmented and decayed to various degrees, and lacking most of their original contexts. The Project has a penchant for sounds from 1980s post-apocalyptic and zombie films, for their double-whammy of irony and postmodernism.

There have been other themes, however – including the deconstruction of pop songs to create new sets of dislocated artifacts. These can be rearranged and artificially decomposed in such a way as to create a certain distance that allows for new perspective on familiar icons.

The Blank Album was one such project. Recorded in 2009, a suite of songs and soundscapes was modeled from fragments culled from an iconic White Album by a certain Fab Four. This had been done before - notably the Grey Album by Danger Mouse five years earlier.

The Blank Album was a little bit different. Some of the tracks were little musical Frankenstein monsters with a beat, and others were more elongated passages of heavily decomposed Beatlemania.

For obvious reasons, the album was not commercially released. But here are two tracks. The first is an example of a more pop-related song (unusual for Fossil Aerosol), and the second will be more recognizable to those familiar with their 25+ year catalog. There was also a music video, even.

Click on the track names below, and as the backwards record once said, “turn me on deadman”…. Enjoy.

THE WALRUS

Fossil Aerosol Mining Project

2009

SAVORY ENTROPY

Fossil Aerosol Mining Project

2009

If you like the material, check out more Fossil Aerosol HERE.

Fossil Aerosol Mining Project Anniversary - Moog

Celebrating 25 years of obscure recordings of very damaged things, here is a preview from  an upcoming Fossil Aerosol Mining Project release. Its actually older than 25 years – recorded with a Moog Prodigy back in 1983, four years before the naming of the band. Listen for the Zombi 2 relics, found at the abandoned drive-in. Click on the Moog to listen.

Enjoy, and please visit iTunes for more songs about the decay of us.

New Fossil Aerosol Mining Project CD

We are pleased to announce the release of the new Fossil Aerosol Mining Project album, Decades of Fake Resurrection. Celebrating 25 long years of making obscure electronica, this is a retrospective survey of material dating from 1986 - 2011. Dead places re-imagined, and contaminated things reactivated.

The Project began producing audio recordings during the mid-1980s, using literal “found sounds” such as fragments of open reel 1/4” tape and 35mm film recovered from burnt out warehouses and abandoned drive-in theaters. The earliest compositions involved physical tape loops and analog signal processes, which were gradually replaced by digital delay treatments and multi-track manipulation. All of Fossil Aerosol’s work is fashioned from multiple layers of audio artifacts, which are both naturally and artificially decomposed.

The new compilation is composed of unreleased or substantially remixed tracks. Included here are two tracks from the If You Enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead sessions – one remixed and one unreleased. Also an unreleased track composed for the 30^th anniversary of the Three Mile Island incident (Shango Over the Island) and for fans of Zoviet France, the tribute track Smuggled Through Zoviet France.

Find the new album on iTunes or Amazon.

And find a freebie not included on the new album here:

http://www.fossilaerosol.com/ArchaicSoundtrackRedux.mp3