"The doors are where the windows should be, and the windows are where the doors should be."
Well, it took awhile but I finally managed to track down the source of the above sample in the Earth Leakage Trip song No Idea (Shadow 1), a children's LP about the impossible planet OOOOF, which now I have to track down so I can play it to the kids.
I like it when records set you off on searches like that, it was always one of the best things about sampling when it came out, especially then when I really had chance to scuttle around record shops looking for spoken word albums because they featured on a MAARS remix or a Pop Will Eat Itself song. I didn't even mind it too much when people started re-using the same samples, in fact I liked it...
OK I got a little sick of Blade Runner - but that's because I was already sick of the film, still love hearing 2001 A Space Odyssey samples, even now when 'My MMMMMMMind Is Going' has been rendered utterly prosaic through overuse. I mean I think I first heard it used on The Shamen's Phorward 10" or at a gig at Exeter University (whichever came first) and since then it must have been on loads of records, normally psy-trance / ethnogaian sludge and every time I hear it there's a little warm glow because
Samples are the nearest that music gets to a collective unconscious, as if there's a vast but finite repository of archetypes out there, waiting to be plucked and placed; forms and symbols that are universal in terms of meaning and yet can be subtly manipulated through culture so that the messages appear simultaneously new and ancient.
This is what I meant when I said I found the ethnogaian world acid sludge comforting - I might not want them to be but these people are using my symbols and so they are my people...
I have a reasonably eclectic (hated that word until a dementor on Big Brother misused it) taste in music - today I've played Michael Nyman, Serge Gainsbourg, Clouddead, Kate Bush, Momus, ElpH, Mozart, Venetian Snares, The Surfaris, Orbital, Kevin Ayers, Hantarash (accidentally), The Kinks, The Rapture, Lily Allen... mostly via the medium of dancing round the kitchen with the kids - but give me any type of assault on my system (stress, drugs, especially drugs) and I retreat to soft Shponglesque ethnogaian sludge every time. There's just something about the way the best of these kind of tracks ebb and flow, the way the samples say exactly what you want them to say exactly when...
Yeah, I know, being on mushrooms or whatever dosn't exactly mean you're being objective about how appropriate everything seems but that state of mind is sort of what those records are for, isn't it? I mean, I have a lot of Whitehouse and Merzbow and New Blockader records but I don't even think of playing them when I'm wasted... it's more than just choice, isn't it?
Actually, the times for playing those records are dwindling slightly - I can't remember when I played them, it was generally part of some complex, macho arsewipe, best-forgotten, acid-tinged, psycho-drama thing me and a few friends had going, I think. A drama that a few sadly never fully emerged from...
Lightweights :)
Anyway, it seems unlikely that me being attracted and, well, warmed by certain strands of musical DNA is accidental, or mere coincidence... it could be just happy associations of dancing in the trees but I'm pretty convinced that it's more than that. Something is trying to tell me something, even if it's just me.
It's the 7th circuit. Which is why I probably read about the 8 circuit model in the first place.
CCCC.
Maybe I'm reminding myself that within the collective unconcious there's a little tray of goodies that is resolutely understandable by me. Maybe I'm trying to save myself from the worry of all those symbols out there which I have no way (yet) of comprehending, a musical secure base, like a small child using it's parent as a centre of gravity with a radius to explore...
Christ, just started out wanting to say how good this track is - not ethnosludge at all but something which sounds like it was put together sideways, only the very early 90s basslines near the end give it away as an oldie. Again, very unheimlich. Fantastic stuff...
A Yousendit Elemental Moon Anthem
Even the "I can't see you mummy!" sample sounds familiar. Is that from some kind of 60s sci-fi TV show? One that reminds me of Forbidden Planet? It's on the tip on my braintongue...
PS: Never really checked the Moving Shadow label out on record. Have a few 12"s but none of them sound even remotely like this. Any suggestions? Compilation CDs that are good etc?
9 comments:
What a great track. The end bit reminds me of Coil's The Snow (into which it would mix perfectly . . . . )
That same sample was also used by Earth Leakage Trip on their earlier track The Doors on Rising High's Techno Classics compilation.
The 'Happy Monsters' LP is pretty great: the story is on Side A along with songs on Side B (which are basically a studio band covering cuts like 'CC Rider' with added "monster" noises)...
I've used it before for DJ-ing: it works particularly well in a mix with 'Death of a Robot' by Pete Kember and the 'Forbidden Planet' soundtrack...
If I ever get round to burning it to mp3, I'll let you know and you can have a copy...
Hey Loki. I noticed you tried to post a comment on my blog, but comments have been screwy since I changed my template. I do wonder what you had to say, so will ya email me (blankcrisis@yahoo.com) or just reply here.
The windows are were the doors should be,
Neal
The seagulls do it for me. I love seagulls.
'So confusing!'
Neil...can't remember what I said or meant to say, probably something about how great Patrick Swayze's hair is or howcome anything written about him had to achieve some form of divine beauty...
Molly, I love seagulls too, reminds me of hotel rooms with the shower cubicle in the middle of the room..
Nic.. I'd LOVE a copy if you ever do get around to whacking it onto mp3....
Cheers for the info snarl...i'll have to track that down now... see what you mean by the similarity to the Coil track btw
Happy Monsters is a sister record to the more well-known Bobby & Betty Go to the Moon, which provided a great raft of samples all over the first Orb album. You know, all that "And now we will have a great lunar party..." stuff.
After this EP there were two on Rising High (Virtuality, Neapolitan) and some compilation appearances, and then a monster twelve on their own label called Sort Your Head out which marries their woozy drift with some busy Can drums over a twenty minute title track and two shorter flipside companions. So good.
I always assumed that freaky little girl going "Mommy, I can't see you, Mommy" was from Poltergeist, the scene where the little girl is sucked inside the TV set, but happy to be corrected.
Marco @ Frank's
cheers for the info Marco... i think you're right about the Poltergeist sample now i come to think of it... it's been used somewhere else though hasn't it?
Hi,I sold a copy of the Monsters lp a year or so ago,and i couldnt remember where i had heard the doors and windows bit before-a year later i figured it out,i really need to hear the Earth Leakage Trip song No Idea if you can upload it again,that would be very nice.
Enjoy:
http://www.zshare.net/download/989510709c42a947/
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