Inter-Dimensional Musicis North America’s Gnarliest Mix of Heavy Mellow, Kosmische Slop, and Void Contemplation Tactics. We’re coloring 30,000 square miles of Chihuahuan Desert airwaves every Sunday night at 11pm CT on Marfa Public Radio.
Vøid Contemplation Tacticsis your source for ID Music downloads for offline listenig, annotated setlists, and more thoughts on practicing non-self-improvement. It is a free newsletter and it is the only place online we’re updating regularly.
You can support these artists directly by purchasing their music at bandcamp.com/interdimensionalmusic, or sign-up for a paid Void Contemplation Tactics subscription and I’ll invest those funds on Bandcamp for you.
The Buddha studied many religions, but he was not satisfied with their practices. He could not find the answer in asceticism or in philosophies. He was not interested in some metaphysical existence, but in his own body and mind, here and now. And when he found himself, he found that everything that exists has Buddha nature. That was his enlightenment. Enlightenment is not some good feeling or some particular state of mind. The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture with each moment as it is, complete and full, is itself enlightenment.
Shunryu Suzuki Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
artist – work psychedelic source – singin’ train Jovontaes – Barbarian Pt.2 Gnod – Pilgrim’s Progress Gailes – Requiem For An Airport Television Newsreader Sadoul Ixchel – სამი The Cure – A Short Term Effect (Trilogy 2003 Live) Lebenden Toten – Near Dark Muslimgauze – Bedouin in Mercedes B1 psychedelic source – pure rain
Annotations:
• I modified the Suzuki quote with ital language from Joko Beck. One of the most awkward and intimidating things I had to do for the chaplaincy internship was call the Trauma-Neuro Intensive Care Unit meetings to order with a “prayer,” or in my case, a Zen reading. As I was saying before, Zen Mind is a guide toward practicing Zen – starting with posture and leveling up to saving all sentient beings. They weren’t sitting, they were eager for me to stop talking so they could go over patient charts, so I subbed out “sit in the right posture” for “sit with each moment as it is, complete and full.”
• Does everybody know about the extremely prolific Hungarian back yard garden jam band psychedelic source? It is some of the most laid-back psychedelic music I have heard in a long time, except for when it is squalling White Hills-style feedback jams. Their vertical railsides album is of the former variety, with a really nice frame drum thing plus every once in awhile you hear little kids running around. I also keep reading the title as vertical rail-slides because they only thing that would make it more chill is if it was about skating rather than trains. Also most (all?) of the music on their label is NYOP.
• vertical railslides could be the name of this reissue of Jovontaes 2011 Thief of Baghdad album which is “Named after 90s street skater Jovontae Turner, Jovontaes are a group of kids from the Lexington, KY community, tearing up both the psych and skateboarding scenes. Not doing what you’d expect from a bunch of skaters, these dudes are making caveman psych rock yet still sounding way weirder than the standard psych-jam band trying to live in the past of the 60s.” It blends seamlessly into the aforementioned Hungarian garden party jam band, unsurprisingly given the ease with which Midwestern skate kids transform into hippie punks. It isn’t NYOP, but it is only $1.
• Like psychedelic source, the prolific musician Sadoul Ixchel is a source of highly psychedelic tunes, though more in a SWANA-ish goth ambient zone. Much of it available for whatever you’d like to pay. As such, they are an artist whose melancholy spiritual ambience has become a fixture on ID Music. We don’t know much more about them, other than the Traktor DJ software I use to mix the show does NOT like Georgian fonts. It can be hard to keep up with their output, but when they add low key acoustic percussion to the already North African-leaning Grouper-informed gloom, I swoon.
• Sadoul Ixchel’s delicate and downpressing jams make for an easy complement to Robert Smith’s older and wiser version of “Short Term Effect” from The Cure’s overwhelming 2003 Trilogy Live bootleg, a lighthearted performance of the soul-crushing masterpieces Pornography, Disintegration, and the consistently underrated Bloodflowers.
• Watch out for the tinnitus-informed hardcore of Portland’s elusive Lebenden Toten at the end! Their sharp-edged and extremely catchy crasher crust is harder to track down than any other artist I’ve played on the show, I’m guessing they’re one of the most off-putting bands in the ID Music canon for people in my age group, and I absolutely cannot get enough of their Nausea meets Yellow Swans inna Uptown Circle Pit sound.
The teaching which is written on paper is not the true teaching. Written teaching is a kind of food for your brain. Of course it is necessary to take some food for your brain, but it is more important to be yourself by practicing the right way of life.
Shunryu Suzuki Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
artist – work Clams Casino – Wassup Bitchin Bajas – Jammu (2017.11.30 Hungry Brain, Chicago) Ricardo Villalobos – Samasai Autechre – YJY UX Nadja – Space Time & Absence Ricardo Villalobos & Max Lodebauer – Reblop DEAFKIDS – Cicatrizes Jeri Jeri – Xale Rhythm Clams Casino – Instrumentals Medley
Annotations:
• I have loved Clams Casino forever. I also used to like Salem and while I still enjoy their Gucci Mane tape, “witch house” with white guys saying the n-word tends to lose it’s appeal if you are more prone to scarfing candied drugs rather than scraping them around with sharp implements. “Cloud rap” from a white guy that helped A$AP Rocky and Lil’ B establish a distinctly psychedelic ‘00s aesthetic holds up much better. I read something once from Clams where he said he found source material by looking up music on youtube using search terms like “blue.” Youtube used to be good, but his vaporous vintage productions will always be the premier lo-fi beats to study, work, sleep, and relax to. Also, who wants to watch Lost Boys again for some reason?
• Bitchin Bajas is obviously a jam band and so while you should buy their albums you can also find some good and loose live recordings on the internet, such as the 2017 Chicago set featured on this broadcast. The “ID Music: Collision Mandalas” newsletter is about some videos I made with Baja Rob for his bird music project, and about the Bajas’ show in Marfa 10 years ago where my friend Sarah and I hung out with them and played an after-hours session tapping and hootin on some (unknown to us) extremely expensive pottery.
• DEAFKIDS are the best ones currently making post-punk post-world acid-house Afro-Cuban D-Beat that also includes heavily manipulated samples of dolphin communication isolation tank acid scientist John C. Lilly, and as such they are always welcome on the ID Music airwaves.
Inter-Dimensional Music
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The Chihuahuan Desert’s Top-Ranking Mix of Yin Yoga Slow Jams, Screwed Down Dharma Talks, and Irie Cosmic Metal returns to Marfa Public Radio tonight from 9-11p CT. Join your host Cosmic Chambo the first Sunday of every month at 93.5FM in Far West Texas, streaming worldwide at marfapublicradio.org.
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Preparing for next week’s February edition of Inter-Dimensional Music on Marfa Public Radio, navigating raga headspace with the help of Tawfiq and Tanarang. Of all our recent discoveries, Raga Bhairavi is perhaps the most enchanting, and has now become part of our regular morning routine at the Indianapolis Zen Center. From Tanarang’s raag index …
Any one who claims to know or appreciate music cannot be unaware of the queen of melodies i.e. Raag Bhairavi. The soft (Komal) notes and their smooth rendering with pleasing touches – Khatke, Jhatke and Murkiyan simply mesmerizes the audience. A pleasant sobering atmosphere full of love and piety is created and one feels so close to the Supreme. Its compositions include several Thumris, Bhajans, Ghazals, Songs etc. Since it is an ocean of immense possibilities the melodic combitions can include all the twelve notes with skill.
Renditions from flute specialists such as Pannalal Ghosh and Tanjore Viswanathan are highly recommended: An ideal complement to John‘s coffee and morning practice. Tune in to ID Music on Marfa Public Radio this Sunday, February 5 from 9-11pm CT for more.
Forever Sucking Dry, my cetacean-mind-communion soundtrack to Ballroom Marfa’s Desert Surf Films series from August is now streaming. Many thanks to Travis Bubenik and Gory Smelley for help recording and editing the mix for broadcast. The setlist includes songs from Aloha Spirit, Emeralds, Former Selves, These Trails, Buffy Sainte-Marie and more, underscored by surf ambience, whalesongs, and a cameo from Magaret Howe and her dolphin lover, Peter.
You can find an 11” x 17” print of the Forever Sucking Dry image as the centerfold ofStay Golden, a desert surf films ‘zine designed and edited for Ballroom Marfa by Hilary duPont, Liz Janoff and Ian Lewis. Available for $10 (cheap!) from Ballroom Marfa. The ‘zine also includes prose, poetry and artwork from Joshua Edwards, Tim Johnson, Eileen Myles and Brandon Shimoda.
Inter-Dimensional Music returns with the Big Bend’s Number One broadcast of white magic and black metal tonight, February 1, 2015. If you’re out here in Far West Texas tune in from 9-11p (CST) on the first Sunday of each month at KRTS 93.5 FM in Marfa, KRTP 91.7 FM in Alpine and KDKY 91.5 FM in Marathon. You can also stream the show live at marfapublicradio.org, and find archived sets on Soundcloud.
In the first hour we’re going to relive our late ’90s turn as a Los Angeles rave reporter for techno/hip-hop magazineURB by sifting through the trove of tracks that Aphex Twin released earlier this week. The deluge of new music triggered a massive serotonin rush in listeners of a certain age, for whom AFX represents a kind of ideal synthesis of hip-hop’s low-end thump, slinky earworms, Eno-esque ambient glide, and Throbbing Gristle-worthy transgression.
A quick summary of why some people are very excited: Richard D. James hadn’t released any new music since 2001’sDrukqs. He emerged with three new things in the past year: A single copy of a mostly unheard 1994 album of spastic breakbeat, Caustic Window, sold at auction for $46,300 to the guy who created Minecraft; an immediately beloved new album called Syro; and then a trickier EP, Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2. Arrival of said music was heralded, in part, by the appearance of an Aphex Twin blimp in the skies over London.
Last week the ever-vigilant AFX superfans who scour the internet for any sign of the wily musician discovered aSoundcloud user who was uploading songs that sounded a lot like classic Aphex Twin. Word spread, obsessive fans debated their authenticity on message boards, and as the user48736353001 account posted more and more music aconsensus emerged that these were the real deal. Those listeners of a certain age began to rejoice as the catalog of new-old music grew to 110 songs. For some perspective, imagine if D’Angelo followed up on Black Messiah by giving away eight albums of top-shelf unheard material from his decade of silence.
The prankish nature of the release made it seem even more intimate, as the user now assumed to be the man himself cracked wise and offered inebriated philosophy in the comments … (more…)
As the Darkness creeps over the Northern mountains of Marfa and the silence reach the woods, I awake and rise… Into the night I wander, like many nights before, and like in my dreams, but centuries ago.
