INTER-DIMENSIONAL MUSIC is 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 TACTICS is your source for ID Music downloads for offline listening, annotated setlists, slop-style Zen, and more thoughts on practicing non-self-improvement. It is a free, monthly-ish newsletter: Blessed are the lurkers, and all subscribers saints!
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artist – work IKSRE – falling snow Jay Duncan – Mondariz ft. Cha Cha Muslimgauze – Drugsherpa (Long) Ras Michael – Fool’s Gold Alpha & Omega – Back Against The Wall of Babylon Ibrahim Hesnawi – Al Hob Wal Salam Shamek Farrah & Folks – Waiting for Marvin Nightmares On Wax & Kuauhtli Vasquez & Wixarika Tribe – Back To Nature (Ricardo Villalobos Back To Earth Mix) IKSRE – forest stream
annotations:
• This week’s practice begins and eventually comes to an end with some of my favorite ambient music in recent memory, an immersive album from IKSRE that “follows the arc of a traditional sound bath, expanded through field recordings and layered instrumentation that reflect water’s shifting states. Alongside crystal and Himalayan singing bowls, handpan, gongs, voice, and acoustic instruments, she incorporates bass, synthesisers, and ambient electronics.” Light percussion takes formless ambient music to a whole other level, as demonstrated by the Sadoul Ixchel selections to which I am partial. Maybe it’s because it’s comparatively easy to sustain a pleasant synth tone and play some cricket sounds, but when you start doing rhythms it’s much more obvious if you don’t know what you’re doing? IKSRE is an acronym for I Keep Seeing Rainbows Everywhere, and IKSRE knows what they are doing.
• Despite occasionally harshing the mellow with bands like Lebenden Toten, at this point ID Music is more of a heavy reggae show than a heavy metal show. This program is no exception, with surprisingly sinister nyabinghi vibes from Ras Michael vs Muslimgauze and speaker-wrecking bass from Alpha & Omega, but the riddim and voicing in heaviest rotation here at Cosmic Chambo Studio is this compilation of North African livity and lover’s rock irations from Ibrahim Hesnawi, The Father of Libyan Reggae.
• One of the ways I coped with the intensity of Zen Chaplain Trauma One Summer Camp was listening almost exclusively to Ricardo Villalobos remixes and I’m still totally mesmerized by his long-form Nightmares on Wax& Kuauhtli Vasquez & Wixarika Tribe sessions with Max Loderbauer. As with much of Villalobos’ work, the dissociative “ketamine house” tag sticks cuz I can’t remember what happens over “Back To Nature (Ricardo Villalobos Back To Earth Mix)”s 15 minutes after it ends and halfway through I think surely this is a different track, which is not surprising given all of the people contributing to the sound. Also there’s a couple people talking unintelligibly in the background through a lot of it or wait are they actually here in the apartment?
• Bandcamp is the only good social network because I know what it costs me up front. And sometimes one comes across a reissue of an impossible to find and endlessly joyous 1978 spiritual jazz love-bomb from Shamek Farrah & Friends for One Quid. It is the opposite of all of the bad vibes happening right now in the world. Shamek Farrah is one of the first jazz guys I liked who wasn’t one of the main jazz guys, and First Impressions is still end-to-end spiritual jazz burners.
On the one hand yes all jazz is spiritual but . . . if Strata-East is Spiritual Jazz does that mean Underground Resistance is Dialectical Materialist Jazz?
Find the fully annotated setlist and downloads for offline listening in the free Vøid Contemplation Tactics newsletter from Cosmic Chambo Studio.
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.
Find the fully annotated setlist and downloads for offline listening in the free Vøid Contemplation Tactics newsletter from Cosmic Chambo Studio.
“Smooth Jazz for Armagideon Times” is the second in our Pure Flow series of newsletter-exclusive mixes. For this volume, it’s two hours of heavyweight jazz and jazz-like abstractions informed by mindfulness practices ranging from the ascetic to the lysergic. It’s a “less dharma talk, more dharma rock” soundtrack for taking it easy while maintaining awareness, a refuge from harsh ‘20s reality, and a chance to recharge before we resume cutting through all of the endless delusions in these Armagideon Times. As always, mixed “live-to-FLAC” from the yoga mat at Cosmic Chambo Studio.
artist – work Six Six (Anthony Pirog | Luke Stewart) – Before (edit) John Coltrane – Om, Pt. 1 (edit) Shabaka – Black Meditation Contours – Eastern Bells ft Beka Reid & Seth Sutton Chicago Underground Duo – Hermeto Jon Hassell – Tonkwave (Maarifa Street Jazzfest, Berlin 2006) Norman W Long – Sikan I Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid – We Dream Free (edit) Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer – Rensenada Chelsea Carmichael – There Is A Place (It’s Not Here) Jamael Dean – Olokun Yesterdays New Quintet – Vibes From The Tribe Suite (For Phil) (edit) Philip Cohran And the Artistic Heritage Ensemble – New Frankiphone Blues Yesterdays New Quintet – Vibes From The Tribe Suite (For Phil) (edit) Bengt Berger & Don Cherry – Tongsi Santana – Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation Spencer Zahn, Jacob Bergson, Austin Tufts – Mile X Shamek Farrah – First Impressions Tortoise – Everglade Creation Rebel – African Space Tortoise & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Love Is Love Six Six (Anthony Pirog | Luke Stewart) – Before (edit) John Coltrane – Om, Pt. 1 (edit)
Find the fully annotated setlist and downloads for offline listening in the Vøid Contemplation Tactics newsletter from Cosmic Chambo Studio. Blessed are the lurkers, and all subscribers saints!
