The Golden Apples of the Sun

Radio Show – 19 September 2021 -Episode 542

G O L D E N A P P L E S O F T H E S U N

blue skies – flowers – birdsong

synths++

blissed out for days…

presented by Claude Mono

LISTEN

Restream the show here

Mixcloud HQ Mixtape here – just the music

SLEEVE NOTES

Imagine – a strangely wonderful track taken from the 1976 album ‘A Forest Is…’ produced for the United States Department of Agriculture – Forest Service. Featuring Ray Schmitt and the Free State String Band.

Beautiful gentle synth sounds plus birdsong from Masami Tsuchiya on the track ‘Never Mind’  from a double flexi-disc & art book released via CBS/Sony Japan, 1985 – for me a recent discovery on a mixtape from Julien Dechery one half, along with DJ Sundae  of the curators of the legendary Sky Girl Compilation out of Efficient Space and much loved on the Golden Apples

Masami Tsuchiya also part of Japanese synthpop trio of the early 1980s Ippu-do – played  – Nightgulls of Night Mirage

John Travolta – Rainbows – John Travolta LP – a gorgeous in looks and vocals young John Travolta – 1976

Two tracks from Antenna and the LP Quiet fx – Antenna is Sasha from Ukraine who is a friend of Kai Hugo who is also known as Palmbomen II and is a new project on Kai’s World of Paint label  – check out his new LP on how to make a new age film

Bibio – Capel Celyn – Phantom Brickworks – by English producer Stephen Wilkinson, known by his stage name Bibio. Released on 3 November 2017, The album is a set of improvised compositions consisting of simple piano, synth, and guitar loops surrounded by tape hiss and field recordings. Making the songs based on the concept that “places can be haunted by meaning,”

The grainy crackle and otherworldy sounds of Black to Comm and the track Hotel Freund from the LP Alphabet 1968 released on Thrill Jockey. Black to Comm is producer and sound artist Marc Richter who armed with an array of smudged samples and found sounds collected by Richter from across the history of recorded music and altered into new shapes

“Capel Celyn was a rural community to the north west of Bala in Gwynedd, north Wales, in the Afon Tryweryn valley. The village and other parts of the valley were flooded to create a reservoir, Llyn Celyn, in order to supply Liverpool and Wirral with water for industry. The village contained, among other things, a chapel, as the name of the community suggests, capel being Welsh for chapel.” William Basinski – Disintegration Loop 1.1 consists of one static shot of Lower Manhattan billowing smoke during the last hour of daylight on September 11th, 2001, set to the decaying pastoral tape loop Basinski had recorded in August 2001. Shot from Basinski’s roof in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It is a tragically beautiful cinema verite elegy dedicated to those who perished in the atrocities of September 11th, 2001.

The Disintegration Loops, (Bandcamp) was created out of tape loops Basinski made back in the early 1980s. he just wanted to transfer the loops from analog reel-to-reel tape to digital hard disk. However, once he started the transfer, he discovered something: the tapes were old and were disintegrating as they played and he recorded them. As he notes in the liner notes, “The music was dying.” But he kept recording, documenting the death of these loops.

There is a great interview on Radio National’s Music Show (listen here) where William Basinski discusses in detail the whole process around the creation of the recordings and its forever associations with 9/11

PLAYLIST

Zalla aka Piero Umiliani – Risale (excerpt) – Paesaggi – 1971

Marden Hill – Oh Constance – Cadaquez

Hong Kong In The 60s – Now Boarding The Arrival – Places

Lo Five – A Pivotal Moment – When It’s Time to Let Go

The Bilinda Butchers – Lost In Translation – Away Demos

Ray Schmitt and Free State String Band – Imagine

Masami Tsuchiya – Never Mind – Alone

Ippu-do – Nightgulls – Night Mirage

John Travolta – Rainbows – John Travolta

Antenna – This Room – Quiet fx

Antenna – They Won’t Regret – Quiet fx

Black to Comm – Hotel Freund – Alphabet 1968

Bibio – Capel Celyn – Phantom Brickworks

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops 1.1 – great interview about this here

Beyond the Black Rainbow OST – Welcome to Arboria

Kirk Degiorgio’s Offworld – Opus 3 – Two Worlds – 2002

Mick Chillage – Flashback – Sky Gazing

I-boat Captain – Slower (The Backwoods remix) – Is It Balearic

Hampshire and Foat – Coastal Drive – Nightshade – 2018

Pacific Coliseum – Ocean City – Ocean City Cassette – 2017

Gattaca OST – The Wind Caught It (dialogue)

Ciel – The Twirler (Central Remix) – Hundred Flows EP – 2018

Sound of Ceres – The Trance – The Twin

Symmetry – Jackies Eyes – Themes for an Imaginary Film

Johnny Jewel – Slow Dreams – Windswept

Johnny Jewel – Andromeda – Themes for Television

Ashley Slater – Private Sunshine (Big Lounge Album Mix) – Secret Love

Marden Hill – Bardot – Secret Love

Marden Hill – Curtain – Cadaquéz