Link to the Show / Show NotesTonites program looks at the group mind as reflected in three differrent pieces of audio artifact. The thrilling unity, the hellish hypocrisy, all inside the one mind. Clocking in at under 29 Minutes we begin with RFCL - Radio Free Clear Light and their forays into the Black Valley. A place I have journeyed with them a fortunate few times.
Inkxpotter provides the mix for the second piece with a montage of sound samples from a documentary he saw this week on the Salem Witch trials. The subtext of the documentary is to make a tenuous connection between the bewitchment of the Salem locals and food poisoning. Not ordinary food poisoning but ergot poisoning , and LSD is a component of ergot. Therefore we make the shaaky conclusion that the locals were having bad acid trips and the local outcasts must be behind it. Off with their heads, burn them at the stake!
The third piece is by Sunburned Hand of the Man - Gyp Hawkin off of Rare Wood. They are an improv collaborative process emerging in strangely unified pieces they create in the moment. The bottomline of Dave Alexander's bass rolls us into a tonal centre where the rest of the group can circle in orbits of whacked out activity. "The music feels like nothing you would feel comfortable trying to nail down in such literal, lunkhead fashion, but still imparts a sense of being simultaneously transcendent and elemental, loose limbed and precision tooled" (Wire 6/2004)