Illusion Of Safety - Water Seeks Its Own Level

From Allmusic.com : "Dan Burke formed the shadowy experimental/isolationist collective Illusion of Safety. He works with a loose lineup of eight people -- usually two to three per project -- and has released more than ten albums of ambient music, sparked by occasional flashes of industrial and thrash/funk. Burke also works as Fixated, Lilycrusher and Cubensis, and issues much material through his own Complacency label."

"Water Seeks Its Own Level" was released by Silent Reocrds in 1994.

Get it here : Illusion Of Safety - Water Seeks Its Own Level

William S. Burroughs - Break Through in Grey Room

From Allmusic.com : "Break Through in Grey Room is a collection of William S. Burroughs' speeches and cut-up recordings performed and recorded between 1960 and 1976. Some are actual pieces, and others are discussions of the pieces, such as "Origin and Theory of the Tape Cut-Ups," which he read at Boulder's Naropa University in 1976. Burroughs' incredibly detached voice only sounds better with age. He seems to exist between two worlds, and he constantly jumps back and forth from the conscious to the subconscious. In fact, one can hardly tell at any time which world it is that he inhabits. The bulk of the disc is consumed by one cut-up piece entitled "K-9 Was in Combat With the Alien Mind-Screens," which Burroughs claims was the result of writing as an art form, attempting to catch up to the advanced world of collage painting. This was one of Burroughs' earlier collaborations with Ian Sommerville. The Brion Gysin piece that Burroughs uses as a sample ("Recalling All Active Agents") is a brilliantly textured two-track recording that was made at the BBC studios in 1960 utilizing the drop-in method that Burroughs speaks about. This method entails a tape recorder recording a different player whilst randomly speeding up, slowing down, reversing, and advancing the second player. What occurs is a blubbery and blurry mess of words that surprisingly creates new sentences and phrases. Here Burroughs claims, "When you cut into the present the future leaks out." Other tracks are simply found sound field recordings. One such piece, "Jojouka," features Ornette Coleman playing in the hills of Morocco, recorded in January of 1973. This is a thoroughly interesting record of all of the types of recordings in which Burroughs took part in during his 87-year life, and serves as the perfect introduction to the tape experiments of the most intriguing of all of the beat writers."



"Break Through in Grey Room" was released by Sub Rosa in 1986.

Get it here : William S. Burroughs - Break Through in Grey Room

Michael Mantra - Sonic Alter

From Discogs.com : "Michael Mantra creates Ambient music. More than that, he creates tools for "brain hemisphere synchronization" (after synchronizing the mind and the body, Mantra's work claims to release endorphins - part of the human body's natural pharmacy which work at the level of opiates). Mixing modulating high and low harmonic tones (low deep drones and high resonating harmonics) with didgeridoo, ocean waves, rain, water, birds and other natural sounds and instruments, Michael creates a perfect ambient soundscape for the ultimate relaxation trip.

Mantra attempts to create sound structures that "induce a meditative state that synchronizes brain wave frequencies" or, more simply put by Mantra himself, create "Brain Hemisphere Harmonic Healing". From the early cassette only releases "Sonic Transform" with John Now and "Sonic Satori" to the CD release on Silent "Sonic Alter" and the brilliant follow-up "Sonic Continuum" with Silent Records contributor Rod Modell, Mantra strives to keep the Ambient "ethic" of the early 90's "chill out" vibe alive."

"Sonic Alter" was released by Silent Records in 1994.

Get it here : Michael Mantra - Sonic Alter

Ultra-Red - Structural Adjustments

From Discogs.com : "Since the late 1990s, Ultra-red have featured the following four artist-activists: Elizabeth Blaney (artist, organizer, Union De Vecinos), Pablo Garcia (musician, organizer, Woodcraft Rangers), Dont Rhine (artist, AIDS activist), and Leonardo Vilchis (artist, organizer, Union De Vecinos).

More recently, the band has expanded further with new members Manuela Bojadzijev, Janna Graham, Taisha Paggett, Elliot Perkins (formerly Phonem), and Robert Sember."

"Structural Adjustments" was released by Mille Plateaux in 2000.

Get it here : Ultra-Red - Structural Adjustments

Ultra-Red - Second Nature

From Discogs.com : "Ultra-red has established partnerships with community-based organizations like the Union de Vecinos in East Los Angeles and, internationally, with Ballymun Women's Resource Centre in Dublin, Ireland and the Germany-based migration and anti-racist network Kanak Attak. In addition to these groups, a number of artists have entered into tactical and provisional alliances with Ultra-red for purposes of specific and on-going cooperation. Some of these artists include Eddie Peel (of Sony Mao and Needle), Elliot Perkins (aka Phonem), Terre Thaemlitz, and others. To offer an outlet for the release of projects to come out of these alliances, in 2004 Ultra-red launched Public Record, a fair-use on-line archive for audio, text, image and video documents."

"Second Nature" was released by Mille Plateaux in 1999.

Get it here : Ultra-Red - Second Nature

Etant Donnés - L'Autre Rive / Le Sens Positif [2 x CD]

"ETANT DONNÉS is a duet by Eric and Marc Hurtado created in Grenoble in 1980. From this French town, it rapidly became international, especially in Europe.
Born in 1959 and 1962 respectively, in Rabat, Morocco, the two brothers have chosen both orality and writing, with a clear, semantic word, yet without the burden of grammar.
Through them, it is the volume of each word that becomes an object-sculpture, together with the power of their bodies expressing their voices.
Each event is the scream - indeed even the glissando -
of the strength of the word that sometimes abruptly becomes a rock, a solid surface, not in the least fluvial, as is the narrative of a tale, novel or poetic epic.
With both of them, no more trace of ancient prosodies,
no more trace the incomprehensible Sainte-Beuve who could claim: "I have to collect a volume of prose".
The word, the voice, the volume take shape with each other, unveiling a theatre that theatre usually ignores, which has given it such things as a Samuel Beckett's Fin de Partie.
Moreover listening to Aurore, our two actors' CD, undoubtedly owing to the influence of the Mediterranean cradle, single umbilical cord of two great religions, the influence of both Latin and Arab worlds - Gaelic short and long sounds can sometimes be perceived - since their dictions are such a synthesis of several origins.
Nothing is left here of the schools of a Charles Dullin, so dear to the Comédie Française. On the contrary, ETANT DONNÉS is a corporal and semantic circus, yet without semantics.

With their oral and combinative strengths, Eric and Marc give us the action of theatre, from which dictions and descriptive declamations disappear. I could write to them in early December 1994: "[...] in the power of voices and semantics, as well as in the severe body/mind combination, inseparable from each other, I find in Aurore a song of the bodies, indispensable to any sound values. "
In addition to their violences, their sensuous delicacies often in these word cutouts, their nakedness and lights -indeed even made up - come accounts of naked men who need neither conventional costumes nor the devices of traditional stages any more.
What I felt on listening to Aurore was confirmed by Patrick Bossati in May 1992, in this excerpt:
"Be it poetry, cinema, sound, stage, everything the two of them do is done with a kind of rage that leaves you stunned. Their sound, for example, extensive, grave and apocalyptic, mixed from amplified natural elements, make those who listen dumbfounded. Their art is staggering in every respect, in the 16th century sense of the French word 'sidérant', when it meant: 'influenced by the stars'. Their music is a radioscopy of the chaos of the universe and of matter."

This duet, I insist, took form in 1980. It is part of the ineluctable (re)birth of oralities - exorcists - both re-discovered and discovered in the electronic worlds. Together with the passion of travels, where Etant Donnés is "staggering in every respect".
Any true sound poetry is shattering, the really oral one is there in space, with the plus of the media machines, of the voices that slip through them, overwhelming them with the splendour of the bodies." (Henri Chopin)



"L'Autre Rive / Le Sens Positif" was released by Staalplaat in 1992.

Get it here : Etant Donnés - L'Autre Rive / Le Sens Positif

Audiolab [2 x CD Boxset]

From the liner notes : "Audiolab is made up of a series of different sound pieces, specifically produced to be diffused inside an architectural module, created by young French designers. This space or listening chamber has been made to receive the visitor and allow for the optimal and environmental diffusion of sound. Patrick Jouin, Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec as well as Laurent Massaloux have in this way each created a listening and sound immersion module, in which the sound works are diffused and made spatial.

This compilation brings together the works produced by Audiolab 1 and 2, respectively conceived by Patrick Jouin and the Bouroullec brothers."

Audiolab 1 :
1-1   Alejandra & Aeron – Pueblos Asolados, Underwater Villages
1-2   Monolake – Idle_Time
1-3   Laetitia Bénat – Tahl (AA Edit)
1-4   Rupert Huber – A Movement In The Waiting Room
1-5   Rebecca Bournigault – Intentions
1-6   Radio Mentale – Thousands Of Records (Walking Tree Mix) featuring David Toop
1-7   Henrik Plenge Jakobsen – Plasmatic Prisms
1-8   Vladislav Delay – Stand-Alone

Audiolab 2 :
2-1   To Rococo Rot – Untitled
2-2   Dorine_Muraille – Branleuse, With Attitude
2-3   AGF – DownBYtheLAKE
2-4   Doug Aitken & Steve Roden – Time Can't Stop Now Part 1
2-5   Doug Aitken & Steve Roden – Time Can't Stop Now Part 2
2-6   Doug Aitken & Steve Roden – Time Can't Stop Now Part 3
2-7   Cameron Jamie – Spook House Field Recording
2-8   Curd Duca – Digitalanalog Suite
2-9   Xavier Veilhan & David Artaud – Dourdan

"Audiolab" was released by Lucky Kitchen in 2003.

Get it here : Audiolab

V.V. - The Animals In These Cages Are Injured In Some Way And Would Probably Die If Released

"V.V. is Ven Voisey, a multi-diciplinary artist living in North Adams, Massachusetts. Born in Richmond, CA, Voisey grew up in the East Bay Area of Northern California. In 2000, he received a BA from San Francisco State University in a multi-diciplinary major combining Electronic music with Conceptual Art. In 2003, Voisey moved to North Adams, MA. Since then he has been working with a variety of arts organizations and making work in his studio. In 2010 he was Artist-in-Residence at the Berkshire Museum and received the Individual Artist grant from Local Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire." (www.v---v.net)

"The Animals In These Cages..." was released by Aesova in 2002.

Get it here : V.V. - The Animals In These Cages...