The title of this mix (which comes from a great album by Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood) intends not to separate animality from humanity but to recognize that they are one and the same. Here are utterances that transcend the apocryphal distinctions between species: raw, primal, even harrowing at times, but always genuine, much more so than “words” could ever be.

© John C. Filer

00:00. Lorenzo Abattoir – “First Act” from Disincarnazione (Flag Day, 2023)

05:26. Rudolf Eb.er & Will Guthrie – “Hilt VII” from Hilt (Fragment Factory, 2022)

08:06. The Bears – “August 22 2000” from First Single (Omnium Gatherum, 2000)

08:47. Patrick Farmer & David Lacey – Pictures of men. [excerpt] (Copy for Your Records, 2013)

11:56. Dogeeseseegod – “Million Orb Face” from Try Put Your Hand Right Through Me (Choccy Monk, 2013)

13:23. This Is Yvonne Lovejoy – “Leg Dentist” [excerpt] from Decapitatío (My Dance the Skull, 2020)

15:02. Lutto Lento – “Duch Pierwszy” [excerpt] from Duch Gór (Sangoplasmo, 2012)

19:15. Alice Kemp – “Spore Tongue for a Rotting May Queen” from Fill My Body with Flowers and Rice (Fragment Factory, 2016)

27:14. Barn Sour – “Snaffle Bit” from Conté for Dick (72 Fold Mane, 2019)

29:44. Micro_Penis – “UNGG” from Süra Wald (Choccy Monk, 2022)

33:59. Daniel Löwenbrück – “Grievance Studies” [excerpt] from Gavøl (Tochnit Aleph, 2024)

36:06. Mathieu Ruhlmann & Banks Bailey – “Beautiful in His Voice” from Anáádiih (3LEAVES, 2011)

Please donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Today (December 24, 2023) at 8:00 p.m. Bethlehem time, Radio Alhara broadcast “Christmas in Mourning,” a program featuring the voice of Church of the Nativity choir head Laurence Sammour and composed by Beirut sound artists Abed Kobeissy and Sary Moussa. The following is their own description of the work:

It is with profound humility that we approached this work particularly in light of the inhumane brutality that present-day Palestine is witnessing. The immense cultural and spiritual significance of this land weighs heavily on us. Throughout the writing process Laurence’s voice and his presence served as a testament to an enduring vitality that this musical tradition holds. We hope this sonic piece reflects our awe of the heritage on which it is based, as well as our deep appreciation of the opportunity to contribute in producing art that, in many ways, sheds a brief light on the story of Palestine and its people. This commissioned work asserts Bethlehem’s decision to cancel all festive aspects of this year’s Christmas while Gaza is fiercely facing what can only be described as the purest forms of evil. For us, as musicians from Beirut, to be given the opportunity to be part of this stand, is a treasured privilege, to say the least.

00:00. Abed Kobeissy, Sary Moussa & Laurence Sammour – “Christmas in Mourning” [excerpt]

04:00. Sary Moussa – “Distance” from Imbalance (Other People, 2020)

04:25. Msylma & Ismael – “Enter Stage Right” from مذاهب النسيان [The Tenets of Forgetting] (Éditions Appærent, 2022)

11:28. Asifeh – “Ride Into Haze” from 2003 (self-released, 2020)

14:21. Bint Mbareh with Kareem Simara – “Jineen”

20:55. Fadi Tabbal – “Ceremony by the Sea” from Subject to Potential Errors and Distortions (Ruptured, 2020)

24:34. Yousef Anastas – “Through the Storm, in Your Arms” [excerpt]

28:19. داكنْ [Dakn] – “ج​و​ا ب​ع​ي​د [Too Low, Too Far]” from Too Low, Too Far (Bilna’es, 2020)

30:50. Petrels – “Concrete” from Haeligewielle (Tartaruga, 2011)

37:51. “Christmas in Mourning” [ending]

The circle of souls gathered around a fire becomes its own insular universe for the night, a space of shadows and secrets where even the tallest of tales ring truer than death knells. Step shivering into the worlds of these storytellers, where their true identities as oracles or deceivers are not just obscured, but obsolete. Playful scares, arcane séances, surreal premonitions, dreadful dreams. Ghosts and ghouls and grief. Fiction and memory are strange but inseparable tentfellows.

Tom Shropshire

00:00. Unknown Artist – A side [beginning] of Campfire Tales (Tribe Tapes, 2020)

00:38. Ahulabrum – “Also the Smell of Cinnamon” from Daimonic Reality (Atrocity Altar, 2021)

06:16. The False Face Society – first part [excerpt] of Running Me Down (Index Clean, 2020)

08:35. Ghost Food – “Accidental Invocation” from ROT GM (Sweet Wreath, 2022)

12:48. Miranda July – “WSNO” [excerpt] from The Binet-Simon Test (Kill Rock Stars, 1998)

15:15. Ruth White – “Spleen” from Flowers of Evil (Limelight, 1969)

18:04. Fantom Auditory Operations – “Child Witch and the Watcher” [excerpt] from The Child Witch of Pilot’s Knob (The Tapeworm, 2011)

20:43. Vincent Price – “To Raise the Dead” from Tales of Witches, Ghosts and Goblins (Caedmon, 1972)

21:18. No Artist – outro of Map of the Interior (Vitrine, 2014)

25:29. “Jack Sutton contacts Dead Airmen” from Okkulte Stimmen: Mediale Musik (Supposé, 2007)

27:30. Filter Body – “Cactus Hotel” [excerpt] from Filter Body 2 (218, 2021)

28:36. Come Look with Me – “Terra Morgana.” from To Air Is Human (self-released, 2020)

31:53. The Marshmallow Ghosts – B side [excerpt] of The Witch Hat House (Graveface, 2017)

36:01. Unknown Artist – B side [excerpt] of Campfire Tales

37:45. Ivor Cutler – “The Darkness” from Dandruff (Virgin, 1974)

Algorithmically generated earworms for the silicone-studded late-capitalist nightmare.

00:00. Pimmon – “Perry Como” from top40fodder (fals.ch, 1999)

01:10. In Posterface – “Born On” from Its Terminal (Winning Sperm Party, 2016)

06:39. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – “ABC Auto Industry” from Dazzle Ships (Virgin, 1983)

08:37. sneeze awfull – “quantum” from sneeze awfull (self-released, 2019)

14:42. Jenn Kirby – “We Never Have Time” from Ravel (pan y rosas, 2022)

18:22. CustomRealEstateSolutions – “Bankrupt” from Options (AntiOedipus, 2022)

20:49. The John Doe Experience – “Fu​ß​note Part I” from Electric Cheap: Essentials 2014–19 (self-released, 2019)

23:59. Dolphins of Venice – “Dark Ivor” from Mutuals (Mahorka, 2022)

28:05. Fet.Nat – “Tapis d’Orient” from Le Mal (Boiled, 2018)

31:31. Dan Deacon – “Bronst” [excerpt] from Spiderman of the Rings deluxe edition (Carpark, 2017)

35:22. Atom™ – “Weißes Rauschen (Erster Teil)” from Liedgut (Raster-Noton, 2009)

A humble historical inquiry. 

(Note: Noise is a wild thing. It’ll have you thinking total nonsense such as damn, Texas actually kinda rules.)

00:00. Dog as Master – B side [excerpt] of Trompeur et Sournois (Cause and Effect, 1985)

01:07. PBK – first untitled track from ¡Asesino! (PBK Recordings, 1988)

07:26. Hands To – “Mastic” from Scrine (Harsh Reality, 1988)

11:48. El Angel Exterminador – “Provenance in Pencil” [excerpt] from Sic Transit Gloria Suez Tuesday (Industrial Therapy Unit, 1988)

19:02. Unit M – B side [excerpt] from Unit-M (Mother Savage, 1994)

25:01. David Gilden – first untitled track [excerpt] from Depress-Regress (Slaughter Productions, 1996)

29:42. Nurse Unit – “The Only Child” [excerpt] from The Only Child (self-released, 1996)

31:51. 666 Volt Battery Noise – “Blunt Objects vs. Sharp Things” [excerpt] from Blunt Objects vs. Sharp Things (Mother Savage, 1996)

39:30. Stimbox – “Cerebral Vortex” [excerpt] from Meltdown (Spite, 1997)

41:45. T.E.F. – B side [excerpt] of Tokyo Eternal Folly (self-released, 1998)

48:43. Lefthandeddecision – “Continual Inescapable” from Instinct & Emotion (Crionic Mind, 2000)

53:33. Black Sand Desert & Clew of Theseus – “Through Chains” [excerpt] from Obelisk (Cathartic Process, 2002)

57:45. Roman Torment – “Shades of Pain” [excerpt] from Masculine Failure (Hospital Productions, 2006)

61:52. Ascites – “Fluid Thrill” [excerpt] from Fluid Excess (Fonofobi, 2009)

66:05. Extreme Chafing – “Erythema Gyratum Repens” from Erythema (Blistered Mind, 2012)

73:05. Stalagmite Repression – “Carlisle Indian Industrial School” [excerpt] from Cave Drawings (Submersive, 2015)

77:43. Heat Signature – “If It’s Warm, Shoot” from Disguised Human Presence (self-released, 2016)

84:23. Unexamine – second untitled track from Deserts Dog Our Heels (Oxen, 2017)

88:37. Gemengung – “Forget About Your Wings” [excerpt] from Forced Collapse (AAD, 2022)

93:59. Total Sweetheart – “Early to Bed” [excerpt] from Early to Bed (Dada Drumming, 2022)

A special kind of improvisational intimacy, one that often generates the most “jazzy”-sounding jazz. These selections lean recent—which is not indicative of any actual historical trend but rather the massive gaps in my knowledge/taste—and free.

Julius Hemphill & Abdul Wadud (photos from Live in New York LP and Michael Wilderman)

00:00. Spoons & Bones – “All the Ears” from Spoons & Bones (Czaszka, 2020)

02:19. Ramsey Ameen & Sirone (of Cecil Taylor Unit) – duet from One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye (Hat Hut, 1980)

08:14. Julius Hemphill & Abdul K. Wadud – “In Space” from Live in New York (Red, 1978)

14:59. Frode Gjerstad & Isach Skeidsvoll – “Third hand. Fourth finger.” from Twenty Fingers (Relative Pitch, 2021)

20:28. Jessica Ackerley & Daniel Carter – “Welcome Our Friends” from Friendship: Lucid Shared Dreams and Time Travel (577, 2022)

25:47. Shelley Burgon & Trevor Dunn – fourth part of Baltimore (Skirl, 2006)

29:43. Patrick Shiroishi & Zachary Paul – “At the Moment of Being Heard” from Of the Shapes of Hearts and Humans (The  Tapeworm, 2021)

35:33. Nick Mazzarella & Tomeka Reid – “Blues for Julius and Abdul” from Signaling (Nessa, 2017)

This is a multimedia mix, in several senses. Attempts at documenting, dissecting, or preserving a practice that can be both art and artifice, empowering and oppressive, individual and industrial. 

stills from ‘Intermittent Delight’ (dir. Akosua Adoma Owusu, 2007)

00:00. Audio from opening sequence of La Libertad (dir. Laura Huertas Millán, 2017)

01:36. Sound Diaries – “Cumbrian Loom” / “Estonian Loom” (2012)

02:39. Agente Costura – “Maskerade Brigade” from re:flections 04 07 20 compilation (Attenuation Circuit, 2020)

05:51. Andrea Borghi – Tistre #3 (Dinzu Artefacts, 2019)

11:42. Shirts – seventh untitled track from Shirt Noise (Moon Myst Music, 2020)

17:53. Leo Correia de Verdier – “Stygn” [excerpt]

22:21. Kelly Ruth – “Nascent” from Forms (Pseudo Laboratories, 2019)

26:28. Natalia Beylis – Variations on a Sewing Machine no. 3 (Beartown, 2022)

30:41. James Wyness – “Textility” from Dead Sound Ethnographics (self-released, 2016)

36:50. Michal Fojcik – “Weaving Workshop” (2014)

37:30. Audio from opening sequence of The Woven Sounds demo (dir. Mehdi Aminian, 2019)

Further Reading/Viewing

Woman Interwoven documentary series

Mika Tajima, Negative Entropy

Paola Torres Núñez del Prado, Cross-Cultural Tangible Interfaces as Phenomenological Artifacts

Jodie Mack, The Grand Bizarre

Rajee Samarasinghe, Foreign Quarters

Been wondering why I haven’t posted a mix (or anything, really) in a while? It’s because I was working on this. In the unlikely event I’m ever hired for a DJ gig this is a good approximation of what I would play. I’m no virtuoso by any means—no seamless beatmatching or spot mashups here—but each and every one of these tracks does the work for me by being irresistibly danceable. To me, that is; I hope you agree.

Note: I use “trance” to reference a vibe or atmosphere rather than the actual genre. No Shpongle or Hallucinogen, don’t worry. 

00:00. The Lift Boys – “Kazoo of Zero” from Tide Y Edit (self-released, 2012)

02:20. Food Pyramid – “I Know What I Saw” from Mango Sunrise (Moon Glyph, 2012)

07:32. Aqatuki – “Pop” from Aqatuki II (IQAS / 5bit, 2019)

11:07. Dachambo – “Picadelia” from Aphrodelic Ngoma (Pleasure-Crux, 2004)

20:08. Soft – “Singing Mirror Ball” from Sun Box (Comma, 1999)

33:01. Juzu a.k.a. Moochy – “Oneness” from Re​:Momentos Movements ‎(Crosspoint, 2010)

38:57. Polmo Polpo – “Riva” from The Science of Breath (Substractif, 2002)

48:12. Nisennenmondai – “B-1” [You Ishihara Mix] from self-titled 12″ (Zelone, 2013)

56:51. Buffalo Daughter – “Cyclic” from Pshychic (V2, 2003)

64:53. Kinocosmo – “Caveman Rebirth” from Caveman (Hypnodisk, 2005)

71:08. Guitoo – “Ruby” from Cyclotron (A.K.A. / WEA, 1999)

76:29. Boredoms – “Ω” [excerpt] from Vision Creation Newsun (A.K.A. / WEA, 1999)

78:36. Ukiashi – “Forestom” from The Ground Swell compilation CD (Anoyo, 2000)

85:22. EYE – “777” from Experience: Psy-Harmonics Volume V compilation CD (2001)

87:20. AOA – “New Bravo” from Domegapeace (Comma / Music Mine, 1999)

95:01. Fuck Buttons – “Olympians” from Tarot Sport (ATP, 2009)

Following last December’s The Tryal of Old Christmas, the venerable Brachliegen Tapes has once again brought festive tidings to eager wind-reddened ears with The Yule Goat, a dark, icy trudge into the melodies and mysteries of the all-powerful solstice. In recognition of George Rayner-Law and friends’ consistently sublime work, and in the interest of remembering the roots of certain now-unrecognizable traditions, let’s gather around the hearth for a spell and listen to the snow fall. May Winter be merciful.

00:00. Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet – “Listen, the Snow Is Falling” from The Breadwinner (Erstwhile, 2008)

07:25. Degradation – “Ebb, Static…” from The Yule Goat (Brachliegen, 2022)

12:30. Brian Whitman – “City Sidewalk Steadfast Clime” from A Singular Christmas (self-released, 2004)

15:02. Carlo Giustini – “Quando qui vivevano altre ” from Non Uscire (No Rent, 2018)

21:17. Nuno Canavarro – eighth untitled track from Plux Quba (Ama Romanta, 1988)

23:58. Lower Bar Collective – “Holy” from Christmas (self-released, 2021)

33:35. George Rayner-Law – “Prudence in Your Entertainment” [excerpt] from The Tryal of Old Christmas (Brachliegen, 2021)

36:07. Plinth – “St. Lucia’s Day” Pt. 3 from Wintersongs (Dorset Paeans, 2001)

39:22. Chartreuse – “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” from Last Winter We Didn’t Sing V/A comp (Thor’s Rubber Hammer, 2008)

45:12. Aarktica – “Like Embers” from We Will Find the Light (Darla, 2022)

Glitched-out noisescapes that intentionally or unintentionally, one way or another, tend toward power/heavy electronics tropes. Not for carbon-based eardrums.

Forgive me Isaac, for I have sinned

00:00. No Disc – “Paper Jam” [excerpt] from Instant Error (Liquid Library, 2019)

08:33. No Artist – “I am ill” from Dear Master, […] (Chained Library, 2022)

11:23. Cicada 3301 – “Deburan dan Dengung Bumi” [excerpt] from split with Broken Cursór (Boil Your Angel, 2021)

16:28. Eir Luna Calypso Mazur – “vb1_2.wav-samplebrain.flac” from DivX Output Parcels ​/​ Dollar Dollar C​.​E​.​N​.​T​.​S. (Fire! Fire​!​! Fire​!​!​!​) (The Vapor Vault, 2022)

20:47. Seth Cooke – A side [excerpt] of Weigh the Word (self-released, 2019)

27:52. Hydra – “Real Power” from Your Name (Everyday Samething, 2022)

28:56. The Cathode Terror Secretion – “Ascension / Purification” from Singularity (Accretion Disk, 2007)

33:27. Interracial Sex – “The Buck and the Bull” [excerpt] from The Buck and the Bull (Meaning Corrupted, 2015)