This audio collage is constructed by myself from live radio transmissions from the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, from a record, How To Speak Hip, released in 1959, a cut up of George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address, the soundtrack to a Walt Disney Cartoon, a record; “MENSTRUATION: Second of Four Recordings for Parents” from 1951, an audio recording of Dr Timothy Leary, President Harry Truman’s radio message to the American people following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima from August 9, 1945, a recording of Noam Chomsky interviewed by Ray Suarez for Talk of the Nation, January 20, 1999, and a dentist’s drill.
The recording attempts to create a satirical portrait of the United States from the perspectives of global politics and state sponsored violence, sexuality and reproduction and the counter-culture (which is really part of the culture itself). At the same time it tries to unnerve and irritate the listener by its materiality, with audio samples fading in and out of each other. This attempts to provoke an hallucinogenic effect for the listener that produces confusion while also producing new combinations of words and phrases.
In a single phrase; “Avoid Lower Manhattan!”
This piece is influenced, and makes homage to musique contréte. Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that is made in part from acousmatic sound. In addition to sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, it may use other sources of sound such as electronic synthesizers or sounds recorded from nature. Also, compositions in this idiom are not restricted to the normal musical rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, metre and so on. Originally contrasted with "pure" elektronische Musik (based solely on the production and manipulation of electronically produced sounds rather than recorded sounds), the theoretical basis of musique concrète as a compositional practice was developed by Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the early 1940s
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concrete)
