The Last Signal (2004)
The Last Signal is an international compilation of sonic explorations centered around creative interpretations of what the end of the world might sound like. The CD features more than 35 tracks from creative musicians and sound designers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This unique experiment blurs the boundaries of music and noise with a variety of conceptual and stylistic approaches. Total playing time: 55 minutes, 58 seconds.Caution: high volume playback may induce panic in mammals.
BELOW IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE GLOBAL CALL FOR ENTRIES
ATTN: MUSICIANS, VOCALISTS, SOUND DESIGNERS, BOTH PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR
Independent Opposition Music Publishing is seeking short entries for an upcoming sound collage compilation based upon what the ending of this world might sound like. Use your imagination, use the following ideas as starting points:
1. What would the end of the world sound like? Think of different ways the world could end; through violent war everyone knew was coming, the unexpected push of a button, environmental forces, or from an extraterrestrial or spiritual being's action. Would the world end at the same time for everyone around the globe, or would there be a rippling or delay effect?
2. What is the most emotionally intense, chaotic, scary, mean, or enlightening 60 seconds of sound possible?
3. What is your message to the world; the one last thing you could say before the end of all life on this planet?
In general, this project is not intended to be a political statement. Particulars of current events are discouraged, as this is compilation is to be more of a showcase of imagination and artistic representations of the end of the world, rather than a story about events leading up to the end. But, follow your passion, and submit what feels right to you. There are no limits or suggestions regarding musical style with project. No intentions regarding this recording should be assumed. Some may view the ending of the world as a disaster, while others may view it as simply another step in an unknown course of existence. Your personal interpretation is encouraged.
GUIDELINES
The sounds you submit must be your own creation or you must have legal clearance for any sampled material. This means that you cannot submit entries with recognizable lines of dialogue from movies, television, or any other copyright protected material. Three minute maximum, but 60 seconds or less is ideal. Any submission may be edited by the producer for length or content, or combined/layered with other entries (in the case of combined entries, authoring credits will be shared).
TRACKLISTING
1. Nectarphonic “Will I (Last Signal Abrupt End edit)” (original from “Swoon” under the band's former name of Nectar) (2:49 edit**) nectarband(at)aol.com website: www.elevenshadows.com/nectar USA
2. Combination No. 10 “Gutbrain Sound (Condensed edit)” (condensed from original version on “Blue Punctilious”) (1:48 edit*) contact: Rob Price website: www.gutbrainsound.com USA
3. Panayiotis Kokoras “Red Tail” (:26) email: email(at)panayiotiskokoras.com website: www.panayiotiskokoras.com Greece
4. Ole Peterson “Opastion Klagavurn Phen Prosno” (:42 edit*) email: lizole(at)comcast.net US
5. Tat-Gun “2 Minutes Of Faith” (1:59 edit*) email: smpqh(at)yahoo.com USA
FREE DOWNLOAD > FULL TRACK
6. Horrendous “End Us” (1:11) website: www.benjaminhorrendous.co.uk United Kingdom
7. Cousin Silas “Untitled Assemblage Of Nine Ambient Soundscapes” (1:41 edit***) Cousin Silas appears courtesy of Fflint Central Recordings email: moderndance(at)btinternet.com United Kingdom
8. Tin R.P. “Untitled” (1:32) website: www.tindotrp.fr.st email: burning.emptiness(at)laposte.net France
9. Giuseppe Rapisarda “Countdown. Three, Two, One, Zero.” (:44 edit***) website: www.rapisarda.org Italy
FREE DOWNLOAD > FULL TRACK
10. Satyr Oz “Shattered Cradle Playground/The Last Swirlings” (1:35***) email: satyroz(at)hotmail.com USA
FREE DOWNLOAD > FULL TRACK
11. Brian Schorn “Down Arming” (1:39 edit**) email: brian(at)circulus.us USA
FREE DOWNLOAD > FULL TRACK
12. Cameron Sears “Apocalypse Bells” (1:00) website: home.primus.com.au/csears email: suspect23(at)hushmail.com Australia
13. Mystified (Thomas Park) “End Of The World” (1:26 edit*) credit: Thomas Jackson Park email: autocad13(at)hotmail.com USA
14. Aaron Butler “Original Soundtrack To The End Of The World” (Dark Audio Dub Mix) (2:40 edit*) credits: Aaron Butler (acoustic and electronic drums, congas, voice, tapes, beats, edits, toy horn, effects) Bill Monson (drums) Hal Dean (MIDI guitar) Steve Zieverink (keyboard) Donn Vidmar (bass) Michelle Sierra Moran (voice) Eonju Kim (voice) website: www.darkaudioproject.com email: aaronb(at)darkaudioproject.com USA
15. brekekekexkoaxkoax “ma’vet o’lam (Asiyah)” (1:03 edit***) Edited with material from Gates Ensemble 12/03 and Carmen Resendez and Michael Northan 2001 Brentwood, Austin, TX 78757 email: joshronsen(at)yahoo.com
16. Moon “Untitled” (2:21) website: www.burningemptiness.fr.st email: burning.emptiness(at)laposte.net France
17. Matt Frantz “Oversaturated” (1:00) website: www.independentopposition.com USA
FREE DOWNLOAD > FULL TRACK
18. Bollwerk 81 “All Means Come To An End” (1:00) credits: Bollwerk 81 (music) Patrick Maiwald (lyrics) website: www.bollwerk81.de Germany
19. Signalbleed “Without Form” (1:29 edit*) credits: Jason Hevener website: www.geocities.com/signalbleed email: signalbleed(at)yahoo.com USA
20. Maggi Payne “Restart” (1:18 edit*) website: www.maggipayne.com USA
21. TCHANT “But Inside This World” (1:26 edit*) email: mcquaz(at)hotmail.com Canada
22. Dave Cupp “Untitled” (1:10 edit**) email: debris49(at)hotmail.com location: 2374 Banning Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45239 USA
23. Die Bene Tleilax “Cognitive Dissonance” (:28 edit*) website: tleilaxu-culture.org USA
24. Mike Pursley “Golohab” (1:16 edit*) email: mike_pursley(at)hotmail.com USA
25. Fridur “dun dot (d.)/eff dot (f.)/end dot (-.)” (2:03 edit***) email: ig_enigma(at)hotmail.com USA
26. Brian Schorn “Last Breath/Last Life/Last Happening/Insectoidal/Psycho Skull” (1:00 edit***) email: brian(at)circulus.us USA
27. James Bohn “Ice 9” (:58) website: www.bohnmedia.com email: jbohn(at)jbohnmedia.com USA
28. Planes Overhead “Overload/Nijmegen” (1:00) Leaftone Recordings www.leaftone.com USA
29. John Salcido “Expired” (2:06 edit*) email: juandabaptis(at)hotmail.com USA
30. Mike Hallenbeck “Untitled” (2:00 edit***) website: http://juniorbirdman.com/archive USA
31. Andrew Duke “Wastewind/Overstretch” (:58 edit***) website: www.cognitionaudioworks.com location: Cognition Audioworks 1096 Queen St. #23 Halifax, NS Canada B3H2R9
32. RP Collier “Untitled Combination of Multiple Tracks” (1:38 edit**) website: trundlebox.iuma.com email: aptrev(at)aol.com USA
33. David Nix “Falling Of The World” (3:35) website: www.davidnix.co.uk email: nix_music(at)yahoo.com United Kingdom
34. Mobile (Michael Kidd) “Pralaya” (:38 edit**) credits: Michael Kidd email: mobile012(at)hotmail.com Australia
35. Various Artists “Untitled Combination” (3:11 edit***) This track combines credits from several artists, listed roughly in order of appearance. Ashley Allen’s Lost Bohemia featuring: Ashley Allen (guitars, screaming, production) Dave Duncan (bass) Mike Gregory (bass) Mark Miller (piano) Charlotte Schmitz (vocals, poetry) Mike Schmitz (A.K.A. will) (violin) Corbett Stepp (drums, guitar, mixing) email: jerry_a_45205(at)yahoo.com location: c/o Porkopolis P.O. Box 3529 Cincinnati, OH 45201 USA Dan Susnara location: 7806 S. Kilpatrick Chicago, IL 60652 USA Whitehall A.K.A. Jeffrey Patrick Rollason and Fernando Omar Coipel “Cop March” website: www.nartworld.com email: nartmail(at)juno.com USA Greta Nintzel taken from “An End” website: www.gretagurl.com USA Matt Frantz USA Bob Arieas USA Don Campau taken from “Fire And Rain” email: campaudj(at)jps.net USA
36. Andrew Greene “Salvation” (:59 edit*) email: agreene1(at)si.rr.com USA
37. John Salcido “Renewal” (1:39 edit*) email: juandabaptis(at)hotmail.com USA
FREE DOWNLOAD > FULL TRACK
All tracks with edits are altered by Matt Frantz with authorization from the artists specifically for this compilation. The number of asterisks in the listing of each edited track indicates the edit type.
*Edited for length, otherwise unaltered.
**Moderate editing, using submission source material, layered upon itself or with sections repeated, or altered relative volume levels, or tempo/pitch adjustments.
***Edit incorporates multiple tracks or variations from the same artist. May also include editing with effects applied or rearranging of composition sequence.Published in 2004 by Independent Opposition. All tracks are used with permission and © by the artists. This compilation © M. Frantz. CD cover art by Matt Frantz. Duplication of this CD is prohibited. Made in USA. Many thanks to all the artists who participated in this project and everyone who helped to publicize it!
REVIEW FROM IGLOO MAG 4/26/2005
"...The Last Signal collects [these] disparate visions of apocalypse and the styles range from tape-burning torch songs to aborted squirts and blasts of white noise to the fading hums of technology and civilization to a thirty second analog tone that rises up to heaven..." Mark Teppo, Contributing Editor
More than 35 artists answered when asked the question: What would the end of the world sound like? The Last Signal collects these
disparate visions of apocalypse and the styles range from tape-burning
torch songs to aborted squirts and blasts of white noise to the fading
hums of technology and civilization to a thirty second analog tone
that rises up to heaven. Most of the tracks aren't much more than a
minute in length and, taken as a whole, The Last Signal, seems
like an hour long snapshot of finality as if we were witnessing the
world's reaction to armageddon through a radio signal and, each minute
or so, the dial is snapped to a new station.
Matt Frantz, the curator of the project, asked contributors to keep
their submissions short or, in the case of a number of the
contributions, allow their work to be condensed as necessary to fit
the project scope. As a result, some of the tracks are layered
canvases as a longer work is folded back on itself several times.
Nectarphonic's "Will I (Last Signal Abrupt End Edit)" opens The
Last Signal and is the torch song playing at the final bar at the
end of the world and, like the title suggests, it is cut short as if
the power simply faded into nothigness. Combination no. 10 offers
"Gutbrain sound (condensed edit)," a blast of dischordia that cleaves
straight through the preceding silence. Some of the tracks are just
hints of melody, the barest suggestion of sound that burps or gasps or
hiccups before fading into silence. Others are bursts of heavy sound
-- lumbering beats that stagger like escaped loops from Techno Animals
records out to wreck the town.
Horrendous' "End Us" is a filled with warped chords like the fusion of
dying birds and collapsing buildings as interpreted by an experimental
guitarist while Satyr Oz's "Shattered Cradle Playground/The Last
Swirlings" is a wall of child voices trapped behind barbed wire
fences. While Aaron Butler's "Original Soundtrack To The End Of The
World (Dark Audio Dub Mix)" begins with hand drums and ambient tones,
the calm interplay is interrupted by the chaotic burst of jump cut
editing, a John Zorn style of slash and burn that captures the
horrific panic of the unplannned dissolution of reality.
Brekekekexkoaxkoax finds some order in the chaos with "ma'vet o'lam
(Asiyah)" which sounds like an industrial compactor smashing the world
into a nice neat square of compressed metal, and Mike Hallenbeck's
"Untitled" begins with the noisy chaos of a jet airplane turbine
before draining away into a placid dark ambience. Matt Frantz's
"Oversaturated" is just an explosion in mid-town, a whirlwind blast
that sucks up all the panic and fear of the city into a single rising
cloud of static and shrieking metal and terrified sirens.
For some, the end of the world is dischordia; for others, it just
slows down and stops or it vanishes into a burst of noise and static.
The world doesn't end with a bang or a whimper; it simply ends. And
for everyone, the end will be indelibly stamped with their own vision
and their own sonic interpretation. The Last Signal argues
that, when the heat death of the universe arives, there will still be
music. Ahem to that.
