Au Reservoir!

IOFAI006 Can you spot the differences, boys and girls? There's a jolly prize for the first postcard with the right answer!

I've given this a good kicking, because it wasn't quite what I wanted it to be, and after a couple of days work it now is. Huzzay! It's unlike the two previous "immersive" AIs [AI = Audio Initiative™ - Ed.] in that it's not designed to be calming and relaxing. The first half does that job nicely enough, with lashings of pastoral bliss and working class jollity, then the war clouds loom and we veer off into wiccan/Green Man mythos, ending in a melancholy, even sombre way, coming home to a country we no longer recognise (and realising the significance of our journey). It's unlikely to be a recording you whistle along to while you fold the laundry, but it is "uniquely brilliant and powerful", as one listener*was kind enough to observe.

If you already downloaded the original, replace with this reworked version, which you can tell by the subtly altered cover art.

*Me

IOFAI005

To Slumberland used the same techniques as Blue Horizon to create a sleepy dreamscape. Some beautiful synchronicity with Clarence Clemons' sax (from his criminally little-known solo album Peacemaker) fitting perfectly in key, timing, and mood with Paul Horn's flute in the Great Pyramid; a meeting of the spirits, continents and decades apart. They couldn't have played better together if they'd played together. Key discoveries: Rodrigo Amarante, Milla Jovovich, and the Clemons album [use search button - Ed.]. And note how HAL's heartbreaking Daisy (reverting to infancy as he's put to sleep, just as Bowman reverted to the womb to be reborn) segues into the next piece of music ... nothing lasts, but nothing is lost ...

IOFAI004

The first three AIs (a trilogy of Barbarella/Alice/Acid adventures) were simple compared to the second three, which used many more and much shorter samples, over and underdubbed, backwards and forwards melting, from a far wider selection of sources, both musical and purely sonic. I couldn't now tell you where much of it comes from, although the edits of songs are familiar enough. Accidental glitches, where scraps became repeating patterns. Editing on a fractal scale in Audacity, sometimes juggling sounds less than a second long. Hundreds of cogs in this machine. Beyond The Blue Horizon's theme is obvious enough - the search for heaven on earth. Can the exotic exist in a world flattened and coarsened by the internet? A cinematic immersion in the exotic, in beauty and hope. There are worse ways to put half an hour behind you. Headphones preferably, solitude, and passive attention.

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IOFAI003 Thirty Minutes Down The Rabbit Hole

For those of th' Four Or Five Guys© what downloaded the previous two curations in the series, this is exactly like more of the same only different. The same state-of-the-industry standards and best global practices alchemically combine to deliver excellence in deliverables  - the very best in our style of audial entertainment! You'll enjoy spotting familiar landmarks on this journey into the id, and yet there'll be surprises aplenty for the most experienced psychonaut!

As before, we strongly recommend ingesting catering-quantity hallucinogens - then you can wander off down the rabbit hole and not bother with listening to this. But should you get it together, headphones, eyes closed, and an undisturbed half hour to your bad self will be thirty minutes well spent!

IOFAI002

IOFAI002 Thirty Minutes Through The Looking Glass

Here ya go, pals! When your grandchildren cluster at your slippered feet, gazing up with eyes undimmed by life's bitter travail, and ask "gee Gwampy, what was fychodoolia?" You can play the li'l tykes this, because this is what was.

You will need headphones. You will need a half hour to yourself. While you immerse yourself in the fractal fringe of the fun zone, try to discern the Cheshire Cat on the album cover! And th' Eye of Agamotto! Hoo boy! Some fun, huh, gang?

IOFAI001

IOFAI001 Thirty Minutes Over Wonderland

Like everything else in life, this didn't turn out how I expected. It's not the abstract ambient psych psuite I originally intended, nor is it the simple comp of unaltered tracks that took its place when the whole thing got All Too Much. It's something in-between, tracks edited and merged into a pseamless psych flight. There's nothing throat-slashingly obscure here - how many do you recognise?

The whole thing floats by in an iridescent bubble you can climb into for a while. Keeping it to thirty minutes (I have so many massive comps I never listen to) meant leaving out [YOUR FAVORITES]. And a couple of mine. There's nothing remotely heavy, no surprise mood breakers, but enough variety to keep you from nodding out (unless that's what you want to do). Nothing camp or ironic or exploito-fake, no "referencing" or "chanelling", and nothing recorded since way back then. The super-saturated color, the patchouli shimmer, the dumb beautiful optimism, these are authentic manifestations of the times. As live as you want them to be.

If you've forgotten the sun, don't worry, the sun remembers you ...

Jenny Dhalia [left - Ed.] of Mons Veneris, CT. sez: "Why, these Isle O' Foam© Audio Initiatives™ offer my husband and I the tops in quality entertainment!"

Rollo Rumpy-Pumpy [left - Ed.] of Knuckbuster, AK, sez: "As mother of five rambunctious li'l rugrats, I find the soothing qualities of these recordings a blessed relief!"

Verruka Kowznofski [left - Ed.] of Semensville, OH, sez: "Psychedelia made me question everything I was brought up to believe. Like, pool noodles? What the fuck, man?"

 

 

 

 A note on the covers: they're created in exactly the same way as the music. Shattered fragments brought together by a concept. Discovered in memory, by memory. The last post for a while.