CONET PROJECT, THE (Irdial Disc) 4cd+book 62.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Once again, the wait is over! Feels like we spend a whole lot of time waiting for the Conet Project to come back into our lives. We sell these like crazy when they're in stock, but it always seems to go out of print before we know it and we're forced to wait again for the re-emergence of one of our all time favorite "musical" documents. And hell, if there was ever a quadruple cd / book of shortwave transmissions worth waiting for, this is the one!! We're now on the FOURTH pressing of the Conet (or maybe even the fifth?) and we still can't get enough! This is one of our ALL TIME favorite releases EVER, as evidenced by the fact that EVERYONE who works here owns at least one copy, and to date, we've sold 680 copies! And counting! We'd probably have broken 1000 if this darn thing would stay in print. This version is again exactly the same as the others EXCEPT that this one includes a postcard seeking "cold warriors" with personal knowledge of numbers stations. As stated on the card, if you are one of those warriors, contact Irdial immediately. Your identity and whatever information you are able to share will be kept strictly confidential. If you are not one of those warriors, pass the card on, in the hopes that it will find its way into the right hands. Why so mysterious? What's with the cloak and dagger stuff? Well, my friends, read on, and learn all about the beautiful and mysterious Conet Project:
If there's one recording we have sold here that is most identified with Aquarius Records, or that at least we mention most often when trying to explain to people what it is that we're all about here, it'd be the Conet Project. Some others come close: Sounds of North American Frogs, Os Mutantes, Burzum "Filosofem", Comus "First Utterance", Boris, Circle, Philip Jeck, Village of Savoonga...and there's of course many other discs and LPs near and dear to our hearts (for instance, hearing the first Neutral Milk Hotel album always makes me nostalgic for the old 24th street store). But for some reason it's the Conet Project that really seems to sum it all up. It's all the things we really love: completely ridiculous (four cds!), completely fucked (secret government spy transmissions), droning, weird. It's just so interesting and evocative on so many levels, both musical and totally non-musical, as a listening experience and also as a geopolitical cold war and beyond artifact. Definitely a big AQ fave: Allan's got the whole thing on his iPod, Andee has multiple copies, many of which found their way into his old band's live perfomances, Jim has steadfastly maintained that this is the greatest record of all time, and we all are a little bit obsessed.
If you've been in the store, you've probably noticed that we have a chart on the wall behind the counter keeping a tally of Conets sold. It went up to 387 (yes, three hundred and eighty seven!) before it became unavailable/out of print a few years ago, then again up into the 400's, and then again into the 600's always forced to wait patiently until it becomes available again -- there's even snapshots of some of the happy purchasers (#382, Mike Patton) beside it. Now we're ready to start checking off more boxes on our chart, as we at last are able to offer you The Conet Project once again!! After several years of going in and out of print, the Irdial label has finally done another re-press! We're not sure if the re-presses are still funded by the $30,000+ settlement they recieved from Wilco's record label, who Irdial sued for the unauthorized use of a Conet Project sample on their breakthrough Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, whose title itself comes from that Conet sample. (Read more about that here http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,63952,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7.) We're not sure if we understand or agree with the legalities behind Irdial's lawsuit, but we're happy at least that the outcome resulted in more Conets to go around (if that's where Irdial got the money to repress, as we suspect). There was also the use of a Conet track in that Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky...
Basically, the Conet Project is a four-cd compilation of recordings of mysterious shortwave radio broadcasts, known as "numbers stations". These numbers stations are generally believed to be encrypted spy transmissions, but no concrete evidence has ever surfaced proving that suppostion. However, no credible *alternate* explanation has ever been demonstrated, either. For years (ever since the start of the Cold War), amateur radio enthusiasts have come across these sinister signals, and they continue to this day, broadcast in many languages all over the world (the theory is that some are CIA, some are KBG, some are Mossad, etc).
In general, the transmissions consist of a deadpan voice (sometimes an old man, sometimes a young woman, etc.) reading a seemingly random, meaningless series of numbers over and over. Sometimes the broadcsts are preceded by a musical cue (the "Swedish Rhapsody" music box one being a favorite of ours), and sometimes the numbers are not conveyed by voice but by even more cryptic electronics (as with "The Buzzer", and other noisy, abstract stuff found mainly on disc four).
Needless to say, hearing those amazing and baffling sounds collected on these four cds is an unnerving experience. Not only does knowledge of the supposed purpose of these transmissions imbue them with a disturbing quality, but the repetition of the numbers combined with the background of shortwave radio static makes for a aurally hypnotic experience. If merely regarded as a piece of experimental ambient sound scupture, the Conet Project would be a brilliant and affecting piece of work, yet with the added context of international intelligence and conspiracy theory, it becomes even more intriguing and creepy. The four cds come with a large book (housed in its own jewel box) that provides a great deal of description of, and speculation about, the many recordings. Very well done. The Conet Project is possibly the most incredible, and weirdest, item of sound art/documentation that we've EVER had here at Aquarius. Mesmerizing, fascinating, unique, massive, scary, but sometimes even soothing. 100 percent recommended to the adventurous listener ('cause it's not for everyone!). And once you have it you'll understand why it had to be a full four cds--being overwhelming is part of the obsessive allure of this Project.
MPEG Stream: "Swedish Rhapsody"
MPEG Stream: "5 Dashes"
MPEG Stream: "Iran/Iraq Jamming Efficacy Testing"
MPEG Stream: "Magnetic Fields"
MPEG Stream: "Tyrolean Music Station"
MPEG Stream: "The Buzzer"
ELECTRIC FAMILY Mariopaint (Irdial) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
An old record, but new to us! As mentioned in Windy's Bay Guardian column, and from the label that brought us the Conet Project!
Each member of The Electric Family (which was the collective of all the electronica artists for the very odd Irdial records... Anthony Manning, Beautyon, Spy vs. Spy, Mrs. Mimi Magick, Ray Tracing, Gas Man, Spacemole, 2007) was given a Nintendo Super Famicon with the instruction to write a song only using the music sequencer and the sound pre-sets from Mariopaint. Clumsy yet entirely brilliant melodies with quirky horns famous from Simm City, whimisical digitized bells, and wholly un-hip beats. Somehow it makes complete sense that Akin Fernandez (Irdial's proprietor) would three years later release the Conet Project!
MCGREEVY, STEPHEN P. Electric Enigma (Irdial) 2cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the same label that brought us the truly disturbing Conet Project comes Stephen P. McGreevy's VLF recordings. With a knowledge of basic radio telescopics, a few choice geographical / atmospheric anomalies, and a good ear, McGreevy records the earth's electromagnetic signature generated through such phenomenon as the Alaskan Northern Lights. Delicate whistles streak over loud crackles, that bring to mind Id Battery's fascination with recorded fire, or John Duncan's shortwave radio experiments. Word of caution, one of our faithful customers complained that this created rather deleterious psychosomatic effects.