HR098 - Isolation - The Golden Dawn - C46 — 1989
Side A:
The Golden Dawn Funeral March Of The Dead Brainblood Volume Osculum Infame Swingset |
Side B:
Walpurgisnacht Tonton Macoutes Teonancatl Black Beauty |
VIEW by Jerry Kranitz
Isolation is credited to the duo of Chilton Wildbirth (Michael Humphreys) on keyboards, rhythms, percussion, effects, bass, guitar, voice, and Cephael Noscaj (Michael Thomas Jackson) on analog synths, tapes, percussion, kora, effects, voice. Jackson also ran the XKURZHEN SOUND tape label, was part of the Cancerous Growth duo with Harsh Reality label captain Chris Phinney, and recorded solo as Cephalic Index, among other projects.
Side A opens with the title track, a droning, pummeling, sound exploratory slab of voodoo Metal. After the first two minutes it sounds like real drums kicking in, with backwards demonic possession voices and effects, and a strange effect that sounds like a jaw harp. ‘Funeral March Of The Dead’ is characterized by staccato electronica, accompanied by pounding percussion that is jarringly off-kilter alongside the electronic pulse, yet… oddly in sync. Strange imagery popped into my head as I imagined people trying to dance to it. But after several minutes it falls into a comfortably disjointed groove, as various spaced out and zany effects pop in and out. It eventually fades and it transitions to ‘Brainblood Volume’, a rhythmic collage of ambient tribal drumming and plunkety strings. ‘Osculum Infame’ starts off with noodling church organ keys and light atmospherics, soon joined by a dense garbled cloud of voices and incessantly pounding percussion. It soon settles into a goofily fun glom of jamming keys, Halloween voices and effects, and those knock-knocking on the brain beats. ‘Swingset’ features a spacey, playful fuzz key melody, swept along by a noise-metallic drum pulse, staticy atmospherics, and an odd but hallucinatory metered pulse.
Side B kicks off with ‘Walpurgisnacht’, a high energy beat driven mélange of space-ambient tribalism and eerie sci-fi effects. ‘Tonton Macoutes’ lays down slow, steady, intense percussion, plus alien moaning effects and spinning ‘grind’ textures. I like the throb of the deep bass beats and overall doomy orchestral feel. ‘Teonancatl’ is one of the most playfully bouncy and melodic tunes of the set, which may be connected to the magic mushroom title? As the track progresses the pace of the music steadily increases until launching into hyper-kinetic warp drive. Finally, ‘Black Beauty’ has a similar synth sound and melody as ‘Teonancatl’. It’s the one track with brief lyrics, though it’s spoken word and I can’t really make them out. I like the peaceful fade in the last minute that closes out the track and the set.
INTERVIEW with Michael Thomas Jackson by Jerry Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): Let’s start with the Who’s Who of Chilton Wildbirth and Cephael Noscaj.
Michael Thomas Jackson (MTJ): ISOLATION was myself, Michael Thomas Jackson, and Michael Humphreys. We first recorded at my parents’ house (the original XKURZHEN headquarters) in Memphis in the winter of 1986-87 while still in high school. We used an electric guitar (played primarily with a razor), metal percussion, a small tape machine for looping, an amplifier for feedback and our voices. Those recordings were released in part on various compilations. Everything was recorded live in 2 channels through a mixer, as this was before I owned any multi-tracking equipment. ISOLATION came about because Humphreys and I were friends. I had some gear to make a racket with and he had the vision, the name and stunning visual art.
JK: Lots of really interesting music on this tape!
MTJ: This is the last music we made, and it was done remotely with myself in Boston and Humphreys in Memphis. He recorded the material that created the structure for actual songs, and I added sounds (and some lyrics/vocals) around what he sent. Although we were geographically separated, we talked often about how the release should sound.
JK: If there’s a running theme throughout this tape, it is PERCUSSION! It sounds like real drums/percussion at times. Is it?
MTJ: I had some hand drums lying around. Can’t remember what.
JK: If not real, what ‘machines’ did you use?
MTJ: Yamaha RX-5.
JK: Some of the titles jumped out at me: ‘Osculum Infame’, which I had to Google and seems to be some devil worshipping term? ‘Tonton Macoutes’, which was the Duvalier regime's personal police in Haiti. And ‘Teonancatl’, which I believe are magic mushrooms? Anything behind these titles and/or do they somehow fit into a larger theme?
MTJ: I was reading a lot about occult themes and voodoo practices at the time. It seemed to fit the percussive drive of the songs. Crowley, psychedelics, Papa Legba, beat poets...everything was connected.
JK: I like the weird voices and strange jaw harp effect on ‘The Golden Dawn’ track.
MTJ: I completed the recording on a multi-track cassette recorder, so the backwards voices were easy to do. I think the ‘jaw harp’ sound is a ring-modulated percussive stab from one of our ARP synthesizers. We used ARP Axxe, Yamaha RX-5 drum machine, Alesis Midiverb, and Fender P bass guitar.
JK: What are the ‘strings’ I hear on ‘Funeral March Of The Dead’?
MTJ: Ha! Obviously that was no real kora, but some four-stringed touristy version that I actually got a lot of mileage out of.
JK: ‘Osculum Infame’ is another track with really creative use of effects.
MTJ: I relied heavily on effects processing for my contributions, mainly a Digitech Time Machine and a Lexicon LXP-1. Otherwise it was the ARP Odyssey and old school tape effects on the vocals.
JK: What is that clattery typewriter sounding pattern on ‘Walpurgisnacht’?
MTJ: Experimentation with quantization on the drum machine.
JK: ‘Black Beauty’ surprised with its brief lyrics, though I can’t make them out.
MTJ: The track is named for a brand of street heroin available in Boston at the time. I was pretty into Thirlwell at the time too, although the collage at the end is more Stapleton.
JK: Was The Golden Dawn a one-off? Or were there other Isolation tapes on yours or other labels?
MTJ: “The Flying Head” a couple of years before (XKURZHEN SOUND XK18, 1988). That one we recorded together in Memphis for the most part but was elaborated on, mixed and whatnot in Boston in September 1988. We had a lot of fun with that one too! As I mentioned earlier, there are some compilation tracks bouncing around somewhere out there as well.
Isolation is credited to the duo of Chilton Wildbirth (Michael Humphreys) on keyboards, rhythms, percussion, effects, bass, guitar, voice, and Cephael Noscaj (Michael Thomas Jackson) on analog synths, tapes, percussion, kora, effects, voice. Jackson also ran the XKURZHEN SOUND tape label, was part of the Cancerous Growth duo with Harsh Reality label captain Chris Phinney, and recorded solo as Cephalic Index, among other projects.
Side A opens with the title track, a droning, pummeling, sound exploratory slab of voodoo Metal. After the first two minutes it sounds like real drums kicking in, with backwards demonic possession voices and effects, and a strange effect that sounds like a jaw harp. ‘Funeral March Of The Dead’ is characterized by staccato electronica, accompanied by pounding percussion that is jarringly off-kilter alongside the electronic pulse, yet… oddly in sync. Strange imagery popped into my head as I imagined people trying to dance to it. But after several minutes it falls into a comfortably disjointed groove, as various spaced out and zany effects pop in and out. It eventually fades and it transitions to ‘Brainblood Volume’, a rhythmic collage of ambient tribal drumming and plunkety strings. ‘Osculum Infame’ starts off with noodling church organ keys and light atmospherics, soon joined by a dense garbled cloud of voices and incessantly pounding percussion. It soon settles into a goofily fun glom of jamming keys, Halloween voices and effects, and those knock-knocking on the brain beats. ‘Swingset’ features a spacey, playful fuzz key melody, swept along by a noise-metallic drum pulse, staticy atmospherics, and an odd but hallucinatory metered pulse.
Side B kicks off with ‘Walpurgisnacht’, a high energy beat driven mélange of space-ambient tribalism and eerie sci-fi effects. ‘Tonton Macoutes’ lays down slow, steady, intense percussion, plus alien moaning effects and spinning ‘grind’ textures. I like the throb of the deep bass beats and overall doomy orchestral feel. ‘Teonancatl’ is one of the most playfully bouncy and melodic tunes of the set, which may be connected to the magic mushroom title? As the track progresses the pace of the music steadily increases until launching into hyper-kinetic warp drive. Finally, ‘Black Beauty’ has a similar synth sound and melody as ‘Teonancatl’. It’s the one track with brief lyrics, though it’s spoken word and I can’t really make them out. I like the peaceful fade in the last minute that closes out the track and the set.
INTERVIEW with Michael Thomas Jackson by Jerry Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): Let’s start with the Who’s Who of Chilton Wildbirth and Cephael Noscaj.
Michael Thomas Jackson (MTJ): ISOLATION was myself, Michael Thomas Jackson, and Michael Humphreys. We first recorded at my parents’ house (the original XKURZHEN headquarters) in Memphis in the winter of 1986-87 while still in high school. We used an electric guitar (played primarily with a razor), metal percussion, a small tape machine for looping, an amplifier for feedback and our voices. Those recordings were released in part on various compilations. Everything was recorded live in 2 channels through a mixer, as this was before I owned any multi-tracking equipment. ISOLATION came about because Humphreys and I were friends. I had some gear to make a racket with and he had the vision, the name and stunning visual art.
JK: Lots of really interesting music on this tape!
MTJ: This is the last music we made, and it was done remotely with myself in Boston and Humphreys in Memphis. He recorded the material that created the structure for actual songs, and I added sounds (and some lyrics/vocals) around what he sent. Although we were geographically separated, we talked often about how the release should sound.
JK: If there’s a running theme throughout this tape, it is PERCUSSION! It sounds like real drums/percussion at times. Is it?
MTJ: I had some hand drums lying around. Can’t remember what.
JK: If not real, what ‘machines’ did you use?
MTJ: Yamaha RX-5.
JK: Some of the titles jumped out at me: ‘Osculum Infame’, which I had to Google and seems to be some devil worshipping term? ‘Tonton Macoutes’, which was the Duvalier regime's personal police in Haiti. And ‘Teonancatl’, which I believe are magic mushrooms? Anything behind these titles and/or do they somehow fit into a larger theme?
MTJ: I was reading a lot about occult themes and voodoo practices at the time. It seemed to fit the percussive drive of the songs. Crowley, psychedelics, Papa Legba, beat poets...everything was connected.
JK: I like the weird voices and strange jaw harp effect on ‘The Golden Dawn’ track.
MTJ: I completed the recording on a multi-track cassette recorder, so the backwards voices were easy to do. I think the ‘jaw harp’ sound is a ring-modulated percussive stab from one of our ARP synthesizers. We used ARP Axxe, Yamaha RX-5 drum machine, Alesis Midiverb, and Fender P bass guitar.
JK: What are the ‘strings’ I hear on ‘Funeral March Of The Dead’?
MTJ: Ha! Obviously that was no real kora, but some four-stringed touristy version that I actually got a lot of mileage out of.
JK: ‘Osculum Infame’ is another track with really creative use of effects.
MTJ: I relied heavily on effects processing for my contributions, mainly a Digitech Time Machine and a Lexicon LXP-1. Otherwise it was the ARP Odyssey and old school tape effects on the vocals.
JK: What is that clattery typewriter sounding pattern on ‘Walpurgisnacht’?
MTJ: Experimentation with quantization on the drum machine.
JK: ‘Black Beauty’ surprised with its brief lyrics, though I can’t make them out.
MTJ: The track is named for a brand of street heroin available in Boston at the time. I was pretty into Thirlwell at the time too, although the collage at the end is more Stapleton.
JK: Was The Golden Dawn a one-off? Or were there other Isolation tapes on yours or other labels?
MTJ: “The Flying Head” a couple of years before (XKURZHEN SOUND XK18, 1988). That one we recorded together in Memphis for the most part but was elaborated on, mixed and whatnot in Boston in September 1988. We had a lot of fun with that one too! As I mentioned earlier, there are some compilation tracks bouncing around somewhere out there as well.