C-44 [Throne Heap]
now available: $5

[reviews]

A bit of a departure, 1000 Suns is something of an impressionist audio drama about the human "witnesses" who became trusting guinea pigs for the testing of atomic bombs by the US government.

As this release was made specifically for cassette, I wanted to exploit some of the characteristics of the medium. This includes things like the "Extended Dynamic Range" (XDR) toneburst once used at the beginning of certain pre-recorded cassettes to assure you of their high fidelity. On some older recordings, the producers found it necessary to instruct the user what to do upon reaching the end of the side. I have included both of these useful features.

Back it the heyday of the cassette, shorter pre-recorded albums would sometimes be sold with the full album repeated on each side of the tape. Side two of 1000 Suns does repeat the side one program, but with a difference. As an analog to the way that the government subjected people to ordeals of unknown and unpredictable outcome which would indellibly affect them both immediately and over time... I subjected the cassette tape to a wide variety of physical "experiments": wrinkling, stretching, breaking and patching, using adhesive to lift the magnetic layer from the plastic tape, writing on it, threading the tape incorrectly through the cassette shell, breaking the cassette shell, removing parts of the cassette, abusing the tape deck while recording, chewing the tape, many repeated iterations of over-dubbing sometimes at incorrect recording levels and sometimes not completely erasing previous layers, etc. No digital manipulation was used on this side other than a bit of noise reduction and equalization.

Primary sound sources: complete or detourned government broadcasts, readings of eye-witness atomic test accounts, found music and voices, a rusty music box, field recordings of spring nighttime creatures, "fiddle trees" rubbing, cracking lake ice, low rumblings of undertermined origin (from inside my home), microphone windshear, feedback, a corrugaphone made of plumbing supplies, scraping metal shelves, toy accordian.

1. T.E.O.T.W.
   Sources: metal shelving, government broadcasts, spring night creatures, rusty music box, found vocals, sine wave generator.

   This piece mashes up my love for music boxes, making explosion sounds, stupid government propaganda broadcastss, and end of the world mythologies.

   I wanted to start this cassette off with that old XDR test tone sweep from certain cassette albums of the 80s. I couldn't find an actual recording of it, even on the internet, so I did a little research and used a simple sine wave generator to make my own.
    

2. Witness
   Sources: government broadcasts, my own reading of an eye-witness account, screaming, fiddle trees rubbing, microphone windshear, metal shelves crashing, toy accordian "breathing".

   I walked out onto a frozen reservoir this past winter and recorded some sounds of ice cracking, got some inadvertant mic windshear, and also found some trees on the shore which were leaning against each other and squeeking in the breeze or when I pushed them - what I call "fiddle trees". The spoken word and these sounds were the starting point of this piece.
    

3. Thor
   Sources: Government recording of a rocket launch sequence.

   Thor was the name of the rocket which was used in the atomic test which was code-named Starfish Prime. Here I have a little fun at the expense of the guidance technician.
    

4. Starfish Prime
   Sources: reading of eye-witness accounts and reported data, government recordings, feedback, corrugaphone (a "horn" made of flexible corrugated plumbing pipe and metal fittings), metal shelving, cracking lake ice, a low throbbing sound of unknown origin (from within my house - probably some appliance, but I haven't been able to isolated it yet).

   Starfish Prime was an atomic tests conducted by the US government high above the Pacific and generated a large electromagnetic pulse and radiation belts around the Earth, causing many unexpected consequences.
    

5. E.M.P.
   Sources: low throbbing sound of unknown origin, reading of the effects of starfish prime's electromagnetic pulse
    
6. Radiance
   Sources: rusty music box, found music and voices

   How grand to hold a party to watch atomic bombs exploding high in the atmosphere.
    

7. Coda
   Sources: rusty music box, toy accordian "breathing", found tape deck instructions

   If you have already figured out how to listen to the tape, do you really need these instructions any more?