Desert Wind an album by Static Apparitions

 

Desert Wind is an album by Static Apparitions

This is a write up about Desert Wind the second album by Static Apparitions.

This is a unique album in the Static Apparitions collection.

We hadn’t planned to make this the second album by Static Apparitions, but it just fell into place.

We decided to make it two tracks as if it was an album with two side long tracks.

Desert Wind was mostly recorded at the 2023 Wonder Valley 15 Experimental Music Festival in 29 Palms CA at The Palms restaurant.

Lots of really wild experimental artists created all sorts of diverse audio art in this wonderful gathering.

The Palms restaurant is a one of a kind place. It is a total standout. It’s like what I’ve always imagined a bar would be like on Mars.

As Mark Soden described it, “it’s the best dive bar on Mars.” I wouldn’t argue with that statement.

The staff and customers are all laid back cool. 

Vintage bad movies played on the TV with a set of DVD and VHS tapes spread all over the place, almost all of them are the sort of titles we have in our collection.

There is authentic broken down junk all over the place. If I lived in 29 Palms I would be at this place every weekend. 

I would especially dig the yoga classes. On Sundays they have yoga in the mornings. I bet its a trip. if you live in CA go to the Palms. Totally worth it. 

It was a fantastic time being at the Wonder Valley Festival. We met lots of fun people and saw some great performances including, Phog Masheen! I really dig Phog Masheen. 

They combine spoken word info-tainment with avant guardian music. Total fun audio experimentation.

The cover photo was taken by the Baroness and she added some FX. I really dig it.

on this album Static Apparitions is:

Baroness LeStrange: Mandolin, FX, vocals, octave mandolin

Darren Dragon: Aztec death whistle, tape recorder, monotron, FX

The tape recorder was run through the data corrupter pedal.

This is one of the projects where I like to change my name around a lot.

1. Desert AMM 17:01 -The original unaltered recording of the live performance by Static Apparitions in 2023. 

The Baroness introduces us and I can hear the cool man from Phog Masheen Mark Sodan yelling “Yeah!”

The Baroness is running her mando through some heavy fx. She did some nice vocals too.

I am running a cassette player through a data corrupter pedal which is all the 8bit static sounds.

The monotron was run through the Ghost Rain pedal. The Aztec death whistle was raw. I used the whistle specifically because Mark likes commenting on it.

During the performance I would move the Aztec death whistle closer and further away from the mic to get a different level of sound.

While on stage I could see miles into the desert. What a feeling. I could have easily gotten totally zoned out and entranced in that view.

The tape I was playing had about 20 minutes of synths recorded onto it. Our set was 20 minutes as were the sets by all the other performers.

We were one of the only acts to have a stringed instrument.

Desert AMM was recorded live at the 2023 Wonder Valley 15 Experimental Music Festival in 29 Palms CA at The Palms restaurant. 

It was mixed with no overdubs or FX. We sincerely thank everyone at the festival and The Palms.

I think I cut the end of this track too aggressively.

2. Wonder Valley Mirage 19:52 -the heavily altered version of Desert AMM.

Wonder Valley Mirage is a heavily altered/remixed version of Desert AMM with a few added recordings from Weirdfield MA.

The track was thickly layered with fx and looped over itself.

We did a little overdubbing with some other tracks we recorded out in the desert during that trip.

During our time in 29 Palms & Joshua Tree we did many recordings here and there during the day 

and at night out in the vast areas of the harsh beauty of the desert. 

You can feel the sand in the sound.

The desert is beautiful. It truly felt like another world.

The octave mandolin was recorded at our home studio. We just wanted to really elevate and make the recording different. I think that happened.

The end of this version works for me. It’s not as abrupt as side one.

Art isn’t static, art is an apparition.

Copyright 2023 Static Apparitions.

The album is 36:56 long.

We had a few possible names for the album.

Wonder in the Valley - A little too trite for Static Apparitions.

Desert of a Thousand Operas - Also a little too trite.

Desert AMM - A title we liked enough to name the first track. For those who don’t know, AMM is an audio project that has created deep 

experimental recordings and was a big influence on early Pink Floyd. If you enjoy experimental music, AMM is quite worth seeking out.

I want to thank the Baroness for being cool and making audio art with me all over the place.

Yours in experimental sounds,

Count Robot

Witch

When the witch created that world

Water dripped off the ice from the leafless tree branch

Into the puddle filled with the small growing organisms

Then the spell grew

And became you

And you walked away naked into the new world

Where the organisms didn't care if you existed

Yours in odd poetry,

Count Robot

The Dining Zon Episode 4

 Episode 4 of my podcast, the Dining Zone is now up.

https://diningzone.substack.com/p/the-dining-zone-67f

Yours in yummy food,

Count Robot

Shadows of the Forgotten- an album by Static Apparitions

 

Shadows of the Forgotten

An Album By Static Apparitions

Album #5 by Static Apparitions.

This blog post is a write up of an album called Shadows of the Forgotten.

The album is by our audio project Static Apparitions. The idea behind Static Apparitions is to make something without intelligible speaking, wordless singing, and make it sound like the soundtrack to an experimental Euro horror flick from sometime between the 1960s- and the late 1970s.

This album is horror experimental art.

Static Apparitions is:

Baroness LeStrange: Woodrow, Tibetan bowl, melodica, wah-wah tube, wooden floor, vocals, synth, FX, cigar box dulcimer, electric guitar, clapping

Ravna Ghaul: zither, monotron, duo-tron, Aztec death whistle, kazoo, metal, vocals, violin, FX, test oscillator, genometer, microphones, recordings

Mostly recorded in the Powder Magazine room on George’s Island Fort Warren Saturday 6/24/23 

If you ever go to Fort Warren and really want to explore the space, I really recommend going on a rainy day. It’s a lot less crowded and gives you a lot more time to take in the place without having to deal with a lot of people. Plus the rain sounds deeper there than most anyplace I’ve ever been.

Also recorded in Edinbourgh Scotland, London England, and Weirdfield MA

Everything created by Static Apparitions 

Copyright 2026 Static Apparitions

Art isn’t static, art is an apparition. This is our official tag line for Static Apparitions.

1. Artillery Spirits 4:36 -It starts with a zither being struck. This was in the Powder Magazine room in Fort Warren. The sound in there is incredible. 

If you feel the production on this album is any good, it’s more down to the astounding acoustics of the space we recorded in. Listen to the glimmering echo of the Tibetan bowl. That is all down to the space we were in. Sweet vocals delivered by the Baroness. Tasty Woodrow playing by the Baroness too.

2. Gentle Monster 4:22 -Melodica washes over strings. Some layering of separate recordings on this one. 

The low guttural sounds are some slowed down recordings. I believe this track has some of the recordings we did in Scotland on it.

The monster is coming closer. Don’t worry as long as you’re gentle so will the monster be…

3. Disgruntled Spirits 7:50 - Loads of melodica on this one. There’s also some distorted playback of recordings on this track. This has some of the bits we recorded in London blended in. Added a lot of spooky sounding synth by the Baroness on this one. Some oscillator sounds as well. 

4. Toll the Bell of the Ghost Galleon 4:02  - Title inspired by the Tomb of the Blind Dead movie, The Ghost Galleon. Not the best of the Blind Dead movies but still, its an inspiring title. We were in Fort Warren

on this rainy chilled day when out from the sea, a bell rang. Then the title came. Yes, that is a real bell from out on the water somewhere in the rain. Some of the spatial effects here are achieved rather easily by me moving closer and backing away from the Zoom H2 recorders that we used for this session, with me utilising the monotron and duotron. Zoom H2 recorders are what we use whenever recording outside. They’re reliable and easy to position.

5. The Figure Approaches 2:09 -Beware, if you listen to this song with headphones something may come to you. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Some Aztec death whistle at the beginning. The track starts off innocently enough for us with some woodrow, then veers into a dark distorted directions with a wall of strange sounds and footsteps. The figure is approaching you. A wall of sound comes rolling in.

6. They’re Coming 12:05 -First the figure approaches. Now They are drawing closer. Whoever are They? The chaotic climax builds into the arrival of They. 

The woodrow kicks us off. The exiting drone sound is courtesy of the monotron which is a hand held synth. Melodica moves in and out. The rhythmic sounds on this track is mostly the Baroness dancing around on a wooden board that was covering the dirt floor of part of the fort.

7. Shadows of the Forgotten 4:47 -And here we have the title track. I like when the title track is at the beginning or the end but sometimes due to various vague reasons, the title track sometimes lands elsewhere on the album. Some nice cigar box dulcimer and guitar here and nice vocals all from the Baroness.

This track is the coda of the whole experience. It abruptly ends leaving you alone in the empty shadow filled fort.

This whole album plays out like a horror movie. I dare you to walk around Fort Warren while listening to this album.

The cover art is composed of pictures taken at the fort then tinted to give them an aged appearance.

Total time: 38:71

The tracks are mastered with an ear towards hard rock despite the fact that most of the instruments are what you would consider hard rock instrumentation.

Yours in sonic assault,

Count Robot

Basement Techno Crud

Basement Techno Crud

Crinkling sideways into a waste of paper basket of wire discards boards of circuits as you grow board of circuits circuitry and the eulogy of condiments that offer a protean alternative to a communist driven sporting event let’s stroll back to the water car and drive to the nearest beach that’s protected by landed gentry store goodness in a corner of the basement filled with a pile of semi detached techno crud.

Yours in cruddy writing,

Count Robot

Astro Al Presents: Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show

 

Here is a write up of the album,

Astro Al Presents Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show.

This is a recreation or a creation of a flea circus show with Astro Al acting as all the performers (musicians, actors, fleas, etc.)

Imagine you're at a Flea Circus Show. I've never been to one, but once we finished this album I sure felt like I had.

On this album we made up a Vaudeville Show, full of songs and silliness between and around the songs.

We tried to make it very vintage sounding. 

Dr. Gumdrop was a character we created on the first Astro Al album 4:20 and he has his own song on that album. In the song on 4:20, Gumdrop travels from town to town in his covered wagon from the back of which he puts on his medicine shows. His shows is basically him encouraging you to try his elixir while his unnamed female companion plays acoustic guitar.

He was a character we liked and a song we liked, so after many years we thought, why not bring him back? But is it truly him who came back?

How could he be alive in the frontier days of the wild west then be in the era of vaudeville? Well it is possible given the cross over of both ages, but is it the same person or someone just using the name?

Or does his elixir really work?

Is Dr Gumdrop really even a doctor?

If so, what kind? Medical? Philosophical? Who knows? Is it the original Gumdrop's son? The answer is up to you.

At one point we thought about doing something ludicrous. The idea was that when the album was mixed and mastered we would then play it back on a stereo and record that playback with a very old microphone then release that recording as the album, but after much debate we chose not to do something that would make the recording sound so archaic. We also debated about adding a lot of fake hiss and crackling to make it sound more vintage, but we didn’t want to make it sound artificially antique. We chose to record the whole album in an older style, no amps (mostly, had to have one for the theremin), no electric instruments (except the theremin, oh and a humidifier which we used to get some of the water sounds for Away the Good Ship), and no digital microphones. 

This really helped get the older style we went with for the production. 

We also debated about adding applause and laughter throughout the album, but we just felt that would make it feel too much like a bad sitcom.

The Theremin was created in 1920 and I have little doubt popped up here and there in vaudeville and if it didn't we did it first.

At one point we also debated about making up a thing where we "discovered" this album in a used record store and we restored it. We dropped that found sound idea. It just felt like it had been done too much.

A lot of this album was recorded live with live "foley" FX. 

I particularly like DNA Girl's job on the cover art.

Astro Al Presents: Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show

1. Dr. Gumdrop’s Flea Circus Show 4:39 -Performed by Dr. Gumdrop & Heppy Beez & The All Gumdrop Orchestra  -an alternate version of the original Dr. Gumdrop song from 4:20. This track is the first part of the performance where Dr. Gumdrop comes out and gets the audience going and of course peddles his medicine. Striptease fleas?

2. Introducing Etude 1:19 -Dr. Gumdrop introduces the next song and talks about stripper fleas. Lots of dumb jokes in this one but that is what we specialise in.

3. Etude 2:26 -Performed by Fredrika & Her Flowers - A little classy classical number. A Chopin piece transposed to mandolin. Performed by DNA Girl. You go and you went girl!

4. Introducing Dancing on a Snowflake 2:38 -More song introduction by Dr. Gumdrop and more peddling of his drinks. Merrily is a bit of a nut. She might be the most nutty of anyone who appeared on the album.

5. Dancing on a Snowflake 2:38 -Performed by Merrily Mason & The Raindear - This song was originally created for a winter holiday themed charity compilation cd but for some reason didn't make it onto it, so it sat around until we realised it fit the vibe of this album.

6. Introducing Soupcase 2:40 - Savanna Smiles introduces this one. I think her smile is bigger than her brain. It's about time the Dr. left the stage for a bit. No doubt he was off making more tonic.

7. Soupcase 4:13 -Performed by Smelly Lemon Peel Johnson & The Debutante Washerwomen -Starts off soft before the inanity kicks in. This song was inspired by DNA Girl making jokes about Blues songs. She came up with the title. I love the Blues but it is easy to laugh at which is maybe part of the reason I like it so much. DNA Girl's singing on this one is classic. 

8. Sales Skit 4:07 -Introduced by Hella Petunia. Performed by Hella’s twin sister Lola Petunia & Winstone Buffright -We had to have at least one skit. We wrote a few more but this was our favorite and we decided not to include any others because we had so many songs we wanted to cram onto the album.

9. Introducing Queen Liz is the Bee’s Knees 3:25 -The Racoon was a real dance craze for a bit. We did a lot of research on early American pop culture during this album. There were a lot of fun sounding dance crazes back in the day.

10. Queen Liz is the Bee’s Knees 3:10 -Music performed by Sir Piglet & His Hambones -Piglet was the name of one of our craziest cats and this track is a tribute to him. My acting on this track is of course a parody of William Shatner. I love Shatner!

11. Introducing March of the Salem Witches 1:41 -Hazel made her debut in a dinner theater murder/mystery we wrote many years back. In that show she ran a witch academy. What's she doing here? Well, playing music of course. I bet you never knew a flea could juggle an elephant.

12. March of the Salem Witches 2:43 -Performed by Hazel Boudoir & Her All Jugs Band - This is a song we discovered at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA. It's thought to be one of the first songs written about the Salem witch hysteria. DNA Girl takes the prize on this one. There's some  Theremin on this one. This is only excerpt of a much longer piece of music that the composer created.

13. Introducing Away the Good Ship 2:00 -I wish I could see fleas do this stuff. I have a friend who saw a flea circus once in Germany. I have never seen one live and in person.

14. Away the Good Ship 3:59 -Performed by Winifred & The Waves - The lyrics to this one were written by DNA Girl's real life ancestor, Harold Archer. We had worked at this song for awhile before getting it right. I played water phone on this one. Seemed appropriate even though the instrument didn't exist during this time period. So, we exit the album on a serious, but fun song. Sometimes that's the best exit you can make.

Astro Al is:

DNA Girl:  vocals, voices, mandolin, octave mandolin, samples, tambourine, washboard, bottle, cowbell, tongue drum, bicycle horn

Count Robot:  vocals, voices, kazoo, slide whistle, duck call, water-phone, samples, bell, saw, theremin, ukulele, rainstick, fiddle

Produced by Dr. Gumdrop’s Medicinal Whiskey

astroal.bandcamp.com

astroal.com

Copyright 2024 Astro Al

Is Dr. Gumdrop going to return? Maybe. We have discussed another potential album for him. We'll see if we ever get around to putting it together. It could be fun, but it will have to be different.

Here is a quote about the album from the amazing author Jerry Kranitz. He posted this on Facebook. "Think Sesame Street meets Pee-wee's Playhouse at the Grand Ole Opry and the entire cast are tripping their asses off. Feeling grumpy? News depressing you? Spend 45 minutes with the flea circus show it'll cheer you up fer shore."

Yours in Gumdropping,

Count Robot

Tapes by Vincent

Tapes by Vincent

So who here read Fangoria magazine when they were a kid?

Do you remember a large ad for Tapes by Vincent? Not by Vincent Price, but by someone else.

Did you order one?

I did and it was just a home made cassette tape of a kid making sounds with his mouth while the classic Disney Halloween album played in the background and occasionally he said stuff.

I can't find much of any info about this online.

Did I imagine it?

Yes, I've Googled and haven't found anything.

Yours in possible hallucination tapes,

Count Robot