My acquisition of an illusory defilement / Altered Circuitry: ReWired 09.28.23

Altered Circuitry presents:

Tonight is the final Altered Circuitry: ReWired for the foreseeable future, so we’re going out with a bang. Every track in tonight’s show holds some specific significance to the show, both over the course of its whole 11.5 year life (and counting) and the current place it finds itself in. We’ve also got an exclusive new nmesh track to dig into that he’s graciously given us for this specific occasion, so look out for that towards the middle point. It’s a great one. And this show will be one of the greatest journeys across the vast expanses of electronic music yet. And we’re not done. Just stopping to enjoy the scenery indefinitely.

As always, dedicated in memory of Kevin McFadin, and everyone who has enjoyed and contributed over the years to this show that is my pride and joy.

As promised, here are the explanations for my track selections from this show, written slowly over the course of the week following its airing:

Oneohtrix Point Never – Boring Angel

The album that this track is from, R Plus Seven, will be 10 years old on September 30th. Given that a new Oneohtrix Point Never album would be releasing the day after this final episode of Altered Circuitry, I figured that it was only fitting that I begin the show with this track. Plus it’s just a great opener in general, both for its album and for the purposes of this show.

Subfocus – Let The Story Begin

This was the first track that I ever played on the radio, back in 2012 when it was still Frenetic Friday, airing from 1am to 3am. It was also the song I used to open my first “final Altered Circuitry” show back in August of 2019. I didn’t want to put it first this time, because the circumstances are very different this time around, but I did want to include it nonetheless.

Grant Kirkhope – Institute Menu

I have often said that video games laid the foundation for my love of electronic music, and Perfect Dark is a prime example of that. I have always loved the soundtrack to that game, as well as Grant Kirkhope’s composition in general. The yearly video game specials that I have done in the past would often use this track as bed music for the first talk break, and I wanted to do so again with this one.

Hiroshi Kobayashi – The Hard Corps

The aforementioned video game shows were always ones that certain friends of mine would get very excited for, and on several occasions it led to me having closer communication with people I may have just met once or twice before. One such person was Nick Foley, who recommended this song to me while I was in the planning stages of a video game show back in 2018. I have never played much of Contra Hard Corps, mainly because it is unusually difficult, but I immediately fell in love with its soundtrack when he showed it to me.

Tabby – Falling

Tabby is an artist I discovered through nmesh’s remix compilation Dress For Excess: A Collection of Corporate Bangers. Back in May I did a show centered around all the producers who contributed to the compilation, and this album from Tabby was a standout amongst all the new music that I was led to in the process. Praise Christtt is one of those albums that I could see myself eventually playing every song from on air, if the show were continuing on a bi-weekly basis. That said, I have a feeling they will all get played eventually.

Magna – Divide (Miami Mix)

The soundtracks to Hotline Miami 1&2 were a definite shaper of Altered Circuitry, in that they introduced me to many producers I had never heard before, many of whom would become staples of the show – Scattle, Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, and many more. They are perfect examples of how my love of electronic music is influenced by video games even to this day. This particular track is from Hotline Miami 2.

Limewax – One of Them (Current Valve Remix)

This is a song that I first heard on Dieselboy’s Substance D album, which to this day is one of the best drum n bass mixes I’ve ever heard. It’s one that I remember having ready to go in my CD case during my first year of doing the show, when I was still finding my feet in terms of putting together each individual episode, and as such I wanted to harken back to it.

The Chemical Brothers – Playground For A Wedgeless Firm

The Chemical Brothers have been a favorite of mine since long before Altered Circuitry began. I chose this particular song because it is maybe the clearest example of a very specific fixation I have when it comes to electronic music – the sound that I would describe as “NNNNZZZEEAARRROWWW”. I used to have a playlist of every example of this kind of sound that I could find, and Playground For A Wedgeless Firm was always my go-to when describing the sound I was talking about to people.

Sigh – Nietzschean Conspiracy

For years now I have described this song as “the song that is unlike anything else”. It’s fusion of synths, black metal vocals, and saxophone are about as singular as sounds come. Of course, I would love to be proven wrong, so if anyone knows anything that sounds similar, please tell me. I won’t hold my breath though, because I have tried many times over the years to seek out new music on this basis, even enlisting Mike Wilcox in the hunt as well, always to no avail. *UPDATE*: As of a few days ago, I have been informed by Alex Koenig aka nmesh that the artist fire-toolz very much fits this description. I am not at all surprised that he was ultimately the one to crack the code on this matter.

Lovage – Pit Stop (Take Me Home)

I first heard this song in Record and Tape Exchange in Fairfax VA back when I was in high school and first starting to really make a point of seeking out new music. At the time I had never heard anything like it, but I absolutely loved it from the minute the store owner dropped the needle. The album, Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By is one of many that I was eager to share on the air when I first got my show.

DJ Frane – The Day The Listeners Came

Amon Tobin – Saboteur

Flying Lotus – Camel

All three of these songs sample the song Watch ‘N’ Chain by The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. The first song in this set was one that I found through looking up Amon Tobin’s Saboteur on whosampled, and soon thereafter put together this little three song block that I would always enjoy an opportunity to fit into a playlist. It also resulted in me digging deeper into DJ Frane, who took notice and sent me several of his albums, all signed to me. It was a pretty incredible surprise to show up the station one day to find several CDs in my mailbox with “For The Wizard King” written on them in silver sharpie.

Daft Punk – The Grid

Ever since its release, the Tron: Legacy soundtrack has been my favorite thing Daft Punk has ever done, and this track has always elicited an oddly emotional reaction from me. I think it is because it happened to come into my life at a time when I was pulling myself out of the deepest depression I had experienced to date, and the sentiment of it resonated with me on that basis: “I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see…. and then, one day, I got in”

It’s A Fine Line – Cardiogram (feat. Olivia de Lanzac)

On the other end of the spectrum, this is a song from one of the darkest periods in my life, and for the show as well by extension. It’s an album that came out at a time when I admittedly was not able to put my best foot forward when it came to radio. That said, I’m glad I continued, and I’m glad I had albums like It’s A Fine Line’s self-titled to carry me through. Right now, as I write this on Friday the 29th, the reality of ending Altered Circuitry is sinking in, and thinking back to this period is a great reminder that sadness can pass and things can improve.

Gary Numan – Down In The Park (Sulpher Mix)

In my mind, this is the iconic Mike Wilcox Altered Circuitry track. It has made an appearance on many a collaboration between him and I. I couldn’t pick just one song from those collaborations to include in tonight’s show, but this was the one I wanted to include for him first and foremost.

Buffalo Daughter – 303 + 606 = Acid

This track comes from one of the first CDs I ever bought, all the way back in 2004 – At Home With The Groovebox. It is a compilation of music created with the Roland MC-505 Groovebox, but the reason I purchased it initially was because I was curious to hear the original version of Gershon Kingsly’s Popcorn. Because I was just starting to dip my toes into electronic music at the time, I didn’t grasp the premise of the compilation, because if I did I would have understood that the version on this album would not end up being the original 1969 recording by Kingsly that I was seeking, but rather a new version that was recorded for the compilation. Regardless, At Home With The Groovebox is an album that I found myself coming back to again and again as my appreciation for electronica developed, and thus I wanted to include a track from it in tonight’s show. This one from Buffalo Daughter is one of my favorites from the compilation, and I’ve already decided on another that I’m going to include in the next Altered Circuitry at the end of November.

nmesh – Heavyweight Subliminal

Alright. It’s time to talk about nmesh. As my appreciation for electronic music took shape in my early to mid teen years, I quickly found out that the more heavily sample-based genres are the ones that tended to resonate with me the most. Early listens that would steer me in this direction included DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing….. and Boards of Canada’s Music Has The Right To Children. Fast forward to 2011 when I was given my first taste of what would come to eventually be known as vaporwave via a friend linking me to Macintosh Plus’ Floral Shoppe album. I, like many people who heard the album at the time, was perplexed but also intrigued by the unique sound. Fast forward again to Spring of 2014, when I was planning my movie soundtrack show for WRIR’s spring fund drive. Mike Wilcox told me that he had a friend who was very knowledgeable when it comes to movies with electronic soundtracks, had put together a 4 hour video game mix in the past, and was also a producer of electronic music himself. Thus I was introduced to Alex Koenig aka nmesh. That evening we had a lengthy conversation about soundtracks and electronic music in general, and he provided me with several great additions to the soundtrack show that I was unaware of prior. In an ultimate act of humility, he never plugged his own music during this whole conversation, but I was still curious to check it out given how much our tastes aligned. I started with the then-recently released Dream Sequins album, and immediately fell in love with it. By this point vaporwave had been more clearly codified genre-wise, but I had never heard an album where I felt like the genre had fully reached its potential to highlight the absurdity of consumer culture from various eras while simultaneously eliciting nostalgia, all while riding waves of different sounds from track to track. Dream Sequins was that album. I played it start to finish many times that summer, and it really cemented my love for the genre and got me to dig further into it. It’s an album that has continued to leave it’s mark on the show. Climbing The Corporate Ladder is almost certainly the most played song in Altered Circuitry history, and my radio blog derives its name from what is probably my favorite song title ever, held by one of the more drone-y tracks on Dream Sequins – The Gull Wing Doors Of Perception. When Alex hit me up the day of this final Altered Circuitry episode and offered to give me an exclusive, never-before-heard track from his upcoming album to include in the show, I couldn’t contain my excitement. Clocking in at just over 8 minutes in length, Heavyweight Subliminal is an absolute banger of an odyssey through samples pertaining to subliminal messaging. I found it somewhat reminiscent of Negativland’s 1987 song Christianity Is Stupid in terms of subject matter and execution, but at its core it is something that could come from nobody other than nmesh. It was easily my favorite part of this whole show by far. I’ve never been one to name many superlatives in terms of my taste in music, but as I’ve thought about it more and more over these past few months, I feel like nmesh has to be my favorite recording artist overall. His music opened up a path of listenership even longer and more expansive than the early steps in my electronica journey that predisposed me to like his music in the first place. Also, its worth noting that in retrospect I feel like I subconsciously ripped off his slogan “Exploring The Further Regions Of Experience” when I started introducing the show each week as “a journey through the vast expanses of electronic music and beyond its outer reaches”, and have felt somewhat guilty ever since I realized that. So Alex, if you’re reading this, sorry about that, it was completely unintentional. And thank you for your massive impact on what this show has shaped up to be ever since that fateful evening in 2014.

Skinny Puppy – Plasicage

Another track that I see as very iconic to the many Mike Wilcox collab shows. I had heard Skinny Puppy in the past, but Mike showed me many portions of their discography that I wouldn’t have honed in on otherwise, and that ultimately became some of my favorite recordings of theirs. This song is a prime example – its from an album that nobody would pinpoint as their best, but the song itself is one of my favorites.

Otto Von Schirach – Earth People

Otto Von Schirach was another artist that Mike introduced me to, that ultimately ended up making many appearances in both our collab shows and the ones I did by myself. I feel like the vibe of his music is very aligned with the overall vibe of those collabs – both have an undercurrent of general zaniness and are/were better for it.

Oliver – Light Years Away

Discovering this song, and Oliver as a whole, definitely put the show on a more house/techno-oriented kick for a good portion of 2017. Also, I was afforded the opportunity to interview one half of the duo, Vaughan Oliver, shortly after the release of their 2017 LP Full Circle, which is something I’ll always remember fondly.

DJ Shadow – You Played Me

DJ Shadow is a personal hero of mine. He has been one of my all time favorite producers for years now, with Endtroducing….. being the album I still to this day pinpoint as my favorite album of all time. DJ Shadow has always had his thumb on the ever-changing pulse of electronic music. Over the years his music has taken on qualities of the many emergent styles of electronica and anchored them to his core sound that originates from instrumental hip hop. This new single off his upcoming album is the latest example of this, exhibiting his take on the retro synth sound that has become more and more prominent over the course of the past 10 years or so.

Bot’Ox – Tout Passe, Tout Lasse, Too Casse (feat. Judy Nylon)

Bot’Ox has been a staple of Altered Circuitry throughout all its years, and this is easily my favorite song from their first LP. I also thought the theme of impermanence made it a good selection for this show.

Negativland – Anything Else

The last two albums from Negativland have dominated Altered Circuitry playlists ever since I first heard them at the beginning of 2021. I haven’t heard any other music that speaks so directly to the uniquely dystopian nature of the current era. I chose this particular song because it asks what we’re losing when we eliminate the human elements of what we engage in everyday, in all areas of life. Part of the reason why I feel so strongly about continuing to do radio is that there is so much to be lost when we replace it with algorithmic modes of music curation.

Low – Congregation

This song, which I first heard through the TV show Devs as it was airing, is one that I associate with the initial onset of COVID in March of 2020, and the rest of the year as a whole. It closed out many episodes of Altered Circuitry during that period.

Atom TM – The Sound of Decay

Back when Altered Circuitry aired directly after Mercury Falls, I would often discover cool electronic music I had never heard in the closing minutes of that show. The Sound of Decay is one of Melissa’s many selections that stuck with me and got integrated into several of my own playlists.

Com Truise – Data Kiss

Beyond being a staple of Altered Circuitry, Com Truise always reminds me of one of the funnier incidents that occurred during my show. It was on a night that I was giving away a pair of tickets to see Com Truise, and both Mike Wilcox and my other friend Mike Waite both called in at the same time to claim them and were both redirected, so there was a very real moment of confusion in which they were both asking me why I hadn’t picked up, and why they were hearing ominous dark ambient music when they picked up the phone. Ultimately I ended up having to tell Mike Rutz that the tickets were claimed by two different Mikes at the same time, and that I had no way of knowing who claimed them first. Both were ultimately added to the guest list for the Com Truise show.

Darkside – Freak, Go Home

Speaking of Mike Waite, I had to include a song that I associate with the connection I formed with him over electronic music. Back when I was pursuing my English degree at VCU, Mike and I were assigned to do a group project together, and when I went to add him on facebook I saw that his cover photo was the Boards of Canada album A Beautiful Place Out In The Country. I was shocked, because I had never met anyone else in the department who was into this kind of music. Mike and I exchanged a great deal of electronic music over the course of our time in school, and Psychic by Darkside is definitely a standout album released during that period that we both loved.

George Clanton – Bleed

Many of the previous songs in this playlists were chosen on the basis of them characterizing certain eras of Altered Circuitry due to their especially heavy and consistent presence in the playlists from episode to episode, and George Clanton is the last artist to have that distinction. I was late to the party when it comes to Clanton, but ever since I first heard his 2015 album 100% Electronica a few months ago, I’ve been hooked. Bleed felt like the most fitting way to cap off this particular show, as well as the final several-month stretch of Altered Circuitry overall.

Again, many thanks to everyone who made this show so special over the years. It means more to me than I can possibly say in words.

Playlist:

Oneohtrix Point Never, “Boring Angel”

from R Plus Seven

Warp Records - 2013

Sub Focus, “Let the Story Begin”

from Sub Focus

RAM Records - 2009

Grant Kirkhope, “Institute Menu”

from Perfect Dark

Nintendo of America - 2000

Hiroshi Kobayashi, Akira Soji, Kenji Miyaoka, Michiru Yamane, Akira Yamaoka, Hirofumi Taniguchi, Aki Hata, “The Hard Corps”

from Contra Hard Corps

Konami

Tabby, “Falling”

from Praise Christtt

[self-released] - 2021

Magna, “Divide (Miami Edit)”

from Divide (Miami Edit) - Single

Superdead - 2022

Limewax, “One of Them (Current Value Remix)”

from The Remixes - EP

Lost Soul Recordings - 2008

The Chemical Brothers, “Playground of a Wedgeless Firm”

from Exit Planet Dust

Astralwerks - 1995

Sigh, “Nietzschean Conspiracy”

from Imaginary Sonicscape

The End Records - 2001

Nathaniel Merriweather, “Pit Stop (Take Me Home) [feat. Mike Patton, Jennifer Charles, Kid Koala & Dan the Automator]”

from Nathaniel Merriweather Presents...Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By (feat. Mike Patton, Jennifer Charles, Kid Koala & Dan the Automator)

Bulk Recordings - 2011