Halim El-Dabh
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Much like in the discovery of the decaying Victorian-life films of Mitchell and Kenyon, came the unearthing of a series of experimental sounds by Halim El-Dabh recorded through 1944 to 1959. The particular electronic concoction responsible for my wide eyed grin is the “Wire Recorder Piece” (1944), a two minute paranormal head-fuck (to be frank) that predates the first known ‘techno’ track by two years, this is the track available above. A surmise of the ghostly atmosphere seems futile; it is the soundtrack of an asylum; echoes of lost voices rebound from cold sterile surfaces as if evoked by the dead. Indiana Jones has unveiled the holy grail of noise; it is ghastly and awe-inspiring.
A collection of these old tapes were released under the misguiding upbeat moniker of “Crossing into the Magnetic Electronic”. The first nine tracks continue in the same vein as the recorder piece – an exploration of the institute if you will. “Michael and the dragon” passes an operating theatre testing a new electro-shock-therapy procedure – a deathly wail is detained by the reverberations of alternating current that charges and condemns; “Meditation in White Sound” sees a padded cell and straight jacket, a drugged out invalid reeling from whatever it is he is reeling from. “Pirouette” sees a rusted wheeled bed pass us complete with restraining cuffs and stained sheets. The tall murky windows, high ceilings and smell of disinfectant are all too apparent in “Element, Being and Primeval”. To say that I am painting a picture too bleak is to say that medical holes in the trenches of The Great War lacked hygiene. “Electronics and the word” is our final therapy session with the doctor before “Venice” sees our brief epiphany.Labels: Avant-Garde, Eerie, Pre-1950
Posted by FofR
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