Thursday 22 June 2006 tHE bLEND 22:00-midnight with bevin campbell

This one is for all you beats heads out there that like the darker sounds - think Sixtoo, DJ Shadow, Amon Tobin and Ennio Morricone mixed together. Then add a healthy serving of number station samples. Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast people reading streams of numbers, words, or letters (sometimes using a phonetic alphabet). The voices that can be heard on these stations are often mysterious: mechanically generated; spoken in a wide variety of languages; usually female, but sometimes male or those of children.

Evidence supports popular assumptions that the broadcasts are channels of communication used to send messages to spies. This has not been publicly acknowledged by any government that may operate a numbers station, but in one case, numbers station espionage has been publicly prosecuted by a foreign court.

Numbers stations appear and disappear over time (although some follow regular schedules), and their overall activity has increased slightly since the early 1990s. This increase suggests that when they were spy-related phenomena, they were not unique to the Cold War.
(Number Stations explanation from Wikipedia, see related links for more)

ABOUT
Derek Whitacre and electronic devices

The Moscow Coup Attempt sounds like:
Down Tempo
Ambient
Electronic
Orchestral
Instrumental
The Soundtrack to a Movie That Does Not Exist

Album: “The Failure of Shortwave Radio”  ©2005 Capitalist Records

The Moscow Coup Attempt is the musical endeavor of Los Angeles based producer, composer, and covert operative of disenchantment, Derek Whitacre.  “The Failure of Shortwave Radio" is the first release from The Moscow Coup Attempt. The album is a stream of unconscious interpretation of failures in communication of not just nations, but persons. A grand scale assessment of individuals.

The artistic base of influence for the album lies in "Numbers Stations"** and their influences on world politics, the cold war, espionage, and musical themes. Many of the motives of "The Failure..." are derived from the musical interludes of these Numbers Stations.

"The Failure of Shortwave Radio" attempts to capture the creepy and mysterious essence of Numbers Stations. Of course this is only the catalyst for the broader outlook on humanity and breakdowns in communication wrapped up in the music. What appears on the surface to be an ambient electronic adventure turns into the soundtrack of a film. The purpose is to wrap the listener in an environment that is comfortable, yet unnerving... like a good suspense-thriller.

For live performance, Derek Whitacre has assembled a collage/montage film specifically for the album. When The Moscow Coup Attempt performs, it's more like seeing a movie (art house if you will) than going to a concert. It's definitely an experience.

**A brief lesson about Numbers Stations:
Numbers Stations, also known as Spy Numbers Stations, are mysterious shortwave radio broadcasts of unknown, and unacknowledged origin. They can be found on random shortwave radio frequencies around the world, at any time of the day. Most stations consist of some kind of monophonic musical call sign, followed by sampled voices (often female) reciting repeated number sequences for an hour, or sometimes days. Some use alpha numerics ("Yankee, Hotel, Bravo"), some use languages other than English. But all remain a mystery. It is suspected that these stations have a role in international espionage, and are used to communicate instructions to spies in the field. They started to appear in the early years of the Cold War, and can still be heard today.

TRACKS MENTIONED DURING INTERVIEW
Artist - Album - Song
Fantomas - The Directors Cut - Cape Fear
Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante - Carry Stress In The Jaw (the actual track
on the CD is two songs, so just the first song)
Patton/Kaada - Romances - Invocations
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 - Supernaught
Bill Hicks - Rants in E Minor - really anything about elite power,
american politics, or Cops
DJ Shadow - Pre-emptive Strike - High Noon
DJ Shadow - Introducing - Midnight in a Perfect World
Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve - Future Breed Machine
Zero7 - When It Falls - Home
Don Caballero - What Burns Never Returns - Room Temperature Suite
Pigface - A New High In Low - Kiss King
Ennio Morricone - Once Upon A Time In the West - Man With A Harmonica
Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come - New Noise
Pepe Deluxe - Beatitude - Little Miss Cypher

NB: these tracks are mentioned as an influence not as containing number station samples.