« Radio Spezial » for a Submerged City
An electronic tribute to the City of New Orleans and its people - to those who survived Katrina and to those who didn't. These are versatile, interesting and experimental electronic works including plenty of foundsound and field recording material related to New Orleans and its 2005 flood disaster.
1. Doc - This Is It
Doc opens his track and the album with an upbeat intro carrying some of the emotionally most charged moments from New Orleans Katrina/flood media reporting. After the initial blast of 'media energy' the track transforms into soft, relaxed, dreamlike ambience hosting a strange collage of media snippets, some tangible, some almost subliminal, floating gently in the stream of music.
2. KraftiM - IkoNO
KraftiM's track is a personal, loving tribute to the soul of New Orleans, pulsating with rhythms and echoes of the sweet soul music he once grew to love. Sounds of wind and water mix to this carnival-like electronic potpourri as a natural part of the environment and its atmosphere, but at the same time casting a dark shadow over the passionate and creative spirit of the city and its soul.
3. Softspace - Gestalts
Softspace, an electronica artist from England, debutes on Musictrade with this beautiful and deep synth track with a rich, and imaginative soundworld leaving plenty of space and freedom for different interpretations.
4. KraftiM - ONokidoC You can hear some of KraftiM's IkoNO rhythms also on this track but here they are serving a different, more electronic musical context. ONokidoC pulsates in tight, abstract and darkish patterns, taking the listener to strange worlds of sound. Water is present also on this track, as a dark, fatal force to be reckoned with.
5. Doc - N.O.P.D. Blues Doc's epic track starts with a scaringly realistic audio onslaught of a hurricane mixed with some of the earliest radio reports from New Orleans area after Katrina had hit it. As these worrying reports fade into the background the listener is taken right into the heart of the events in the form of N.O. area police radio traffic from its Baton Rouge headquarters, scanned and streamed to Internet in real time by an unknown local contributor. Combined to Doc's slow and alienated guitar backgrounds these radio messages create a suspended, action-movie-like atmosphere that keeps the listener in its grip throughout the long track.