Music of Sound

Going postal is one of those American idioms at which the rest of the world just go ‘huh?’…. or in more modern parlance; WTF? Of course the urban dictionary can provide answers: “Gone crazy or insane; irrational. Came into use after a number of workplace shootings by disgruntled U.S. post office workers.” How did those postal workers get disgruntled, so disgruntled to bear arms? Maybe its the setting, I laughed (yes out loud) when I read some random twitter debris: “I need a gun… to protect me against all the gun nuts’ – indeed!
But twice now I’ve been a recipient from someone going ‘postal’ – not in the literal sense but using the moving of ‘real’ objects via the postal system to mess with my mind…. The first time I think actually involved a courier, but heres what arrived at my studio one sunny morning back in the early 2000s…

Scary huh? What would you think if it turned up at your place unannounced? I of course called my few exGFs & left enough pauses for any one of them to make a point, but no takers… a week passes… I start to assimilate it into the debris in my studio.. another few weeks pass… we get a turnover for another episode of a TV series that we’re working on at the time & FCK! There it is ONSCREEN – it a FCKNG PROP!!!!! Call up the production office… muffled laughter… “Richard (production recordist) thought you might need it to record” – nice one! Thanks for not including a note, or a return address or anything… Well you know what they say… No? well revenge is a dish best served cold; I bide my time (is a decade long enough?) but in the meantime it serves well as a bookend to hold my DVD collection vertical.. Years pass & I change addresses two or three times…. but then this arrives in the post:

But I confess, it wasn’t entirely random; its creator emailed first, asking for my postal address in a manner not dis-similar to poetry (and not Nigerian spam poetry either) yet here I am, wondering about the intent… sonic product placement in a film or album? it DOES make some cute sounds, although the drumstick-like object made from chewing gum is a little disconcerting…. but the cassette tape IS sealed; there is no evil intent….

Conclusions? Conclusions will have to wait until I get my stethoscope (contact mic) out & verify what my ears are hinting at: used very, very carefully it makes exquisite percussive sounds… And apart from the objects entombed, the rubber band taped in place reminded me of this video which given enough downtime I have tagged to remix into some kind of aphexian cat-powered windowlicker bizo:

So if I build a samplebank from this object, how does it compare with the weirdest object you’ve sampled? PS thanks to you both, oh crazy atom-shifters! Music this way comes! For anyone else so inspired, my postal address is: POBOX 6829, Marion Square, Wellington 6141, New Zealand…. But please do include a return address (physical & email) so I can send you what I make with your gift…. domo arigatou!