Strangest Recordings

Xelebes

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What are the strangest recordings you have heard? I mean in terms of production and recording?

I'm listening to this record from 1969: La Révolution Française - Québécois. I found it while browsing youtube, looking for French songs to include in a little project at some hockey forum.

The trumpet comes in at 1:00 and goes away for a verse. The trumpet returms with a fanfare in 1:55 but is soon overpowered by another trumpet delivering a monotonous peal, dominating over the fanfare and then the whole track. Once that peal goes, the track gives way to a quiet section. And then, as though the producer turns a knob too late, the chorus comes back in. It's a weird recording.
 

poetinahat

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If strange recordings interest you, I highly recommend My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, by David Byrne and Brian Eno. It's an album of bizarre recordings from various sources, set to music. It's weird, but and very listenable. I love it.

Others I probably wouldn't recommend except out of morbid curiosity:

- Soul Discharge by The Boredoms, apparently a Japanese noise group. I found it infantile and unlistenable. Of course, a second listen could find me more tolerant, but it's been twenty years, and it's not high on my list.

- Strategies against Architecture by Einstruzende Neubauten. Shame, because the name is so great. Screaming and power tools. One song, Kalte Sterne, is quirky and earnest, and listenable. Otherwise, this is what Mike Meyers was making fun of on Sprockets. If you don't think much of Kraftwerk, these guys will have you begging for them.
 
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Dave Williams

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I've listened to recordings of whale songs, racing cars, steam trains, and even speeches by FDR, Churchill, Mussolini, and Hitler, though I don't speak Italian or German.

The strangest, though, would be "The White House Tapes", selected recordings from the Oval Office during the Nixon Administration. Also some from the Johnson and Kennedy administrations; JFK is the one who had the recording system installed. You can even find bits from the Eisenhower administration at archive.org; Eisenhower only taped things he felt were important, JFK and later taped everything.

Three things stood out: how many Presidents concerned themselves with trivia that should have been dealt with down at the lower staff level, and that all three men and their cabinets had a bad case of potty mouth.

The third, and major, thing was that almost nobody spoke in complete sentences. A lot of it sounds like four or five people holding completely different conversations. Not that unusual in the modern cellphone age, but these people were supposed to be having meetings about Important National Policy, and most of them sounded like they had some kind of autism disorder.
 

Xelebes

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- Strategies against Architecture by Einstruzende Neubauten. Shame, because the name is so great. Screaming and power tools. One song, Kalte Sterne, is quirky and earnest, and listenable. Otherwise, this is what Mike Meyers was making fun of on Sprockets. If you don't think much of Kraftwerk, these guys will have you begging for them.

Not strange for me. Love the album. Mind you, I have some pretty extreme tastes when it comes to industrial. Yes, I do love Le Neiges Noir de Laponia.
 

BenPanced

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I tend to like "found" mixes, meaning the artists take recordings from completely unrelated sources and mix bits and pieces together under music or beats they've composed. Camera Eyes by VHS Head is one example I'm really into lately.

Of course, for "found" recordings, you can't beat Emergency Broadcast Network. They're an artist collective that have created a propaganda state to disseminate misinformation and inaccuracy in media manipulation, all to a beat you can dance to.

WARNING: Does contain strobe effects/flashy bits.


This is, actually a test . . . this is a test of the YouTube network's quality transcoding and censorship protocols, in support of increasing transmission standards for the EMERGENCY BROADCAST NETWORK, in desperate uncooperative non-coordination with state, private and corporate, neurological, psychiatric and parental psychotic authorities. This is only a test. In the event of anticipated censorship buy the Used Tube network, the images you may see will be unaccompanied by vital news, information, sound or entertainment. If quality transcoding efforts prove successful, the media contained herein has been restored from twenty year old analogue VHS cassette source material, as best as presently possible (under time constraints of impending neurological destruction by authorities) and any decisions regarding its tampering, censorship, use, reuse, usability, misuse, adaptation, adoption, denouncement, endorsement, division, revision, redistribution, and anything else having to do with it, is directly expressed, here, in typing, for the sole determination of EBN (EMERGENCY BROADCAST NETWORK), and or it's designated representatives, yadda yadda yadda - blekwaters (the views expressed above are those of the blekwaters entity, which has no claims no knowledge of any similar views or opinions, and makes no claims as to any comprehension of any speculations, fictitious or imagined, which may or may not have ever been considered, discussed or implied (or not) related to anything whatsoever that may or may not have speculated or inferred multiplicity of ethical standards maintained by this or any partnered media hosting/distribution networks in regards to abstractions and terms including, but not limited to, irony, copyrights, digital rights, management, intellectual property, and oxymorons.) (This is actually a link to the video for Psychoactive Drugs (Uncut Mix).)

Electronic Behavior Control System promises guaranteed results FAST or no money back!

George Bush père gets down with his badass self and will rock you.
 
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