Rest in Power, Emma Durutti: Transmission 476, 2019 July 31

The three-week hiatus that preceded this program didn't do me much good, and at the time of this broadcast I wasn't living my best life. My therapist had been telling me for weeks that my "power" was increasing, but she must have been referring to some other power than "competent radio hosting." It is true that I had stepped into a leadership vacuum at work and perhaps had made an awful summer better for some people, but to say that severely underestimates how awful the summer was and glosses over the toll it took on me. I'm trying to be as specific as possible about my feelings and as general as possible about certain other people. Surely you've seen online "defenses" of "the humanities" in this age of STEM and neoliberal rationalization of everything that higher education tries to do. One common defense is to gesture toward Venture Capital and Silicon Valley and say, "look at how racist and sexist and exploitative and generally non-empathetic these things are--this is why people should study literature and philosophy!" Let me tell you something. I've been studying and working in the humanities for three decades, and, specifically over the last three years at this "theory camp" that is a sort of finishing school for future (or would-be) "academic rockstars" in these fields. I could talk to you all day about how immersion in "the humanities" or "the arts" is no inoculation against racism or classicism or narcissism or sociopathic indifference to suffering. We'll leave it at that.

So this was the first show I did after a rather explosive ending (I don't dare say "traumatic," but it was definitely "a lot," as the kids say) to summer camp; out of practice and with a recently acquired Xmal Deutschland record in hand I was straddling the boundary between the new noise I wanted to make and the remnants of what I used to think I was doing. Sometimes it worked, but there are moments that are not authentically "me." I didn't really enjoy the set that that had Reigning Sound in it, apologies to them. I could also have jettisoned The National and Holly Herndon; at some point in my past a person I don't remember having been must have thought they would make good segues. They didn't. "What year is it," I ask, unable to figure out why I am playing three 4AD artists on this night when we all know that only one was ever truly good, and that was a long time ago.

But I can tell you that this broadcast is not even "rock bottom," so there's probably some content here that you will enjoy.

BOMBAST playlist, 2019 July 31, 2100-2300:

1. "Entrance" | Merz, Laraaji, Shahzad Ismaily | Dream of Sleep and Wakes of Sound | Merz
2. "Home [live]" | The Durutti Column | Obey the Time [reissue] | Factory Benelux
3. "White Rhino - Sound Culture Remix" | Chicago Afrobeat Project Featuring Tony Allen | What Goes Up (Remixed) | Future Rootz
4. "Gaussian" | Com Truise | Persuasion System | Ghostly International
5. "Who Gives a Damn" | Grotto | Grotto II: Wait...No Hurry | Livingstone Studio
6. "Big Takeover" | Bad Brains | Rock for Light | PVC
7. "Art-I-Ficial" | X-Ray Spex | Germfree Adolescents | Real Gone Music
8. "Eiland" | Xmal Deutschland | Tocsin | 4AD
9. "Nasa Arab" | Coil | The Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex + 2 | Musique Pour La Danse
10. "Call Me #1" | Reigning Sound | Abdication... For Your Love | Merge
11. "Birth" | Holly Herndon | PROTO | 4AD
12. "All Of Us Waning In The Firmament" | Nonconnah | Seek Not Your Fortune | Ernest Jenning Record Co.
13. "Oyo Ka Jojo" | Les Volcans De La Capital | African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds from Benin & Togo 70s | Analog Africa
14. "P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)" | Parliament | Greatest Hits (The Bomb) - Parliament | Casablanca / Polygram
15. "Dust Swirls In Strange Light" | The National | I Am Easy To Find | 4AD
16. "Anti-Body" | FACS | Lifelike | Trouble In Mind
17. "Des Etoile Electroniques - Demo" | Stereolab | Mars Audiac Quintet (Expanded Edition) | Duophonic / WARP
18. "Subtraction" | Sleaford Mods | Eton Alive | Extreme Eating
19. "They Made Them Up" | C Cat Trance | Screaming Ghosts | Emotional Rescue / Malka Tuti
20. "Time Safari - Ambient Version" | Clarian | Time Safari | Kompakt

Prepare yourself for the final quest

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