... So Below ... Or, The Wreck Of The Broadcast

No.148, aired December 7, 2011, featuring the second disc of Ascension’s Broadcast, consisting the single 47 minute track “... so below.” The first disc, “as above ...” was played on June 15, no.125, in an earlier instalment of the Cozmo-Orgazmik Ascension series.

Late Monday night I decided that Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Wreck of the Deutschland would be a suitably active text to read with Ascension – only on the bus on the way to the station did I realize that Hopkin’s poem commemorates a shipwreck that happened on December 7 (same date the episode aired), in 1875!!

Part 1

1. Lucid Fairytale – Napalm Death
2. Nehemiah’s Misfortune – Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
3. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
4. ... So Below – Ascension

Part 2

1. ... So Below (continued) – Ascension
2. Broken Ship – Immaculate Machine
3. Air Traffic Control – Tristan Psionic

Orgazmo-Cosmic Ascension + Bloomsday

No.125, aired June 15, 2011. This was the second installment in NAIA’s Orgazmo-Cozmic Ascension series – see No.123, June 1 for more info. Featured music was the first disc of Ascension’s Broadcast.

Featured audiobook was Stephen R. Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Also, in honour of Bloomsday (June 16, the date in 1905 that James Joyce’s Ulysses was set), passages from Episode 3 “Proteus” of Ulysses were read).

Part 1

1. B.B. On Mars – Alice Cooper
2. Destination Unknown – Vacation On Mars
3. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
4. Hope And Glory – The Class Assassins
5. As Above – Ascension

Part 2

1. As Above (continued) – Ascension
2. Just Like Me – L7
3. Air Traffic Control – Tristan Psionic
4. Medication – Vacation On Mars
5. Sailing On – Bad Brains

Cosmo-Orgazmic Ascension

No.123, aired June 1, 2011.

In 1998, British Music critic Ben Watson wrote that “in the masterpieces of modern music – Varese’s Arcana, Boulez’s Marteau sans Maitre, Zappa’s Yo’ Mama, Coltrane’s Ascension, Xenakis’s Kraanerg, Hutcherson’s Components, Ascension’s Broadcast – there is an intimation of impersonal event, the scary objectivity of quasars unfolding in outer space. It corresponds to the moment of orgasm.”

Over the summer and fall of 2011, Naval Aviation In Audio (Wednesday 9-10 pm) will play each of the works in Watson’s cosmo-orgasmic musical canon, beginning with this episode which featured Edition II (the earlier of two takes) of John Coltrane’s Ascension, a 40+ minute, 11-piece stellar excursion into the outer limits of freedom, discipline & risk that still divides audiences. Ricard Giner wrote “Is this extraordinary document an indigestible cacophony of anarchy in brass and bass, or the artistic culmination of a man's desire to explore the outer reaches of tonality and the inner limits of freedom? Is Ascension a transcendental event in jazz history or an anomalous experiment that perseveres in its periphery?”

Some of the spicier passages from Watson’s book were read during the quieter moments of Ascension.

Part 1

1. Air Traffic Control – Tristan Psionic
2. Brain Scan – Voivod
3. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
4. Ascension, Edition II – John Coltrane

Part 2

1. Ascension, Edition II – John Coltrane (continued) -– select pages from Art Class & Cleavage – Ben Watson
2. Exit Plexit – Simply Saucer
3. Sailing On – Bad Brains

Flying Into Uranus

No.100, aired December 8, 2010.

Visited the magical cloud world of Uranus with Man Or Astro-man? (who recorded a live album from Uranus) as featured artist. Spoken word component was KRS Edstrom’s Fly Without Fear: Guided Meditations For A Relaxing Flight.

Part 1

1. Stereo Phase Test – Man Or Astro-man?
2. Zone Of Compass Reliability – Tristan Psionic
3. Naval Aviation In Art? – Frank Zappa
4. Maximum Radiation Level – Man Or Astro-man?
5. Jeff Starship – CPC Gangbangs
6. Planet Collision – Man Or Astro-man?
7. I’m A Stranger Here – Five Man Electrical Band
8. Evil Plans Of Planet Spectra – Man Or Astro-man?
9. Lucky Star – Tristan Psionic

Part 2

1. Anoxia – Man Or Astro-man?
2. The Planets, Op.32, Uranus, The Magician – Gustav Holst (composer) / Lost Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra)
3. Anus Of Uranus – Klaatu
4. Techno’s Song – GWAR
5. Television Fission – Man Or Astro-man?
6. Attack From Planet Hattifatteners – Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO
7. Television Man – Man Or Astro-man?
8. Air Traffic Control – Tristan Psionic
9. Sailing - Ripcordz

Avian Cartography

No. 61, aired February 10, 2010.

This episode presented a bird's-eye view of the earth & an earth-eye gaze at the sky, featuring four tracks from the Mahavishnu Orchestra's 1973 album Birds of Fire, two from the Buttless Chaps' Cartography, five from a Mayday records punk compilation, Chris Cutler's Life On Earth, and a live reading of Charles Olson's poem Kingfishers.

Part 1

1. Celestial Terrestrial Commuters - Mahavishnu Orchestra
2. Naval Aviation in Art? - Frank Zappa
3. We Gotta Go - Borderguards
4. Cartography - Buttless Chaps -- Kingfishers - Charles Olson
5. Birds of Fire - Mahavishnu Orchestra
6. Behind Your Screen - The Class Assassins
7. The Flight Of The Bumblebee - Disembarkation
8. Zone Of Compass Unreliability - Tristan Psionic
9. One Last Chance - Knucklehead

Part 2

1. Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love - Mahavishnu Orchestra
2. Don't Tread On Me - Wednesday Night Heros
3. Life On Earth - Chris Cutler / Hyperion Ensemble -- Kingfishers - Charles Olson
4. Miles Beyond - Mahavishnu Orchestra
5. Rise Above - Riot 99
6. Broken Transit Broken Soil - Buttless Chaps
7. Air Traffic Control - Tristan Psionic

Fly Without Fear

Episode 25 begins the new day with a statement of purpose - to conquer fear of flight, thru flight! Featured KRS Edstrom's audiobook Fly Without Fear: Guided Meditations for a Relaxing Flight, a spoken-word treatise on fearlessness including easy-listening background music - to which was added the following in the aural foreground -

Part 1:
1. Airports - The (International) Noise Conspiracy
2. Air Traffic Control - Tristan Psionic
3. Naval Aviation in Art? - Frank Zappa
4. You're Gonna Crash - Streetheart
5. Master of the Universe - Hawkwind
6. New Drug Queens - Pink Mountaintops
7. Silver Rocket - Sonic Youth

Part 2:
1. You Shouldn't Do That - Hawkwind
2. From the Eastern Gate I - Erica Goodman
3. Go to Hell - Streetheart
4. 'Cross the Breeze - Sonic Youth
5. Blast Off - The (International) Noise Conspiracy

Nutshell Cosmos

This eleventh episode featured Stephen Hawking's audiobook The Universe in a Nutshell with The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra and 2 bands from Hamilton Ontario: psychedelic rockers Simply Saucer and indie-rockers Tristan Psionic. Aired January 28, 2009.

Part 1

1. Nebulae – Sun Ra
2. Air Traffic Control – Tristan Psionic
3. Naval Aviation in Art? - Frank Zappa
4. Other Worlds – Sun Ra
5. Illegal Bodies – Simply Saucer
6. Of Heavenly Things – Sun Ra
7. Zone of Compass Unreliability – Tristan Psionic

Part 2

1. Mole Machine – Simply Saucer
2. The Cosmos – Sun Ra
3. Clearly Invisible – Simply Saucer
4. Thither & Yon - Sun Ra
5. Exit Plexit – Simply Saucer