Our latest collaborations is where we'll start our long over due post. Thee Uncondemning Monk has a new ally, Agitation Φ (Phi). Agitation Φ and Thee Um crossed sonic paths about two months ago via a mutual interest. What happened was Agitation Φ noticed a post promoting one of the latest products of the Coyotel #ARTWAR, started by Coyotel Magus Steven J. Leyba. The recent product Agitation Φ noticed the #ARTWAR Cd, which Thee Um did a reading for, on the first track. The ARTWAR CD is just one product in the on going Coyotel ART WAR.
As and FYI, Rev. Al L. Aguero, Thee Um, has been working on a identity magick chapter for an up and coming ART WAR Manual, in the works. It should come out sometime late 2016, but no release date has yet been set. But getting back to Agitation Φ and Thee Um, having noticed our work with Coyotel, Agitation Φ and Thee Um were able to form what is known as a Third Mind. They have been documenting their collaborations on soundcloud. Not only did they realize that they share sonic worlds, they also realized they had other magickal interests besides Coyotel, such as the work of TOPY and its later manifestations such as, AIN23. These respective landscapes and shared notions of musicality allowed them to form a Third Mind, a double star, what some might call a star-star, as each artist engaged in their one take off the cuff jams. Agitation Φ & Thee Uncondemning Monk work by playing in the moment. Each jamming off of the others' tracks. For example, Agitation Φ would provide a ritual magick bass track to Thee Um who would in turn jam to that track creating new layers, all in done in the moment. Speaking of Agitation Φ's bass work, we would like to attempt to describe her sound. Her bass tracks often implores a multitude of honed effects. which are melded into rhythms produced by her use of drum machines. These are then merged with the bass and effects into various wild, but controlled, synth-sounds to create her sonic multiverse. The bass is bad ass and leaves little, if anything, to be desired. Which is why, at first, Thee Um thought that there was little that they could add. So Thee Um did not simple add a layer, or that is the layers that Thee Um did add were more of a way to re-frame Agitation Φ's works. Thee Um strategically deployed various synthetic keyboard sounds, as a way to underline and re-frame or augment Agitation Φ's pattern with patterns, thereby meeting her bass on its own terms. At first, Thee Um, allowed Agitation Φ bass to dominate, as not to drowned out her excellent work. But as Thee Um grew in confidence and become more accustom to Agitation Φ's style, his layers come up to equal it; creating a new whole that neither dominates nor is dominated by the bass work. As we continued to engage in the process, new sonic landscapes appeared, opening up experimental possibilities which availed themselves to each artist. On another quick note, we soon found that Agitation Φ also has a special knack for taking Thee Um's daily hygienic soundwerks and turning them into crazy sound animals that are most monstrous & divine. Together they have begun a project of creating various magickal soundwerks and are working towards building bridges with other artists - through the gravity of sound & Art through Coyotel - Thee Network. Take a listen to the Third Mind o.v. Agitation Φ & Thee Um.
We would now like to take this opportunity to highlight a few tracks. This is our popular solo work, "Can I Be TV Too." And as earlier we were speaking of Coyotel and the connections that connect Agitation Φ & Thee Um, we present, "Dark Ra Ov Trinity," as it includes audio from Magus Leyba & Hannah Haddix speaking on the subject of pandrogeny. "Skulls Of Bees Transforming Thee," is one of the first attempts, on Thee Um's end, to work with a track by Agitation Φ. And this is the way in which we work, going back and forth, one idea or track feeding thee other; from which we build and re-build various works, such as "And Thee Clock Struck 23," which is, we checked, the first work that had any collaborative efforts - check it out, you will enjoy this tick-rock-tock de-mark-action o.v. T.I.M.E. -- back and forth we go, in an infinitely strange-loop, generating new ideas and conceptual plans for current and future soundwerks. Our collaboration has pushed me into new areas of experimental music. It has also brought me back to re-working with cut-ups, as well as moving closer towards full development of our fusing and slumping technique, truly exemplified here on, "Grace Karvoz And Me," a technique taken from glass blowing and now applied to audio, as well as textual materials. Another of the new experimental avenues we have been playing in are extratone and vaporwave; the mixture of these micro-genres. If you are unfamiliar with extratone, extratone is about creating over a thousand note per sec creating a tone instead of notes, not unlike black-midi, and vaporwave is music meant to be listened to on drugs that make you slow, like special-k or the magical-h. As such we have too be experimenting with the scene of the k and h and pushing the soundwerk into new directions - again, of combining extratone with vaporwave. We Are Drugs - We are thee New Government, We are the Scene! Welcoum To Thee Network - The Next Way On!
Winding down this post, we wanted to speak of an influence of ours that we have found helps people understand some of our musicality and our rationales for soundwerkings -- which are various, often trance inducing, but when they are not trance inducing, when they aim to break the trance states that too many people find themselves lost in, we turn to Captain Beefheart, and our mutual disdain for 4/4 time. Having a deep and abiding love for Captain Beefheart, our keyboard work, again, has found its thesis in rapidly changing riffs which are combined with hypnotic and non-hypnotic b-ass undertones and resonate organ type sonic tones (which find a prominent place in many of our recent tracks). In terms of fusing and slumping, we have done a few in tribute to the mystical passing of moon child David Bowie, as well as to celebrate Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) birthday, RAW passed on in 2007. Bowie passed to that celestial lodge - his soul through the sun - black star - star star, three days after his video "Lazarus " was released. We have dedicated two tracks, "Star Star Nova," and "Star Star Daath Version Aleph" to Bowie and one in particular to RAW and Bowie (but all are to both RAW and Bowie), see also, Juju on the Raw.
One can find some (not all, we are working on gathering them into this playlist) of our collaborations with Agitation Φ here: Agitation Φ & Thee Um.
And some of our recent works here --- Thee Um (recent stuff)
and our cut-up and fusing & slumping works here: Cut-Up -- Fuse & Slump!
Well, speaking of cutting, we are cutting it here, and will post again soon, for we have much much more to tell you!
*donations = survival (move to the bioexchange)
soundwerks which you can find here via soundcloud --
