Published
Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
For anyone interested in parapsychology, the name Konstantin Raudive will not be unfamiliar. After discovering the work of the Swedish pioneer Friedrich Jürgenson, he became interested in the new phenomenon of “electronic voice phenomena” during the 1960s. He was among the first authors to investigate the field, assembling an extensive collection of recordings that supposedly contained voices from beyond. These “ghosts” captured on magnetic tape inspired Steven Wilson to make one of the finest albums released under the name Bass Communion.
Ghosts on Magnetic Tape was based on a series of old 78 rpm records that Wilson found in the attic of his parents’ house. These field recordings—collections of environmental sounds—captivated him even though he did not have suitable equipment to play them at the correct speed and had to listen to them at 45 rpm. Throughout the work, long passages present an intensive sonic treatment of these sources, from which Wilson draws remarkable material. The records, played more slowly than intended and marked by the inevitable effects of deterioration over time—skips, hiss and other noise—form the sonic basis of Wilson’s work.
The part of the album that most strongly recalls the “electronic voice phenomena” mentioned above is this one: the third track.
[LS] Your remix of Bass Communion’s Ghosts on Magnetic Tape album added a weight to an album already thematically loaded with tension and apprehension. How did these remixes come about and what about the original drew you to the task of working with that material? Did you find it difficult to work with and why? Also, what do you think about the subject matter of the original and the existence of these electrical, spectral voices?
[AL] Steven Wilson had been buying my music for some time and he sent me the album. I really liked it and said if one day you are going to do a remix I want to be involved. I started work on a track and sent him the results, more as an exercise and for our amusement rather then any intention to release the recording. Steven rang me up and said he really enjoyed what I had done and why don’t I reconstruct the whole album… so I did.
I found it pretty easy to reconstruct the original as it has many elements of my own music in there, and the album was based on a concept I was very familiar with. I was working on a new way of making music at the time that involved playing the original source at twice the speed backwards and twice as slow forwards at the same time, so it was a bit of an experiment and an aural exercise. I filled the recording with some of the EVP recordings I used on my own EVP inspired release ‘Viva Raudive’ and a lot of recordings I made in a cemetery near my house here in Brighton. The cemetery is vast: Aleister Crowley was cremated there and Count Stenbock is buried there, so I thought it made sense to go down a ‘goth’ route and incorporate some kind of ‘validity.’ Not that I have any concrete beliefs in the occult or supernatural.
With regards to EVP, I am extremely sceptical of there being ‘voices of the dead’, and completely dismiss a two-way conversation with the living and the ‘other side’. I do have certain beliefs and ideas when it comes to such phenomenon, electrical foot prints and some inexplicable memories left like dust particles, but I won’t elaborate too much for fear of making myself look idiotic.
(From an interview with Brainwashed).
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/TKi/ghosts_on_magnetic_tape/1/