Northern Lights Ascending

Finally, Northern Lights Ascending is a four-track work from summer 1990. The first piece is a silly deadpan cover version of the old song "Nickelodeon" with Ken Clinger and Ellen Mizelle ("All I want is loving you and music, music, music."). The tape then veers off into the deep end with one of the most complex and haunting recordings I've ever done. I took the aforementioned Tuf Luk tape (with two empty channels due to Kozi's broken deck) and dubbed in two channels of new recordings from Hal McGee and Minóy. I mixed this tape down very carefully, with a gentle and uncrowded approach leaving sounds to subtly weave in and out of each other.

The last third of the tape is a piece called "Hope", in two parts: "I. triumphant flames II. cascading lights." This is from January when I started to dub Agog onto the four-track master. This was interrupted by somebody throwing a large slag of cement through my kitchen window. Needless to say I was quite shaken up by this event and subsequently shelved this tape for five months. The completed tape is an adventure you should hear if you are interested in knowing the direction my recordings took after making over three hundred tapes. See Zanoisect for the sequel to this work Southern Nights Descending.