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elcome to the Digital Meltd0wn Music Blog. The aim of this blog is to introduce the readers to music that is out of print, commercially unavailable, released under a creative commons license, or with approval by the featured artist. The majority of the music posted here would be considered underground. Don't let that fool you into thinking that the music featured here might be any less enjoyable than that of the mainstream artists you hear on the radio, as this couldn't be further from the truth. Please keep in mind that the majority of the artists that appear on this blog, along with their respective record labels, are not wealthy and need your support. If you enjoy the material that you find here, please support the artists/labels by purchasing their material afterwards. If you are an artist/label that would prefer to have your material removed from this blog, simply leave me a comment, and I would be more than happy to promptly remove the offending post. In addition to running this blog, I also work on a few other projects during my spare time. You can find links to those, as well as a few other important links associated with Digital Meltd0wn in the menu bar above.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Negativland - A Big 10-8 Place


Since a few of you asked so nicely, I've decided to bring you more Negativland. I also have 'Helter Stupid' and 'U2'. If you would like me to upload them, just leave a comment. This is Negativland's legendary 1983 conceptual suburban epic A Big 10-8 Place. Over three years in the making, and with thousands of analog tape splices, this insanely cut-up and uniquely weird release remains the hands down favorite of many fans of Negativland's work. A Big 10-8 finds Negativland's work at its most insanely detailed and heavily edited. The lbum opener 'Theme From A Big 10-8 Place is a misleadingly straight-up pop excursion, but three minutes later you get an almighty plunderphonic blitzkrieg to contend with, in the shape of the first part of the album proper, a thirteen-minute deluge of cut-and-paste mayhem and fast-cutting audio collage.

Named after the citizen's band code for "on the air," A Big 10-8 Place made good use of recordings of people talking over the airwaves. In its entirety, the album served as a kind of documentary of Contra Costa County, where the bandmembers lived (there was even a piece with directions on how to get to Concord from San Francisco, if you were interested in visiting). The album fired the opening volley in Negativland's ongoing challenge against copyrights and what is considered public domain. How much does something have to be changed before it's original? If you say something over the air, is it public domain? Although A Big 10-8 Place posed some of these questions, it was just a warm-up for the albums to come.
(Year of Release: 1983)

Track List:
1. Theme from A Big 10-8 Place
2. Big 10-8 Place, Pt. 1
3. Clowns and Ballerinas
4. Introduction
5. Four Fingers
6. Big 10-8 Place, Pt. 2 (180-G)

Download: Negativland - A Big 10-8 Place (71MB)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Howdy. Punishment Room by Distorted Pony is up at http://sharkfinblog.blogspot.com

Dgrador said...

If you're gonna make me beg for the letter you and the numeral too, well I'm a-beggin'.

Zer0_II said...

dgrador: There's no need to beg my friend. I actually already had this uploaded, and I thought I had posted it, but I actually saved it as a draft instead, which is why it didn't display.

gleather69: Thank you very much my friend. I'm heading to your blog right now to grab it.

Zer0_II said...

dgrador: I was also wondering if you ever saw the message I left you on the Lost-In-Tyme blog a few weeks ago. Are you the admin of LIT, or just a contributor?

Dgrador said...

I'm just an occasional contributor at L-I-T. As a result, I don't see any posted comments unless I go and visit the post online.

Dgrador said...

Just checked my posts at LIT and I don't see anything connected to your nick...

Also, have you made it over to the Garagepunk Hideout yet?