Wire playlist: id m theft able
September 2021
id m theft able in The Wire 452. Photo: John McKean
The improvising tuba player selects recordings from his many experimental projects
| “J'Dot” | 0:03:05 |
| “Hooded Mergansers In The Melt” | 0:05:04 |
| “I'm An Avalanche” | 0:10:02 |
| “Sandcastles” | 0:13:52 |
| “Galaxyng Smatters” | 0:02:01 |
| “The Curve Of The Earth” | 0:02:20 |
| “three hand drums and a toy piano left out in the drizzle” (excerpt) | 0:05:37 |
| “I Can't Remember The Shape Of Your Teeth” | 0:12:10 |
| “a (l or d or cr) ie or y in the snow” | 0:02:37 |
| “Faded Sign” | 0:06:24 |
| “Her Hair Was A Volleyball Net” | 0:10:25 |
| “leaving the keyboard that plays itself down by the river between 230 and 330 AM August 3rd 2017 excerpt” | 0:05:39 |
| “Werther's Original” | 0:11:06 |
Inside The Wire 452, prolific Maine based visual artist, musician, improvisor and broadcaster id m theft able discusses his most recent project with writer Joe Murray. A Tuba (With A Microphone In It) sees id m taking his tuba (with a microphone in it) to various locations by the Presumpscot River, with the aim of recording the sounds of all the natural falls and dams along its course within the resonance of his instrument. “I knew how different they sounded [the falls and dams] from one another simply from recording them more traditionally and playing them back to back”, he explains, “so I always wanted to work with those contrasts in some way.”
In relation to id m's other work, he says the project is “an intense focus on an aspect or a few aspects of what I’ve always done” and that he will always “embrace the environment”. In this playlist, id m theft able puts forward 13 experiments in sound, selected from 20 years of output, and explains the environments in which they were made.
In relation to id m's other work, he says the project is “an intense focus on an aspect or a few aspects of what I’ve always done” and that he will always “embrace the environment”. In this playlist, id m theft able puts forward 13 experiments in sound, selected from 20 years of output, and explains the environments in which they were made.
“J'Dot”
An old tape piece from 2002 but only just recently released on the EP my entire reproductive system has been replaced by a slide projector. The kids on this recording are now well into adulthood and I think one of them might be in jail.
“Hooded Mergansers In The Melt”
“Hooded Mergansers In The Melt”
A choral piece from Babb's Bridge (2009) inspired by watching the Hooded Mergansers that appear each February during the very earliest thaws, diving down into the newly opened river and coming up with a mouthful of hibernating frog.
“I'm An Avalanche”
“I'm An Avalanche”
A piece from my newest CD Well I Fell In Love With The Eye At The Bottom Of The Well released by Pogus Productions earlier this year. I had to go into a local university and pretend to be a student to record the piano and glockenspiel parts.
“Sandcastles”
“Sandcastles”
An as yet unreleased vocal improv from 2019.
“Galaxyng Smatters”
A very old piece, from around 2001 or 2002 I think, eventually released on an EP called Slide Over et c. I always thought it'd be a great intro for a news program or something similar. I believe I made it with an intentionally damaged Andreas Vollenweider CD, but I could be wrong.“Galaxyng Smatters”
“The Curve Of The Earth”
“three hand drums and a toy piano left out in the drizzle” (excerpt)
“I can't remember the shape of your teeth”
“a (l or d or cr) ie or y in the snow”
From Popsicles, Icicles, Baseball And Fancy Clothes (2010) I remember I recorded the vocals for this on a tape recorder in my car while dealing with a bout of social anxiety before a gig in Western Mass. The batteries in the tape recorder were dying, that's why it sounds like that.
“Faded Sign”
From the album A “Faded Sign”
Named Spooky that I released by embedding the tracks in a profile on the dating web site OKCupid in 2016. The album is primarily piano and text improvs and songs, and of those, this seems to be the ‘hit’.“Her Hair Was A Volleyball Net”
An unreleased improv from early 2019 for text and whatever objects happened to be in my vicinity. The text is culled from a peculiar, awkward adolescent memory that can't entirely be real. This exact description could be applied to a number of my tracks, now that I think about it.
“leaving the keyboard that plays itself down by the river between 230 and 330 AM August 3rd 2017” (excerpt)
“leaving the keyboard that plays itself down by the river between 230 and 330 AM August 3rd 2017” (excerpt)
The title track, really, the only track from a CD of the same name. I found this keyboard at the dump, plugged it in and it started playing by itself. I listened to it play like this every day for a week or so before it finally occurred to me that a summer night down by the river would be an ideal collaborator for this haunted machine.
“Werther's Original”
“Werther's Original”
A live recording from a basement gig in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2010. This is a performance poem that occurred to me in the midst of a deep depression. I don't know why, but it felt important. Thankfully, there's no need to understand.
Read an interview with id m theft able in The Wire 452. Wire subscribers can also read the article via the online archive.
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