As a part of the ongoing work of The Creative Audio Archive at ESS, we present Archive Dive - a regular newsletter featuring unheard recordings and ephemera related to the collections housed in the CAA. Items shared here are In Copyright: Education Use Permitted. By clicking the private links below, you agree that you will not make public, copy, distribute, or otherwise put to use any of the recordings featured here without the written consent of ESS and/or the rights holder(s), except for educational purposes. For more information on the recordings and/or collections included below, please contact matt@ess.org or visit: http://www.creativeaudioarchive.org.

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If you find yourself in the Loop between now and July 4th just after sunset, head over to the Riverwalk across the street from the Merchandise Mart for a special collaboration between the Adler Planetarium and the Creative Audio Archive. The Planetarium's media team has created a new video for the Art on the Mart program called "Astrographics" - soundtracked by the one and only Sun Ra and his Arkestra, featuring music from the Sun Ra / El Saturn collection. Obviously it's a perfect pairing.

We'd like to thank Mark Subbarao at the Adler for thinking it up and approaching us, and Irwin Chusid at Sun Ra, LLC for helping us curate the appropriately thematic playlist and rights approvals. It's an epic and lovely 16 minutes, and will be screened twice-nightly alongside work from the Art Institute of Chicago.

I was on site last week for an interview with WTTW's Chicago Tonight, alongside Adler's Andrew Johnson and Art on the Mart Director Cynthia Noble - and the segment should air sometime later this week. Stay tuned! In other Sun Ra news: I hope you were able to visit Corbett Vs Dempsey's exhibition of print materials and ephemera around Sun Ra's poetry publications and/or were able to grab the beautiful facsimile editions.

Perhaps inspired by our February Archive Dive Broadcast - which basically looked at a handful of items all found in the same box - this edition of Archive Dive brings you five tapes from the Malachi Ritscher Collection tied together by nothing else (well, no other curatorial premise...) than being housed in the same box (New Box #11) within the collection...

After hearing to Steve Albini describe in his recent ESS Workshop how influential just a handful of friends from Louisville became in late 1980's & early '90's independent music - the scene that included David Grubbs (of Gastr Del Sol, Squirrel Bait, Bastro), Slint, Will Oldham/Palace, and many more - I was curious to hear the recordings of the legendary Touch & Go band Slint within the Malachi Collection, which I had seen while browsing the database.

A relatively unknown band during their short existence, the Louisville, KY band Slint's stature grew to a kind of unnatural level as their posthumous 2nd LP Spiderland gained a large following as a '90's post-punk classic. The band's members would go on to start or join an incredible list of groups (Tortoise, Stereolab, The For Carnation, Palace, The Breeders... um, Zwan...) in the years following their break up - which explains, in part, how what could've been a lost LP became something that slotted in near the top of "Top Albums of the '90s" lists (in this one, one slot ahead of "In Utero"!)...

Malachi's collection contains three Slint performances, in 1989, 1990, and a recording from a reunion tour in 2004. The first, shared here via private streaming link, is from a performance at Dreamerz, a venue active from '86-'93 in Wicker Park. Photo below is by Nick Pejovic, borrowed from thirdav.com, a web-database likely fan-created, around the band Husker Du. (There's some Husker Du in Malachi's tapes as well btw...)

This 1989 set is great - the tape quality is relatively harsh but fitting. What surprised me most, however, was finding a recording from THE SAME NIGHT of George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars at the Metro:

From the stories I've heard about Malachi - this is a scenario I love to imagine. I love the vision (if I can indulge some archival fan-fiction here) of Malachi buying tickets for P-Funk and then hearing about the Slint gig, dedicating himself to doing both, lugging his (what had to be somewhat discreet to get into the Metro, but also large due to the tech of the time?) equipment from venue to venue in order to catch both sets! Aesthetically, the pairing is also obviously... wonderful. While his interests became more focused on improvised and experimental music as the years went on, the early tapes in Malachi's collection are really diverse, and contain both underground and mainstream artists...

This set was also captured on video, which can be seen on YouTube thanks to the user FUNKNSTUFF:

So now you might also be asking what I did: what else could be in Box 11? This kind of happenstance joy has been so greatly missed in the long stretch of pandemic lockdown... The simple act of browsing so often brings such great and unexpected finds...

And in this case, quite a bit: Mekons, Pere Ubu, Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Elliot Sharp, Eugene Chadborne, Nirvana (shared via a previous Archive Dive), Hal Russell, Sonny Sharrock & Peter Brotzmann, Wire, Billy Bragg, Meat Puppets, John Zorn's Naked City...

It's kind of incredible. I grabbed two more I thought were particularly great. The first is the great British improviser Derek Bailey performing solo on acoustic guitar at Lower Links, the basement space that hosted what feels like an endless list of historical performers. Previewed by Neil Tesser for the Reader:

Derek Bailey plays guitar, but you'll be excused if you don't immediately recognize that fact, since he has pushed the instrument so far beyond its expected limitations.

And finally - a performance by the duo Chris and Cosey (AKA Carter Tutti) - founding members of Throbbing Gristle, who like that band also bring an esoteric combination of electronic sounds and styles always shifting...

Hope you enjoy. Remember that by clicking on any links herein you are agreeing to the Creative Audio Archive's terms of use (see at the top of this email).

I will be returning to the TQC stream on Tuesday, May 25th with another Archive Dive Broadcast. I'll share a brand new interview with keyboardist, composer, club-owner Wayne Horvitz, known for his work with John Zorn in Naked City and other groups, as well as collaborations with Robin Holcomb, William Parker, Butch Morris and others. Wayne brought the Studio Henry Collection to ESS, which we discuss in length and play featured recordings. Also on the broadcast will be some more of the rare video and audio performances hidden within the CAA at ESS. Be in touch with any memories, comments, questions, concerns.

All the best,

-Matt Mehlan
Archives & Media Manager, Experimental Sound Studio

About the Creative Audio Archive at ESS:

The Creative Audio Archive (CAA) at Experimental Sound Studio is a Chicago based center for the preservation and investigation of innovative and experimental sonic arts and music. With collections from Sun Ra / El Saturn, Links Hall, Malachi Ritscher, Studio Henry, and Experimental Sound Studio (its parent organization), among others - CAA was formed for the historical preservation of recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and exploratory sound and music.

The CAA's public programming works to fulfill its mission of stewardship, preservation, and accessibility through live events, artist commissions and residencies, and research fellowships.

Archive Dive: George Clinton, Slint, Chris & Cosey, Derek Bailey