I had to listen twice to the show before I could understand a bit of what I had just heard. On the surface it is an hour of radio dedicated to Don Campau. Don is one of the pivotal characters of the cassette culture era which had its peak in the 1980s. It is also around that time that he started to use the tapes that were sent to him as the exclusive material for his radio shows. But Don Campau is a musician as well. LL thought, and rightfully so, to introduce this aspect of Don.

But then the problem starts.

Why?

Obviously Don Campau has a very strong sonic memory and a great sense of music, hence he has an elevated awareness in terms of sound and composing, and, thinking/moving/creating in the meta-language of the music of sound.

This wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the wide variety he covers. The show almost immediately starts of with an excerpt from his opera Life Coach. And this piece throws you of your listening habits. Hollywood musical meets mockery meets underground experiments meets radiophonics: Life Coach part 3 is one of the most exciting pieces of music I have heard in times.

But this piece defines what follows. If you know you hear the last fifty years of west coast based music pass by; Frank Zappa and Mothers of Invention, chunks of Captain Beefheart, The Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, they are all there, not as a model, but as an identity one can borrow for a moment, and, most important of all, have fun with. It’s like kids who have sneeked into the music department of the local store and, like little satyrs, play rockstar with all the exposed guitars. There’s even a point where you can imagine Meryl Streep as a lead singer to a rock band at a Hollywood party, with the young married couple looking up to the stage, speechless.

Happy Listenings!

1. Don Campau – The Song that I’ll never speak – CD – Gateway Behaviour

2. Don Campau – Part 3 – CD – Life Coach

3. Numbra (Don Campau,James Hill,Eric Hausmann) – shibuichi – CD – I:Alloys

4. Eric Hausmann Don Campau – Tumult in Tahrir – CD – Next Chance I get

5. Don Campau Dino DiMuro – Where’s The Party?
6. Don Campau Dino DiMuro – Burning Man
5/6 – CD – Playdate

7. Robin O’Brien – Mama – CD – The Apple in Man

8. Robin O’Brien and Don Campau – 61306 – CD – The way you fall

9. Inside/Outside (Russel Leach and Don Campau) – Room 5 with Amy Denio – CD – Rooms

10. Chris Phinney / Don Campau – Darn that Dynamo – CD – Scientific Standarts

11.Don Campau – I might like it – CD – Gateway Behaviour

12.Don Campau – Djakarta Get Out – CD- The Best of DOn Campau, Vol.2 (2000-2009)

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