Monday, October 4, 2010

SETI-X "Scrambles of Earth" album to be released

Sounds of Earth sent into space in 1977 return 33 years later remixed by extra-terrestrials.

SETI-X project documents these recordings on “Scrambles of Earth”

Learn more about the Voyager Golden Record launched in 1977 via Wikipedia.

[MP3]: “Uranium Nations/Hello Children”

[MP3]: “Pulsar Plus”

[MP3]: “Visit To The Observatory”

[MP3]: “Psychlo Killer/Total Transmission”

[MP3]: “I Am Getting Married In A Spaceship”



About SETI-X (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Exile):
Scrambles of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, Remixed by Extraterrestrials.

In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft, fastening to each a phonograph album containing sounds and music of Earth. In 2010, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Exile (SETI-X), a dissident offshoot of the better-known Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, received transmissions believed to be extraterrestrial remixes of these records. The Scrambles of Earth CD contains the 70 minutes — in some 24 sound segments — that SETI-X has so far been able to reconstruct.

The scientists of SETI-X, finding their colleagues skeptical and their institutions unwilling to vouch for or make available the sounds they had received, at first sought contact with the principality of Sealand, in hopes that this micronation dedicated to stewarding controversial data might channel extraterrestrial sounds to a broader public. With no response from Sealand, SETI-X, through a serendipitous Google typo, discovered an ally in Seeland Records, which has historically brokered the release of sounds of uncertain provenance but wide cultural relevance.

Scrambles of Earth collects what appear to be “remixes” of the Voyager Record; although the evidence has yet to be fully evaluated, these may represent the first audio signs of alien intelligence. This account may comport with Hartwig Hausdorf’s May 2010 claim that the Voyager has been hijacked by aliens, as reported in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper HERE.

Because the members of SETI-X wish to remain anonymous, Seeland Records has asked Dr. Stefan Helmreich, who produced the science-and-technology oriented Xerophonics: Copying Machine Music, if he might comment on this CD. Other high-profile scholars who have agreed to comment include: Dr. Richard Doyle (Rhetorician of Alien Communication, English, Penn State), Dr. Chris Kelty (Scholar of Extraterrestrial Copyright Law, Information Sciences, UCLA), Dr. Sarah Kember (Alien Mediation and Performativity, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, London), Dr. Cristopher Moore (Theorist of Information and Noise, Computer Science, University of New Mexico), Peter Whincop (Sonic Deconvolution Expert , Department of Music, MIT/Harvard).


SETI-X
(The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Exile)

Scrambles of Earth:
The Voyager Interstellar Record,
Remixed by Extraterrestrials.

(Seeland Records, 11/1/10)

Track Listing:
01. Uranium Nations/Hello Children 0:35
02. Pulsar Plus 2:56
03. Thin Dark Night 3:29
04. Ill-Tempered Wedding 4:24
05. Visit to the Observatory 1:40
06. Rushing Streams 3:00
07. Men’s House Stutter 1:23
08. Shakuhachi Mariachi 3:04
09. Just Cranes 5:11
10. Back in the CCCP 2:48
11. Countdown 0:59
12. Scrambles of Earth/What Earthlings Are Made of 4:30
13. Renaissance Faire Eject/Gasping in Twelve Languages 2:06
14. Queen’s Queens 0:34
15. Fifth World 1:38
16. My Life as a Field of Sheep 5:08
17. Total Transmission 0:10
18. Psychlo Killer/Total Transmission 1:32
19. Fifth Dysphony 4:04
20. The Rites of Mars 3:02
21. I Am Getting Married in a Spaceship 2:03
22. Way Down 2:25
23. Interleave 4:56
24. Elegy for Pluto/Secretary General 6:38


More about SETI-X:

The Voyager Interstellar Record, a collection of Earth sound and music sent into space, is a noted cultural artifact — with a long life in popular imagination and culture: from references in Star Trek, X-Files, Futurama, The Transformers series, kids shows to The Strokes video for “You Only Live Once”

• In the wake of the viral success of the YouTube video of an autotuned Carl Sagan signing “A Glorious Dawn” (which Jack White of The White Stripes released in 2009 as a 45RPM single on his Third Man Records label, this disc fills in more background info on Sagan’s other foray into sound: The Voyager Interstellar Record.

• The sound on Scrambles of Earth is noisy, obscure. It may appeal most to fans of experimental music, modern composition, and noise.

• Scrambles of Earth speaks to a popular fascination with extraterrestrial communication. A recent news story suggests that such transmissions as Scrambles’ are of plausible extraterrestrial origin.

• Scrambles of Earth claims that more alien transmissions are on the way and invites anyone and everyone to call attention to new remixes they may find (or make).

2 comments:

NiteOwl said...

did you like this cd?

Mickie said...

Yes, I like "Scrambles of Earth." It is very interesting and innovative, plus a little creepy. I would love to use some of the music in one of my choreographies.