Radio has been an abused medium for too many years. The endless stream of juvenile political talk and Top 40 drudgery is depressing enough for those of us on the other end of the dial, imagine what it does to the radio itself!
While most of the Twin Cities slept, community radio station KFAI broadcasted Greg Carr’s late night therapy sessions. “Technological Retreat Radio 1985-1989 Mixes Vol. 1” chronicles a time when radio was given a voice of its own.
More a snapshot of an era than a fully conceptualized album, “Technological Retreat Radio” mesmerizes with a hallucinatory amalgam of ambient noises and surreal sound samples. Carr disappears and the listener is taken on a journey through the tortured psyche of radio itself. The mundane becomes sinister on “Nighttimemares” when heavenly choirs give way to manic ramblings and chilling operatic screams. “Remote Viewing in an Emptying House” bombards with a flurry of media messages that harmonize with unsettling ease. “Oneeno +2” warbles with a strange beauty similar to that of modern experimental groups like Black Dice.
A few tracks fail to capture the imagination the way the rest of the album does. Both “Soul Train Rodeo” and “Funk Dungeon Dance Lesson” have a self-consciousness that doesn’t convey the same sense of effortlessness found throughout the rest. Once in a while Carr’s voice appears and breaks the illusion of an autonomous radio venting it’s frustrations at a lonely mid-night audience.
“Technological Retreat Radio 1985-1989 Mixes Vol. 1” is one of those rare albums that truly creates a new and compelling sound. Wildly inventive and remarkably modern for its age, this is an invaluable treasure for those of us too busy listening to Poison and Billy Ocean to have caught Carr’s late night alchemy the first time around.
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