Playlist
Music from Beyond the Lakes
Produced by Jerry Nelms, Namdar Mogharreban, Anil Mehta, and Brian Kearney
Sundays, 8-10 pm Central Time, USA
WDBX, 91.1 FM, Carbondale, Illinois (www.wdbx.org)

Streamed LIVE at wdbx.scientistsuperstar.com
Listen by going to www.wdbx.org and click on "Listen"

This program featured music by William Susman; Soundician; Stephen Peppos;
Lori Cunningham; Psicodreamics; Chris Bocast & MJ Catalin; Jerry Gerber;
Richard Anthony Jay; Lisa Hilton; Ben Dowling; Michael Samson; Robert Scott
Thompson; Cluster; and Mandrake Project.

October 18, 2009
“Paradox-city” (produced by Jerry Nelms)

The 20th-Century American journalist, novelist, essayist, and poet
Christopher Morley once said, “All cities are mad: but the madness is
gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim.” I’ve been
spending a lot of time recently in a large city, and I’m finding Morley’s
notion of the city as paradoxical to be an apt insight. Our view of cities
remains one of contrasts: light and dark, rich and poor, a fairytale,
neon-lit Oz full of shadowy, nightmarish alleyways.

And if you think this paradox unimportant, consider Wired contributing
editor Jonah Lehrer’s commentary in the January 4, 2009 Boston Globe,
entitled “How the City Hurts Your Brain.” Lehrer writes:

The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the
18th-Century coffeehouses of London where citizens gathered to discuss
chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where
Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might
not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was
inspired by commuter trains.

And yet, city life isn't easy. The same London cafes that stimulated Ben
Franklin also helped spread cholera; Picasso eventually bought an estate in
quiet Provence. While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights,
poets, and physicists, it's also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place.

Most disturbing to me are the findings of scientific studies showing that
urban environments actually impair mental processing. “After spending a few
minutes on a crowded city street,” Lehrer writes, “the brain is less able to
hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control.” “[T]his new
research,” he concludes, “suggests that cities actually dull our thinking.”

It turns out that human beings need to have the natural world around us,
that surrounding ourselves with nothing but concrete, glass, and neon can
actually do us harm. Some research has found that hospital patients
actually recover sooner when they can see trees from their windows. And it
doesn’t take much, just, as Lehrer notes, “fleeting glimpses.”

In some sense, the builders of many of our major cities sensed this truth.
Thus, we have New York’s Central Park and Boston’s Boston Commons, Chicago’s
lakeside parks, and Savannah’s city fountains and squares. And nowadays,
some city planners have realized that natural areas need to be even more
spread out. Thus, Columbus, Ohio, is expanding its bike and walking trails
next to the rivers that surround it and that converge in its downtown.
Every district of that growing city (Grandview Heights, Bexley, Upper
Arlington, Worthington, Westerville, and so on, all of them have dotted
their landscape with small parks and walkways. Businesses there are
increasingly encouraging—some even requiring—employees to take time for
mid-day walks. The bike trails are crowded at all hours of the day.

If only nature alone resolved the paradox of the city . . . , but sadly,
things are more complicated than that. Lehrer writes, “For the first time
in history, the majority of people reside in cities . . . . But,” Lehrer
goes on, “the density of city life doesn’t just make it harder to focus: It
also interferes with our self-control.” We’re surrounded and overwhelmed
with stimuli (billboard advertisements; cell phone calls; traffic jams;
music blaring on every corner; and the smell of something different being
fried, grilled, or broiled wafting down every street). Our brains are
assaulted by temptations. As Lehrer explains, “Resisting these temptations
requires us to flex the prefrontal cortex, a nub of brain just behind the
eyes. Unfortunately, this is the same brain area that’s responsible for
directed attention, which means that it’s already been depleted from walking
around the city.” And so, we have less energy to exert for self-control,
more likely, then, to splurge on that ice cream cone, to give in to that
powdered donut, to smoke another cigarette, drink another martini, or worse,
for there are worse temptations (drugs, exploitation, violence)—not only in
cities, of course, but the point is, city life depletes our self-control.

All that said, the paradox deepens even further. Lehrer reports that
“[r]ecent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of
complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that the very same urban
features that trigger lapses in attention and memory—the crowded streets,
the crushing density of people—also correlate with measures of innovation,
as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the
‘concentration of social interactions’ that is largely responsible for urban
creativity, according to scientists,” Lehrer reports. Urban density, then,
is paradoxically double-edged. It can detrimentally affect our memory and
self-control, but it can also lead us to greater creativity and innovation.
As Margaret Mead once wrote, “A city is a place where there is no need to
wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any
country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to
again.” The city can be an intellectual and social center, filled with
museums, galleries, bookstores, concert halls, zoos and arboretums, cafes
and restaurants, colleges and universities.

The simple fact is, we humans embody the city-nature paradox. We require
the solitude and peace of natural environments, and we thrive on the
stimulating interactions of urban living. Like the modern urban city
itself, we need our quiet nature walks and bike trails, but we also need our
connections with new acquaintances as well as old friends, the stimulation
of human contact that city life so abundantly provides. The resolution of
our human paradox, then, lies not in denial of one or the other but in
balance, finding the right amount of time for both.

And so, this evening, let’s contemplate on the paradoxical nature of the
city—and of ourselves—through a program of acoustic and electronic music
entitled “Paradox-city.” We begin with composer William Susman’s score for
Steve Bilich’s 2005 short silent film “Native New Yorker, shot before,
during, and after 9/11 with a hand-cranked 1924 Ciné Kodak camera.” Later,
we’ll hear a melancholy track from the English duo Soundician’s collection
entitled L. S., inspired by the late English painter L. S. Lowery; also,
simultaneously urban- and spiritual-sounding music from pianist/keyboardist
Stephen Peppos’s Stephen’s Dreams; and wind-swept, haunting acoustic and
electronic chill from Lori Cunningham’s Unseen. In our second half-hour, we
’ll hear another track from Cunningham’s Unseen; also a luminous melody of
chimes and ambience by Soundician again from L. S.; shadowy electronica by
Spanish sound artist Salva Moreno, going by the name Psicodreamics, from
Fantasynth; guitar-driven electronic chill from a collaboration by
multi-instrumentalists Chris Bocast & C?t?lin Pîntea (calling himself MJ
Catalin); a provocative blend of electronica and digitally created jazz
vocalese by keyboardist Jerry Gerber from Waves; and finally, a very nice
solo piano piece by Richard Anthony Jay from This Is What I Live For.

On our program tonight, we’re contemplating the paradoxical nature of the
city—and of ourselves—a “Paradox-city,” to coin a phrase, a paradox that
sends us off in opposing directions that nevertheless find their union
Beyond the Lakes.

8:00-8:30pm
William Susman – Music for Moving Pictures – Susman Music - 2009
“Native New Yorker”
Soundician – L. S. – Soundician - 2009
“Dark Eyes”
Stephen Peppos – Stephen’s Dreams – Sonic Bear Music - 2009
“Dream 3”
Lori Cunningham – Unseen – Strophic Records - 2009
“Solarity”

8:30-9:00pm
Lori Cunningham – Unseen – Strophic Records - 2009
“Reflections”
Soundician – L. S. – Soundician - 2009
“Chimes”
Psicodreamics – Fantasynth – Witches on the Radiowaves Records – 2009
“Forbidden Pleasures”
Chris Bocast & MJ Catalin – Stratagem – Chris Bocast & MJ Catalin – 2009
“Mr. X”
Jerry Gerber – Waves – Ottawa Records – 2008
“Rhapsody”
Richard Anthony Jay – This Is What I Live For – Burning Petals Records –
2009
“Fragile”

We’re contemplating the paradoxical nature of the city—and of ourselves—on
our program tonight. William Susman returns to begin our second hour with
another selection from Music for Moving Pictures, a track from his score for
the 2009 documentary short film by Katie Cadigan and Laura Murray, “When
Medicine Got It Wrong.” We’ll continue with two jazz pieces by pianist Lisa
Hilton and her ensemble: first a composition of her own, entitled “City
Streets” and then her rendition of Marvin Gaye’s classic “What’s Going On,”
both from Twilight & Blues. We’ll also hear two smooth jazz pieces from
pianist/keyboardist Ben Dowling’s World Rising; and a solo piano piece with
a distinctively urban feel by Michael Samson from A Still Motion. In our
final half-hour, we’ll hear a piano “CityScape” by Robert Scott Thompson
from Pendere; another haunting track from Fantasynth by Psicodreamics; and
music that producer Tim Story calls “like having a cup of coffee and a donut
in the middle of a Martian shoe factory.” It’s a track from a collection
entitled QUA by the venerable duo of Dieter Moebius & Joachim Roedelius, who
together go by the name Cluster. We’ll also hear an urban “Nocturne” from
Chris Bocast & MJ Catalin’s Stratagem; one final, short, glassy composition
from Soundician’s collection entitled L. S.; and two tracks of jazzy
electronica by the group Mandrake Project from A Miraculous Container.

“Paradox-city,” tonight on Music from Beyond the Lakes.

9:00-9:30pm
William Susman – Music for Moving Pictures – Susman Music - 2009
“Full Humanity—Hundreds of Hours—Capitol Hill” (from score for “When
Medicine
Got It Wrong”)
Lisa Hilton – Twilight & Blues – Ruby Slippers Productions – 2009
“City Streets”
“What’s Going On”
Ben Dowling – World Rising – Visionsound Innovative Arts – 2009
“In My Dreams”
“World Rising”
Michael Samson – A Still Motion – Michael Samson – 2008
“A Still Motion”

9:30-10:00pm
Robert Scott Thompson – Pendere – Aucourant Records – 2007
“CityScapte”
Psicodreamics – Fantasynth – Witches on the Radiowaves Records – 2009
“Palace of Sensuality”
Cluster – QUA – Nepenthe Music – 2008
“Flutful”
Chris Bocast & MJ Catalin – Stratagem – Chris Bocast & MJ Catalin – 2009
“Nocturne”
Soundician – L. S. – Soundician - 2009
“Crowds”
Mandrake Project – A Miraculous Contrainer – Blistering Records – 2009
“Aquarelle”
“Beauxsong”

Profile of Beyond the Lakes:
Music from Beyond the Lakes was first aired on Easter Sunday evening, 1996.
Jerry Nelms began as the show's sole producer and host. Namdar Mogharreban
joined as co-host that summer and began producing his first programs in the
fall. And Anil Mehta and Brian Kearney joined as co-hosts just this year.
Beyond the Lakes airs eclectic new age and contemplative world music, both
ambient and rhythmic; electronic and acoustic; instrumental and vocal.
Beyond the Lakes is thematically programmed each week. Jerry's understanding
of "new age" music: it provides a space for the imagination, and, so, can
take many different forms but always functions in that way of allowing the
listener space for the play of the imagination.

For airplay, send promotional materials to the appropriate producer/host
below:

Namdar Mogharreban, 501 S. Deer Lake Drive West, Carbondale, Illinois
62901-5229.
Email: namdar@....
Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Mediterranean, African, Native American,
Central and South American, world music fusion, electronic chill, rhythmic
percussion, ney, oud, flamenco guitar, world music chant, smooth jazz.

Anil Mehta, Apt. 15, 302 S. Poplar St., Carbondale, Illinois, USA 62901.
Email: anil@....
Piano music; classical Indian music, Sitar, Flute, sarod, violin, african
drums and all percursion, Asian, classical, neo-classical, world music
ambient, spacemusic, tamboura, tabla, didjeridoo, Jaltarang (rhythm from
water filled bowls), orchestra. My favorites are: Percursion and orchestra,
and Tablas.

Brian Kearney, 16 Wind Wood Rd., Carbondale, Illiinois, USA 62902.
Email: bkearney@....
All kinds of guitar music (solo and ensemble acoustic, electric, and
electronic, primarily non-ambient), ensemble, alternative and downbeat
chill.

Thanks to all musical artists for enriching our world!