Valentine's Day Massacre, Volume 1: Strange Worlds Collide

The Valentine's Day Massacre project from 2007 saw a tremendous outpouring of music from a the largest collection of musicians yet. The wealth of music inspired by romantic love snowballed and each new work posted inspired even more. I had not listened to the albums for several years and have been playing them for the past few days in preparation for this compiling this post. I have become very familiar with the work of many of the artists represented on Valentine's Massacre over the past four years through all the projects on which we have collaborated. During my recent listening, I was struck by the consistent high quality of the work, it's diversity of sound, and its consistent tone of nostalgic longing. I was also struck by how well I remembered all of the songs. I hope you will give a listen and let them creep into you memory as they have crept into mine.

In the words of Hairyvike, who organized the original Soudclick page, "We were fortunate to have some additional help and so offer special thanks to John Izzard, Radium Girl, Michael Punslinger and Quinalt for arranging the album, sorting out the artwork and generally pulling everything together!"

All of the songs may be downloaded as one file from Divshare.

The original project page is available at Soundclick.

The Dreamsville thread relating the creation of the project can be found here, and the thread discussing the creation of the artwork, the decisions on song order and reviews of the songs can be found there.

The artwork for Valentines Day Massaacre Volume 1: Strange Worlds Collide can be downloded here.


Onto the Music!

Stuttering Monks: Cap'n Bill's Lycra Pyjamas a wistful electronic reverie with a Japanese influence

Angeltide (featuring Michael Punslinger): Underwhelmed by Valentines (New Mix)
A beautiful guitar piece with a vocal by Punslinger

The Architect Sketch: Valentine Written for my wife in 2006 for the holiday. She didn't like it.

Angeltide: She's Alone Tonight

Planet Andy: Her Aura Proceeds Her
A dreamy Beatlesesque pop song..."She makes me calm and nervous all at once"

Stuttering Monks: Venus Arriving
Another dreamy electronic World piece with some haunting "found" vocals.

Senseless Budd: Opening Budds
The rickety sound of a ukelele blues

Triple Dog Dare (featuring Angeltide): Stole a Kiss
Punslinger steals a kiss and gives it back: assisted by Angeltide on a pop song propelled by wordplay.

Stuttering Monks: The Birds and the Bees
Found sound-an electronic melange of bird calls and electronic noises as a mating dance

Mick Wilson's Bloonoise: Suddenly I found Myself in Love
A Latin-tinged orchestral piece

Triple Dog Dare: Jumpin' for Joy
The Punsligner's skewed pop wordplay.

Dar Shelton: Resonant Spirits
An ambient collection of electronic noises swirled into a lovely symphony

Astrobleme: Mess It Up
Power pop electronic longing

Peter Brookes: Strange Girl
A lovely hook-filled Power Pop song, beautifully crafted and poignant.

Valentines Day Massacre, Volume 2, Scattering Atoms will be posted before Valentine's Day next week

The Oracle Project: Late Submission

Jeff Farley of lowartmusic was inspired to pen another tune to one of Carole's poems which was completed after the deadline for the Oracle project. Clouds is one of the most delightful renditions of Carole's work, a perfect fusion of melody and lyric... a glimmering jewel of Power Pop, with a killer hook for a chorus.

Jett Farley's semiromanticpostmodern: Clouds

Dreamsville Oracle, Part 2

Electric Angels created a video of their Song Superstar/Anita Berber using a remixed version of the song. The mix is cleaner than in the original version. The video collages historic photographs of Anita Berber, short video snippets of contemporary tributes to the German dancer and shots of Bob and Eric.

Dreamsville's Oracle

Dreamsville's Oracle was the first deliberately collaborative music project on Dreamsville's The World and His Wife forum. In a posting on the general topics portion of the forum, The World Outside The Window, Carole Young, a frequent contributor to the forum made the offhanded comment during a discussion of recorded poetry, "Gary in Maryland, bless, just said... that if he could play music, he'd set my poetry to some!! Wow! That is an absolute dream of mine! Maybe one day..."

At the time, we were trying to come up with a theme for our next project. The thought occurred to me-and not just because I hate writing lyrics- that this might be not only an interesting musical challenge, but a way to include a member of the forum who was an unabashed fan of Bill Nelson and wonderfully supportive of all of us. Carole would lament that even her own family did not take her writing seriously. As a group of musicians who have a wide range of experience (and I will admit, talent, placing myself at the bottom of the heep in the rank amateur/neophyte category, just above idiot-savante) who have always been supportive and encouraging of one another's work, casting the net a bit further to include the work of a poet was never a stretch.

Carole had been emailing her poems to members of the forum for years, some of us had amassed large collections of her work. We posted a number of them on the forum and told people to choose whatever they liked, expecting that some of us would choose the same poem, thereby creating the opportunity for multiple interpretations of the same work. Luckily, we had several duplicates. The forum entire discussion may be followed here.

The songs were originally posted on a Soundclick page, Dreamsville's Oracle Soundclick.

Individual songs are posted below, and you may download MP3s of the entire collection at Radio Dreamsville

As an aside, a number of us have continued to work with Carole, both outside Dreamsville and on additional music projects which will be posted here in the future. Dedicated to our anagram Oracle, Carole.

Various Artists-Dreamsville's Oracle 2010.

Jett Farley's semiromaticpostmodern: The Oracle
Jett leads off with a slice of electro pop.

Electric Angels: Fountain of Heaven
Guitar driven Power Pop from the Electric Angels, this poem was written by Carole years before her own near-death experience.

Strange Formations: Shangri-La
A dreamy bongo and bass song by the Punslinger.

Fanfan: Sentir Les Fleurs
A dreamy electronic french translation of Smell the Flowers by John and Isabelle Izzard.

Electric Angels: Beams of Light
Bob K explores his psychedelic side

Quantum Mechanix: The Last War
Tribal drums and electronic noises. Punslinger's reading of the poem about the end of the world.

Strange Formations: Ankh
Punslinger's dreamy world view and the sensuous guitar of Gavin Baker

Electric Angels: Superstar/Anita Berber
Art funk about the Weimar-era German dancer. The Angels had been working on this song when Carole sent her poem Superstar...

Strange Formations: Smell the Flowers
Punslinger with a delightful little electro pop song.

Radio Dreamsville: Cheeky Jingle
Dj John from a former lightship, somewhere in the North Sea...

The Quinault Jazz Quintet: Always a Pretty Child
Be-bop from Outer Space.

Triple Dog Dare: Music!
A psychedelic jam, Punslinger explores Kraut Rock

Core Ten: Sparkling Big Blue Planet
Electro Pop from lovers of rusty steel.

Strange Formations (w/Worra): Fountain of Heaven
Punslinger's Art Pop reading of Fountains, Caroles poem about a near death experience.

The Architect Sketch: Shells on the Beach (The Sea At Ismara)
An adaptation of a piece from the Odyssey cycle.

Quantum Mechanix: Tumbling Toward Tomorrow
Punslinger's space pop gives birth to a killer bass-line.

The Architect Sketch: The Last War
The end of the world...

Strange Formations: Dream Taxi
Punslinger with a lovely naive pop reading of Carole's autobiographical poem.

Worra: Blood Red (Lullaby for a Vampire) BONUS TRACK
Swedish multi-instrumentalist, Worra tackles Carole's obsession with Vampires.

Should you choose to burn a CD Album Art is available for download as pdf's.

X-Mass-X

X-Mass-X, is the 2010 Christmas-themed project by the Dreamsville Artists. The name was proposed by Michael Punslinger who with his band, Quantum Mechanix, contributed two songs to the project. A wide range of musical styles are represented by the artists, but all of them capture the mood of the season. Have a wonderful Holiday and may the blessings of the New Year be with you.

First Song up, Mick Wilson's Bloonoise: A Good Old Fashioned Christmas Miracle
A collage of Christmas sounds to an elctro beat

Electro A Go-Go: Cold Night, Warm World:

Quantum Mechanix: Santa's Little Workshop:

The Architect Sketch: Merry Christmas, Darling

Jett Farley's semiromanticpostmodern: Sea Holly,
with guest artist Gavin Baker on lead guitar. Musings from Santa as a Power Pop gem.

Peter Cook: Venus in Aspic
A reverie for Ebow and Sax

Electric Angels: I'll Bet It's Santa Claus
A little dose of Power Pop

Gavin Baker: You Are Not Alone
A lovely very personal piece written for his brother.

Quantum Mechanix: Christmas Everyday
A Christmas Bossa Nova

Logan5: Penelope's Party ,
A cassette sound collage.

The Symbolists: Christmas Bells

Santa's Little Workshop; image by Michael Honsinger.