MEDIA ROOTS – Reporting From Outside Party Lines » fluorescent grey

A Very Heavy Agenda Part 2: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New Neocons

abby — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 07:49:50 +0000

Media Roots co-host Robbie Martin presents the newest installment in his documentary film series about Washington, DC neoconservatives who aim to widen the rift between Russia and the United States.

A Very Heavy Agenda Part 2: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The New Neocons , Out Now on Video On Demand and DVD

After the Cold War, the US-NATO reach expanded significantly to take in most of the old Soviet Union clients in the Warsaw pact. Neoconservative darling Robert Kagan and his diplomat wife Victoria Nuland played key roles inside and out of various administrations as they greased the skids for a US-sponsored coup in Ukraine. The infamous neoconservative Washington DC think-tank ‘The Project for the New American Century’ was re-branded for the Obama era into ‘The Foreign Policy Initiative’ acting as a outside agitator pushing the envelope on what the US should do in the new Cold War landscape. Part 2 shows the resurrection of old Reaganites from beltway depths to deliver blatant propaganda with techniques reminiscent of a red scare era that had only just faded from memory. US-funded outfits like Radio Free Liberty are pitted against Russia’s RT as each nation accuses the other of waging an ever more desperate and transparent “Information War”.

Video On Demand

DVD

Trailer / Alternate Youtube Link

A Very Heavy Agenda Part 2: How We Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the New Neocons from Robert Martin on Vimeo.

Clip

PNAC 2.0 The Neocons Are Back from Robert Martin on Vimeo.

A Very Heavy Agenda Part 3: Maintaining the World Order
COMING SOON

Press:

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

Porkin’s Policy Radio

Project Censored Radio Sep 14 2015

‘In The Now’ RT Oct 19 2015

Mondoweiss Aug 5 2015

Produced/Edited/Narrated by: Robbie Martin
Follow Robbie Martin on Twitter @Fluorescent Grey

Original Score by: Fluorescent Grey
Listen to Fluorescent Grey on Soundcloud

Follow @VeryHeavyAgenda on Twitter for updates about the series or sign up for our mailing list:

5 Questions for Robbie Martin, co-host of Media Roots Radio

abby — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:09:41 +0000

MEDIA ROOTS — Igloo Magazine sits down and asks 5 questions of Robbie Martin. Robbie is the co-host of Media Roots Radio, as well as a heavy contributor to the website. He also runs a music imprint called RecordLabelRecords out of Oakland, California.

MR

***

IGLOO-MAG — RecordLabelRecords‘ own Robbie Martin (aka Fluorescent Grey) takes the Five questions spotlight to new levels with an in-depth historical overview of the label and its spawning. Central RLR theme’s generally hover around “layers of custom-cut sounds, derailed electronics, distorted audio warfare and a virtual smorgasbord of unique electro-acoustic fragments.”

Igloo Magazine :: When did RecordLabelRecords start up and what was your inspiration?

Robbie Martin (RLR) :: RecordLabelRecords technically started back in 1996, as a pseudo umbrella ‘label’ for a self-released track rap parody album I made with a friend riffing off of Coil’s Scatology. At the time, I was trying to discover all this weird music using AOL, pre web browsing, mailing lists and usenet (alt.noise, rec.music.ambient). I then met Kush Arora by typing in ‘noise’ into the music genre profile search in AOL and we struck up a friendship after I discovered that he lived 20 minutes away (and still lived with his parents and was in high school as was I).

I think the Coil mailing list itself was probably the way I discovered most of the music I grew to love like Scorn and Autechre. Brainwashed was just starting up at that time, but by the end of my ‘tenure’ on the list (after the rap parody and my friend and I trolling the list under different aliases), I had already burned several bridges including that of the guy who runs Brainwashed and who ran the old Coil list (who still won’t talk to me 15 years later). I will admit I was a cocky 17 year old who lived in a suburban town where I was the only person my age within a ten mile radius who had heard of these obscure musicians. From Coil’s association with Nurse with Wound, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV I had fallen in love with their jarring and psychedelic sounds. Aside from being a chin scratching elitist who didn’t care to have many friends in my home town, I was what most people would describe as straight edge. I had never smoked weed, nor cigarettes, hadn’t done acid, mushrooms or even alcohol. Music like Coil vs Elph Worship the Glitch put me into states that made me feel outside of myself; lying on my bed with headphones, I was constantly listening to this type of music fully sober and by myself. It wasn’t until I did psychedelic drugs for the first time in my twenties when I realized “Oh yeah, this is why this album is called Love’s Secret Domain.” My inspiration overall came from my adoration of the ‘post industrial’ wellspring of creative dark electronic / raw / electro-acoustic / idm music that seemed to have peaked in the mid 90’s. I feel like that aesthetic approach, even if it’s packaged in more modern advertising style branding *now*, its essence is making a big comeback in 2012 and that’s really encouraging to see.

Igloo :: Who were some of your initial artist relations and did your location help or hinder progress?

(RLR) :: My location did both; I grew up in a town where the only music scene for young people was Christian punk. It was only after meeting local experimental artists like Moe Statiano (who at the time was like a local one man band version of Einsturzende Neubauten) and the folks at Ovenguard Records in Berkeley like Chris Stecker and Erik Gallun (whom I met through Kush after they bought his noise tape at Ameoba called Too Pissed to Masturbate) did I really feel connected to any sort of artistic community in the San Francisco bay area. Living in Pleasanton I didn’t venture out to San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley very much but over time I started to break out of my anti-social shell a little; I was still very young compared to most of the other performers I would play with, so I always had this “out of place feeling.” Almost every show I attended or performed at back then the average attendee’s age was 35, unlike today where noise and experimental shows seem to attract a lot of young people; back then it wasn’t like that at all.

Read more about 5 Questions with RecordLabelRecords.

Listen, stream and order vinyl and cds at RecordLabelRecords.org

***

Identity Theft – Security Theater

abby — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:18:08 +0000

MEDIA ROOTS — In today’s fast paced, mostly club-dominated, electronic music culture, it is rare for dance music to convey an evocative message. A wonderful exception to this standard is Oakland analog synthesizer solo musician, Identity Theft. He has just released a new EP, Security Theatre, which you can stream for free in its entirety. Its titular track tells us that “All the World’s a Stage.”

No longer is outdoor surveillance exclusive to the UK; If you venture outdoors pretty much anywhere in the United States, you are frequently being recorded and mapped by sophisticated surveillance technology. These technologies are not just being implemented by various government or law enforcement agencies, but now by ordinary citizens against each other. We have heard time and again the citizenry say, “If I’m not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to hide.”

Identity Theft (real name M. Buchannan), aka Djynx Ogo, is one of the members of Nommo Ogo and Seacrypt. All of the music is created on hardware drum machines and synthesizers. As far as being an ‘Analord’ is concerned, Djynx was already knighted long ago.

***

IDENTITY THEFT — The rites of security theater play themselves out in airports, hotels, malls, town centers and gated communities. These rituals protect us mentally from the creeping suspicions that we are not actually safe at any time or place. This illusion of security is constructed within our private lives as well, in our homes and residences; with our significant others, our friends, our families. We are compelled to surveil upon each other in order to feel some level of comfort. The loss of our own privacy to others is outweighed by our need to observe, to know the limits and the parameters of our relationships. We give up our autonomy and our sense of uncertainty for a false feeling of invulnerability. This loss is palpable, and reflects into every aspect of modern existence with it’s dazzling luster. The lights fade, the curtains rise, and the audience falls silent with anticipation of the performance to come.

Purchase at Bandcamp for $4

Released by:
www.katabatik.org

listen to nommo ogo and other similar music at:
www.recordlabelrecords.org

***

Media Roots Music – DJ Paul Wolfowitz

abby — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:38:04 +0000

Media Roots Music – DJ Paul Wolfowitz ‘Did You See The Pictures?’ by Media Roots

MEDIA ROOTS — The infamous neo-conservative, former World Bank boss and former Bilderberg group steering committee member, Paul Wolfowitz, also a ladies’ man (just ask Shaha Riza), is now a DJ, too, throwing down dance mixes exclusively for Media Roots. “Did you see the pictures?”

“Hey, fellow patriots! To help take the edge off of tha Cipro comedown from the weekend, I recommend trying out my DJ set.”

-Paul Wolfowitz

Artist List: Check the SoundCloud timeline.

www.recordlabelrecords.org

MR Music – Goldsmithing For Electro Orchestrations

abby — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:16:38 +0000

Media Roots Music – Goldsmithing For Electro Orchestrations by Fluorescent Grey by Media Roots

MEDIA ROOTS- There are only a handful of electronic or synthesizers musical acts associated with film and movie scores. Clockwork Orange and The Shining’s Wendy Carlos comes to mind as does Tangerine Dream’s memorable scores for Risky Business and The Keep. One brilliant composer who is heavily revered in the world of orchestral film music, yet rarely mentioned amid discussions of film scores is Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith began as an auteur who strived to emulate the likes of Bernard Hermann and later he become a workhorse for Hollywood.

In time he started experimenting with exotic instruments and tried weaving them into a traditional orchestra aesthetic. Two years before Delia Derbeishire made the legendary “synthesizer” (which really was tape splice cutups, not synthesizer) theme for Dr. Who, Goldsmith had incorporated a Hammond Novachord into his theme song for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the last song in this mix).

In the 70s Goldsmith was already beginning to toy with synthesizers, but he didn’t make a fully synthesized score until the film Logan’s Run. His use of strange instruments and synthesizers make brief appearances on some of his earlier scores such as Star Trek the Motion Picture, but when his collaborations with Joe Dante peaked (Goldsmith became Dante’s right hand man akin to Spielberg’s use of John Williams), electronic elements were incorporated into almost every score he made from 1981-87. The results were profound: the samples from Gremlins, Explorers, Psycho II, Poltergeist, Outland in this mix exhibit a mystical hybrid of classical symphony and synthesizer music that has never been replicated since.

We went Goldsmithing for electronic music and this is what we found, so kick back and enjoy a relaxing journey of nostalgic childhood treats from none other than Jerry Goldsmith.

Robbie Martin