2024
3 track solo shortwave album available on Bandcamp
https://johnduncan.bandcamp.com/album/shamanic
The LUMINOUS ANESTHETIC
EPHEMERAL
RECURRENT and SHIMMERING
It begins with a pretty unusual novel way of presenting a somewhat typical sense of contemporary frustration and then over time that leads to a healing medicinal drone type of sound. And then when that gives way I start getting pulled on and thrashed and grabbed and written on physically with the sound. There’s a strong cross modality between Hearing and feeling on the outside of my self. Not within my inner self. That to me suggests the origins of our experience, where it is the Physical effects of stimuli interpreted by our bodies that determine and labels and gives meaning to what we are feeling. But this Audio physicality though it’s external and I’m not processing it internally like normal audio. I’m processing it more like it’s a tangible force and that seems really psychedelic in a way. That is what seems magical and masterful about it. And then that becomes the healing medicinal Audio massage.
— Bryan Lewis Saunders
In February of this year, John Duncan released two high-quality digital solo albums called “THEME for TRANQUILITY BASE” and “SOUNDTRACK FOR AN INCANDESCENT DEPARTURE,” both of which use shortwave radio sounds.
He released this album called “SHAMANIC” this month as well. I’ve included a link to his Bandcamp below. You can also preview it.
“THEME for TRANQUILITY BASE” expressed the dynamics of vast space and time, and “SOUNDTRACK FOR AN INCANDESCENT DEPARTURE” expressed the extreme mental fluctuations. “SHAMANIC” is an album containing shortwave radio works with characteristics different from any of them.
John’s first application of shortwave radio sounds was on his 1981 EP “Creed”. Earlier, Holger Czukay applied shortwave radio sounds. In his Can’s “Saw Delight” released in 1977 and his solo album “Movies” released in 1979.
At the time, I thought that even though they used the same shortwave radio, their approaches were quite different, but on “SHAMANIC,” John applied the vocal sound source that Czukay would have done.
But John doesn’t use such materials as accents. As a result, they have succeeded in building a very heavy world unique to them.
John’s sense of balance in constructing music has come a long way since 1980. Of course, his charm was his unique imbalance that could even be described as ungainly. Over time, his work has become more balanced. However, it doesn’t feel sophisticated. The energy that swirls at the base of the sound, which sounds great at first listen, is profound and incommensurate with such an instrument. That’s the appeal of the music he’s making now.
— Takuya Sakaguchi