This project was recorded, mixed and mastered entirely during the month of February 2008 as part of the 2008 RPM Challenge. A remastered version, with enhanced sound and the addition of Technetium (my other RPM 2008 project) as a bonus track was completed on March 4, 2008. You can hear the album on VIRB and below.

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Strange Places

Unnatural Disasters is a concept album about strange places or, more precisely, places made strange by human activity. It builds on my fascination with these strange places as explored in my blog. Specifically, the places represented include:

Centralia, Pennsylvania

An underground fire has been burning in a disused coal mine beneath this town since 1962. Essentially condemned by the state, the town’s population has dwindled from about 2,000 at its peak to less than 10 today.

Cuyahoga River

This river that runs through Cleveland, Ohio was so polluted during most of the 20th century that it actually caught on fire on several occasions, most notoriously in 1969.

Desert Shores, California

A resort paradise that never was, Desert Shores and the neighboring Salton City had streets and sewer systems laid out (and, to some extent, built) in the 1960s. Now all they need are the residents. But instead they have this.

I-35W Mississippi River bridge

On August 1, 2007, during the evening rush hour, a 40-year-old, 8-lane Interstate highway bridge crossing the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis collapsed due to rusted joint plates and heavy vibrations from construction work. I was about a mile away when it happened.

Pripyat, Ukraine

Pripyat was home to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In 1986 it was a bustling city of 50,000 until the fateful accident that made the power plant a household name around the world.

Ryugyong Hotel

At 105 stories, the Ryugyong Hotel would be the world’s tallest, largest hotel, if it had been completed. Why exactly the secretive, isolated capital of North Korea would ever need a hotel so large (with no less than 7 revolving restaurants!) is a question that may never be answered. Construction on the hotel was suspended in 1992 due to lack of funds and severe structural defects. But the hulking concrete structure dominates the Pyongyang skyline to this day.

Salton Sea

Although the Salton Sink (over 200 feet below sea level in the southern California desert) has frequently been the home of shortlived bodies of water, it didn’t take on its current state (or its notoriety) until an accident in the construction of an irrigation canal flooded the area in 1905. Agricultural runoff has kept the sea from evaporating away for the past century, while its salinity has steadily increased and it has gone from being an idyllic resort paradise in the 1950s to the fetid cesspool it is today, beaches lined with literally hundreds of thousands of rotting fish, and migratory pelicans infected with botulism.

Zzyzx Road

Certainly the “last” place in America (alphabetically, at least), Zzyzx is a practically non-existent outpost in the remote stretches of the California desert near the I-15 corridor between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. There’s little to see there, but the odd name has made the Zzyzx Road exit a well-known point on the drive.

Under the Influence(s)

As with most of my musical projects, the influence of the musicians I am listening to at the moment is often transparent. A few of the subtle or not-so-subtle influences at work in these tracks include:

Beck

Beck’s influence may be oblique at best, but even if I don’t sound like him, I’ve always been inspired by his approach to music.

The Crystal Method

I don’t listen to a ton of electronica, but I’ve been a big fan of these guys since their first album, Vegas. I’m sure that everything I am capable of coming up with as far as electronic sounds go owes a debt of gratitude to them (and, perhaps, in turn to Kraftwerk).

Miles Davis

I’ve always cited Miles’ electric sounds of the early ’70s as an influence, but here they become explicit, with a not-so-subtle homage to Bitches Brew in one track.

Brian Eno

Eno’s ambient work has influenced me for years, and I generally include at least one ambient track on every album I record.

Friends of Dean Martinez

I haven’t listened to a ton of their work, but they do a great job of capturing the feel of the desert, and I referenced them heavily in creating my own “desert sound” for “The Salton Sink.”

Genesis

A few moments here feature Romantic (as in 19th century, not “love story” stuff) style chord progressions, which are definitely reminiscent of Tony Banks, but I think mostly I reflect this band’s influence in my love of vintage ’70s keyboard sounds like Hammond organs, electric pianos, and (for the first time, and to my great delight) the Mellotron.

King Crimson

The Mellotron-heavy bits in “Desert Shores” feature a chord progression quite reminiscent of that of the more majestic moments of “The Court of the Crimson King” from their debut album. Elsewhere the band’s (and Robert Fripp’s, in particular) pervasive influence on my musical tastes and styles is probably also evident.

The Mars Volta

I’m glad these guys are bringing progressive rock back into the mainstream. Although I struggle to listen to their albums due to their production values, the music is intriguingly complex and unwaveringly intense. My heavier prog moments on this album carry a heavy Mars Volta influence.

Pink Floyd

It kind of goes without saying that Pink Floyd is a major influence on my music. So much so, that I didn’t even bother to say it until this hasty addition. So yeah, Pink Floyd. See if you can find the parts not influenced by Pink Floyd.

Raymond Scott

Raymond Scott was a jazz bandleader in the 1930s. His most famous composition is “Roundhouse,” best known as the “factory” music in scores of Looney Tunes cartoons. The electric piano part at the beginning of “No Bridge on the River” is a subtle reference to “Powerhouse.”

Steely Dan

My jazz chops aren’t up to what they’d need to be to do a proper tribute to these guys musically, but what I have absorbed from them is an appreciation for the ironic pairing of “happy” sounding music with bleak or subversive lyrics.

Van der Graaf Generator

I hadn’t listened to these guys for years until a new coworker, perusing my iTunes library, mentioned his shared affinity for the band. So I listened to them anew, and one of their tracks in particular, “Darkness (11/11),” became a big influence on the structure and sound of “Desert Shores.”

The Music

1. The Road to Nowhere (Zzyzx)

There are certain styles of music that flow in just a certain way that is very reminiscent of, and suitable accompaniment to, cruising down the highway. Here I attempt to create a sound that works for rolling down I-15 in the desert sun.

One of my favorite driving songs is “Reelin’ in the Years” by Steely Dan. Although this song doesn’t really sound much like that one, it does have another Dan connection in that the lyrics are incongruously bleak compared to the relatively “happy” music that accompanies them.

We’re on the road to nowhere
And we’re getting there fast
The unintentional things we do
Are the things that are gonna last

A legacy of ineptitude
A thousand years of solitude
A blithe and reckless attitude
Our feckless ways hasten our own doom

We’re on the road to nowhere
A traffic jam’s ahead
Slow down and enjoy it, swerve to avoid it
Either way, in the end you’re dead

Sit back and take in the ride
Watch the world around you slide
Into chaos or into slow decline
Or maybe we’ll make it to the other side

Lyrics copyright 2008 by Scott Anderson. All rights reserved.

2. The Salton Sea, Pts. I & II
i. The Salton Sink
ii. The Deluge

Here I attempt to recreate the feeling of being in the dusty southern California desert in 1905, before the creation of the Salton Sea, as well as the effects of millions of gallons of water suddenly rushing into the Salton Sink. The first part owes a debt of gratitude to Friends of Dean Martinez, and their soundtrack to the documentary, Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea, which I had just watched a few weeks before recording this.

“The Deluge,” I think, does a good job of musically representing a torrent of gushing water. The Mars Volta probably contributed to this somewhat as well, since I was just listening to their new album as I wrote this track.

3. Centralia > River of Fire (Cuyahoga) > Centralia (Reprise)

The opening and closing sections of this piece represent the dwindling population of the town of Centralia by use of a gradually narrowing chord progression: although the root note remains in the middle of each 3-note chord, the lower and upper notes close in on it until only a single pounding note remains. The steady ticking of the rim shots represents, surprisingly enough, the steady march of time as the town vanishes into memory.

The middle portion of this piece, in a contrast that I, at least, find interesting, represents the burning Cuyahoga River in Cleveland in 1969. That was the same year that Miles Davis recorded Bitches Brew, so I used the title track from that album as a model for my piece, including a similar instrumentation, bass line, drum pattern, and the representation of two distinct groups performing simultaneously with stereo separation: the left channel features the main bass line, drums and electric piano, plus later the guitar; the right channel features a second drum part and bass line, plus the organ solo. The stepper synth (which carries on throughout the entire track) and congas fill in the middle between the two.

4. Free (or Best Offer)

No instruments (not even MIDI keyboard) were used on this track: all of the parts were programmed in directly with the computer keyboard. It’s a bit of a throwaway, but I felt like the album could use some comic relief; plus, it breaks up the early/mid-20th century events represented by more traditional instrumentation in the first part of the album and the late 20th/early 21st century events represented by electronic sounds in the second part of the album. The vocals are my attempt at sounding like I am found speech (and letting my difficult-to-overcome Minnesota accent shine through). I have never understood the concept of “free or best offer” which I have occasionally seen in classified ads, etc. If you’re willing to give it away for free, why would anyone bother to offer you money?

5. Pripyat and the Nuclear Sarcophagus

All of the sounds here represent something of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its demise. There are sounds of flitting subatomic particles, turbines sparking with electricity, and escaping radiation. Eventually the whole thing goes haywire and explodes, but the radiation lingers even after the plant has been entombed in a 660-foot thick cement enclosure (which, by the way, really is leaking water, just like it sounds here).

6. A Night at the Ryugyong Hotel

I can only imagine how eerily peaceful Pyongyang sounds; it is probably the least bustling major capital city in the world. That eerie feeling would only intensify if you were to attempt to spend the night in the abandoned shell of the Ryugyong Hotel. But the ringing in your ears might sound kind of like this.

7. No Bridge on the River

Afternoon rush hour traffic hums along, then abruptly comes to a halt at a construction bottleneck. The unsuspecting commuters sit in their cars atop an 8-lane freeway bridge crossing the Mississippi River. Nothing so unusual until the bridge gives way beneath them and they’re plunged into the murky waters below.

8. The Salton Sea, Pts. III & IV
iii. Desert Shores
iv. Botulism Outbreak

Desert Shores could have been a resort paradise, but it is all-but abandoned. The evidence of what once was remains everywhere. This is my ballad to a place that never quite was.

The second portion of this track (the metal rifferama) uses the same chord progression (and overall style) as a track originally recorded in 1991 as “Tommy Chiggers on the Run” by Bassius-O-Phelius, an improv rock duo I played in with my old high school classmate Mark Bergen, from 1990 to 1997. Mark has also previously contributed an electric piano solo to “Tai Chi for Oafs” from my 2003 solo CD, Tai Chi and Chai Tea. The disconcerting, dissonant chord progression seemed well suited to the unwelcome arrival in 1996 of botulism outbreaks in the migratory pelican populations that stop annually at the Salton Sea, after they began consuming the rotting tilapia carcasses washed up in incomprehensible numbers on the shores of the sea after a massive die-off resulting from decreased oxygen levels in the water after algae blooms which were triggered by the influx of high levels of nitrogen and other nutrients into the sea from agricultural runoff. Whew. Yes, the ecosystem is really that complex (actually much more so). Which makes you begin to realize how delicate the balance of life on our planet really is, and why it’s important that we stop making the kinds of short-sighted decisions that have led to situations like this.

9. Unnatural Disasters

A Mars Volta homage brings the album to a rocking close. I am particularly proud of the lyrics, where I managed to cram references to most of the places depicted in the album into a single verse. See below for explanations.

Unnatural disasters are our way of life
Man-made miracles of tension and strife
Cover up the truth and forget all the lies
Pack up, move away and let it all die

Put out the burning river, take that place off the map
Build a new road around a smoking death trap
Modern-day ruins, isotopic decay
Tomorrow’s tragedy’s under construction today

Lyrics copyright 2008 by Scott Anderson. All rights reserved.

“Put out the burning river” = Cuyahoga River
“Take that place off the map” = Ryugyong Hotel
“Build a new road around a smoking death trap” = Centralia
“Modern-day ruins” = Salton Sea (and Desert Shores)
“Isotopic decay” = Pripyat
“Tomorrow’s tragedy’s under constuction today” = Mississippi River bridge

I realize this last one seems to imply that I’m expecting a similar tragedy from the new Mississippi River bridge, being built in 2008. I certainly hope that is not the case; I’m actually thinking about a conversation I had with my wife about the old bridge, and how as it was being built in the 1960s, no one working on it would have ever imagined that it was destined to collapse disastrously 40 years later.