DF TRAM AND CANOPY OF STARS

EXCERPTS FROM A TRANSCRIPT OF THE RADIO SHOW 'WHAT WE FOUND DOWN THERE':

Cecil Typhus: Good evening. Cecil Typhus here, from the Institute for Anglo-American Oceanic Research and I want to introduce you to two gentleman who have been conducting some groundbreaking research on a phenomenon called The Upsweep. To explain more I'm going to pass you over to them now. Here is Professor DF Tram and Dr. Wheeldon. Gentlemen, perhaps you would like to start by explaining what The Upsweep is to our listeners.

Professor Tram: The Upsweep is an unidentified sound, detected on the American NOAA's equatorial autonomous hydrophone arrays. The sound was present when the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory began recording its sound surveillance system, SOSUS, in August 1991. It consists of a long train of narrow band upsweeping sounds of several seconds in duration each. The origin of the mysterious sound has never been explained.

Dr. Wheeldon (aka Canopy of Stars): When I first heard it I thought it was your stomach.

Professor Tram: I thought it was a whale, singing Bjork songs.

Dr. Wheeldon: Then I thought the sink was blocked again.

Professor Tram: Using the latest in technology we tried to analyse the sounds. We recorded it on to a series of chrome cassettes, applied Dolby, we messed with a graphic equaliser. We made strange faces to try to look important.

Dr. Wheeldon: We pressed lots of buttons and twiddled with knobs. We studied like it was 1989 and in our laboratory it all became clear. We started to realise this wasn't actually somebody playing a damaged copy of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music in a submarine. This was a journey. From Manhattan to the deepest reaches of the ocean, from a strange shopping trip with hidden microphones to a stroll along garden fences, over the shed roof, down to the beach and along to a market square, from a flooding chamber to being lost at sea or travelling beyond life itself...and then still being late on the Metro again... It was all captured in our recordings. You just had to search to decode the hidden musical messages.

Professor Tram: When we realised what we had we decided to release the tapes for you to hear and here it is. We hope you like it.

Cecil Typhus: Well, there you have it. Two scientists, a series of tapes and one amazing discovery. To finish off today, it seems apt to pass you over to my colleague, Charlatan Megabunk. Charlatan is coming to us from over the Atlantic.

Charlatan Megabunk: Thank you, Professor Typhus. This is Charlatan Megabunk from the Department of Psychedelic Underwater Audio research, based in Wilmington, Virginia. When I was first provided with these tapes from DF Tram and Canopy of Stars I was shocked, as I had never been able to capture The Upsweep in the way that they have. This strange and beautiful music... I am sure many will enjoy the fruits of their research for generations to come.
credits
releases February 2, 2024

Recorded by DF Tram & Canopy of Stars, 2023.