Reviewed by 
Kim Ann Alexander 

Released 
1988 

Label 
Zombie Records 
 

Contact 
Paisley Babylon 

Visit 
Paisley Babylon 

This review 
sponsored by 
Cafe (at) Netherworld 
in downtown 
Denver Colorado 

Special Thanks 
to Sunshine at 
Cafe (at) Netherworld 
for technical 
consulting! 

Last Update
2 August 98

   Texas is producing some of the best experimental work in the United States which greatly shows in the release by Joe Wallace of Paisley Babylon on theAlpha Wave Variations.The onset of this CD has a foreboding electronic soundscape with samples of what sounds like TV or radio news hosts commenting on strange murders, cannibalistic activities, and "graveyard robberies" in track 1, Stone Garden. Spacious synthphonics begin track 2, Sleep Drugs, again setting the stage for eerie events in ones dream state with weird echos of voices and other noise input adding immensely to the fullness of the piece. 

   Retina presents upbeat synth (drum) sequencing and sampled vocals of 
information relevant to how the television affects your mind, "Television 
is reality, and reality is less than television...The television screen is the retina of the minds eye. Your reality is already half of the hallucination." A wonderful track to make you think about watching the TV! Noise and timbre are two facets to track 4 Content .211 that keep the listener on the edge of a sonic cliff! More strange sounds produced here that I haven't heard elsewhere create a great track for your front door speaker on Halloween to keep the kidlets in line. 

   Severed is a winding path through synths and dark sequenced beats and leads into Gondo with twisted samples and deep cavernous noise that could have come from your worst nightmare played backwards and sent though some sort of time warp. Most interesting! 

   Dead Channel brings to mind the whirr of tornado in your backyard with spooky keyboards accentuating the oncoming disaster. Eibon is equally interesting with samples of a man praying, "Oh Merciful Lord...", a woman speaking of 4000 years of prophecies "handed down over generations and generations", and more exquisite noise combinations all crumpled into a wandering mass of orderly confusion, not chaos...  then comes 4:31 A.M., with pulsing reverb and deep sculpted drones of sound blended with subtle single key twisted into yet another layer of already heavily textured work. Soporific again exemplifies the excellent sound architecture of Joe Wallace with sampled male vocals discussing the fear of death and is also expressed with winding layered sonic projections that carve deep into the darkest realms of human imagination, a sample about high blood pressure and quite an expansive move into the ambient nature of electronic noise. Great track! Alpha (live) is an exceptional work having been recorded live -- laden with samples and increasing intensity of symphonic-synth layers, a more solemn voice is heard on this track. 

   The final track on the disk, Energy People, takes on yet another side of Wallace's interpretation (?) of social conquest by corporate vultures relative to social change occurring on the planet with samples from a great number of sources including old songs that were played on the radio years ago, machine gun fire, radio and TV advertisements for various things such as breast implants, and just strange robotic voices perhaps from some movie I missed in the 1980s! This track is yet another hefty piece of work that should be heard with a great deal of attention! 

   I would highly recommend the Alpha Wave Variations to the noise enthusiast, the daring listener of ambient/noise and those of you who are interested in eclectic experimental sound manipulations.