Haunted by the Taos Hum

The advent of electricity and all its wonders also came with a breeze of uncanniness

Although James Clerk Maxwell's laws explain electromagnetism quite straightforwardly, they are not for the laywoman and -man. So a little bit of mystery got carried along with all the contraptions it made possible. 

This time I would like to refer to the Taos Hum or "The Hum". Although this phenomenon has been reported in the UK in the 1950s already, in 1989 there was a massive "surge" in the city of Taos (US, New Mexico) of these kinds of reports. I think it is not for no reason, that the district is called "Tierra del Encanto" (Land of Enchantment). 

Anyways, let us come back to "The Hum" and quickly describe it:

In silence, especially in want of sleep, people hear a deep, humming noise that disturbs them, like an idling Diesel engine in front of a building or something like it. It is modulated and can become very intense. But this is not the only false explanation. Besides the car (there is none), many more explanations can be ruled out.

Tinnitus & Otoacoustic Emissions:

While our hearing apparatus is capable of emitting virtual (tinnitus) and real(otoacoustic emissions, which can be used to measure a newborn child's hearing ability) noises, it does not caper for the description of the phenomenon, at all

Locally improved Hearing along the Spectrum:

It is possible, that certain people possess extremely finely tuned access to named emissions, but alas, as well, the statistics do not match up. But static does not tell the real truth in single cases.

Electromagnetic Frequencies:

Electromagnetic frequencies can be ruled out totally because there is no way that deep frequencies could be coupled to air compression-based sound emissions

Construction Sites:

This seems a more plausible explanation since variable deep vibrations can be brought into the ground easily and span quite a distance in urban environments, where the ground is sealed by asphalt, but nothing of the like could be brought to any statistical convergence with the perceived noise emissions.

While there can be no plausible explanation, the Taos Hum, as well as the Auckland Hum and the Windsor Hum did happen to be experienced by people.

I, myself was a victim of this (believe me, not very pleasant) phenomenon. I read tons of stuff about it, talked to many people, and went out at night to find possible sources. I even went to the local transformation station to find if it could be found as a source, but to no effect. It has to be said, that I was in a stressful situation at work at that time. 

A while later, as the stress was ebbing off, the phenomenon got weaker and easier to deal with. So I started to forget about it. But when, after all, I took a vacation in a mountainside cabin, travel was a bit far and stressful, I took the same experience! No power grid in 50 Kilometers! And no construction sites, trees only.

So: it could only come from me!

This is the last explanation I could accept, that the sense of hearing of some people is extremely fine-tuned to hear inter-organ noises produced by the body itself.  In extreme silence, we can even train ourselves to listen to the sound of our nervous operating system, it is about 4KHz hiss.

No one else was there.

by nokturnal

Worship the Glitch

ELpH vs Coil "Worswhip the Glitch" Vinyl

The legendary Industrial Music-Duo Coil was always at the forefront when it came to using audio technology as a vehicle for the "Otherworld" ("Time Machines"). In the midst of the band's highly creative and turbulent 1990s, Peter Christopherson and Jhonn Balance (both sadly deceased) noticed strange glitches in their equipment during various sessions. And Coil wouldn't have been Coil, of course, if the two original artists hadn't immediately personalized this occurrence; as "ELpH", a hybrid of machine and spirit being:

“During the studio sessions that developed into what would become ‘Worship the Glitch’, Coil became aware of random compositions emitting from their gear, and were at odds with constant ‘accidents’ that were perpetually plaguing the recordings. The band called these unintentional emissions ‘ELpH’: a conceptual being that is one part physical equipment, one part celestial being… constantly playing the role of trickster, throwing a wrench into Coil’s methodology. Eventually, these accidents and mistakes were embraced by the band, and the process of misusing audio software to create intentional ‘errors’ was adopted as a musical technique. The acceptance of the ‘mistake’, and the use of discovered mistakes as intentional elements slowly became the drive and concept behind the album, thus birthing the title ‘Worship the Glitch.“(¹)

For me personally, Coil were always quite great, admirable rogues, who knew exactly how to get their listeners and fans in the right mood - with mysterious, self-invented urban legends. They always work: "Worship the Glitch" may or may not come from a ghost, the music creates a very strange, unreal feeling in any case - and that even without colorful pills and 4/20 technology (I would recommend the former only to experienced psychonauts at Coil sessions anyway).

"Worship the Glitch" was released in 1995 under the band name ELpH vs Coil. It should be noted that already one year before the EP "Born Again Pagans" was released under the band name Coil vs ELpH. There are no surviving explanations for this, but on the original release there are such wonderfully enigmatic notes as: "Patent Pending 184" or "Taken from the forthcoming double compilation CD 'The Sound of Music' (Threshold House Records - Due Spring 1995)" - a release that of course never existed.

(¹)https://www.daisrecords.com/products/elph-vs-coil-worship-the-glitch

by Doc Nachtstrom

Rosemary Brown, Music Medium

Rosemary Brown (1960-2001), Music Medium

The renowned David Toop once wrote, "Sound is a haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location is ambiguous and whose existence is transitory. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there." (¹) But what is meant by "there"? If the sound presented is incomplete, is there a ghostly presence that fills the void?

Let's consider Rosemary Brown, a British housewife who claimed to have been visited by a strange tall man with long, white hair when she was seven years old. Decades later, he revealed himself as the ghost of Franz Liszt, the once-famous composer. Liszt dictated a musical piece to her, and with some supernatural help, guided her hands on the piano. Not only Liszt, but also Bach, Grieg, Debussy, Schubert and Chopin lined up to dictate their unfinished musical business. Brown recorded these pieces and gained fame, at least in England, where citizens cherish their oddities and preserve them at all costs.

However, there is one riddle: how could Brown write and play these seemingly complex pieces of music with only minimal piano training during her childhood?

(¹) David Toop, "Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener", Continuum 2010

by Doc Nachtstrom