Tonight on Explorers Room, in observance of Singles Going Steady week (wherein many DJs opt to spin singles exclusively), I'll be playing an absolutely orgiastic selection of 45 rpm singles from the incredible assembly of marvels that is Dan Shiman's Exotica Project (Dan also does another one of my very favorite music sites, Office Naps– check em both out or be the fool). It's going to be awesome.
As Dan explains on the Exotica Project site, the 45 was a more affordable and thus more democratic format; the result being that 45-bound exotica has the possibility to be more wide-ranging, experimental, and crazy than a lot of what you might find on 33 1/3 exotica LPs, particularly some of the more canonical among them. This stuff is so great to hear, because as Dan and I have both long maintained and worked to demonstrate, exotica is a vastly more multivalent, boundary-less force than is often thought. Some of them are more experimental in really fascinating ways, others are hair-raising in their racial attitudes and the way they make exotica's usual subtexts much more explicit. I'll say it again: it's going to be awesome. Don't miss it.
And one last thing: help keep free radio alive, pledge what you can to this wonderful thing that is WFMU. Look, I'm currently at 49% of my program's individual goal! That's not half bad! Help me, if you can, tip over the halfway point, and beyond. Maybe if we turn the barn into a stage, and we sew our own costumes, we could put on a show and save this station! Whattya say!