Heavy Friends
Saturday October 9th, 2021 with Heavy Ben
Irv Teibel & environments: the lullaby of waves without the sand in our trunks

2 hours of idealized field recordings interspersed with a biography of this forgotten 1970s-era hippie polymath. Born today: Irv Teibel (October 9, 1938 – October 28, 2010), founder of Syntonic Research Inc., that produced 11 volumes of "environments" records between 1969-1979. These recordings are not what they seem. It's not about re-connecting with nature, it's about shutting out the world and coping. Though it was soon commonplace and watered down, in 1969 it was literally cutting edge (tapes & razor blades) to record and synthesize (IBM mainframe!) idealized versions of nature for the public to relax to. Irv Teibel was quite a character - simultaneously a fast-talking, Cadillac-driving hustler who was no environmentalist, and a new age visionary. Almost 10 years before Eno's first "ambient" album, and preceding countless records/cassettes/CDs of whale sounds, rain, and crickets, Teibel's "environments" series hatched the genre. Teibel also produced an early tape cut-up in "The Altered Nixon Speech" (1973), whereby we hear Tricky Dick being honest for once and admitting that he totally planned Watergate. Irv had a wicked sense of humour that included planting Easter eggs in environments records such as his own voice played backwards and declarations of “legalize marijuana!”. Thank you to those who keep journalism alive. Info & text sourced from: https://www.irvteibel.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irv_Teibel https://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/reader/natural-selection/ https://www.documentjournal.com/2018/03/listening-to-irv-teibels-environments-in-the-future/