The Orgone Box

What makes novelty novel? If we want the answer to this question we cannot value the novel against what it is not or what has not come before, rather we need to trace what the novel already is. For novelty is not the creation of a new whole, but a transformation, a rematerialization, another layer within a genealogy of something that came before. It is not enough to say that novelty is never new, because it is, but any novelty, and I would argue the more significant novelties gain their strength not in their newness, but through their history. What makes novelty novel is its ability to act as a catalyst for a phase change of thought, a paradigm shift, the opening up of a new plane of possibilities, problems, and characters.

Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst and promoter of the largely disputed theory of orgone energy: a bioenergic force and the cause of all observable phenomena, will serve as the initial coordinates for a process of novelty that we feel today, but began a good while ago. Reich’s ideas and inventions, whether intentional or not, valid or invalid, launched a trajectory of ideas, non-linear, and incohesive, yet all the more meaningful, that have materialized in many forms, through the course of a few decades. Two of these forms present themselves here, one a post humus collection of obscure recordings across two decades released this past year, and the second, a cassette recording from a prolific sound artist and performer. While the thread that connects these is thin, it is just as long, and makes for durability in both of these works that transcends their initial temporal novelty.
So here’s what I’m talking about, or rather listening what I’m listening to, and recommending you to listen to: Ursula Bogner Recordings 1969-1988 (Faitiche LP) and Mudboy Mudboy Beats v. III: Metal USA (Breaking World Records Cassette). While these were recorded in very different times, very different places, and in very different manners they are both part of an aesthetic lineage that begins not with sound but in the silence of Reich’s Orgone Box. One of his most well known inventions, the Orgone Box was a composite of wood, aluminum, and steel that one sat into to absorb accumulations of Orgone energy. This energy, thought to be in atmosphere, was the equivalent of nascent sexual energy, the matter that resides in the id and the driving force of all of passions and energies, which we must reconcile in some way or another. Ursula Bogner, mother, pharmacist, and amateur musician owned and often used one of these boxes, which she housed in her garage. Thought to therapeutic, stress relieving, and an aphrodisiac, the Orgone Box erases the dialectic between material and thought by creating a continuous interface between atmosphere and mood.

Mood is what stands out the most in Bogner’s recordings. The record begins by putting us in space, above the atmosphere, with a sparse composition of tuba like bass and a repetitive modulated high frequency riff; it almost has a pop sensibility. In fact, most of the songs in their simply elegant repetition share this characteristic, my personal favorite being the fourth track Metazoon. As we descend back to earth through the warm atmosphere created by some awesome analog home recording equipment, the environment becomes more pronounced, but the melodies that add to the extra charm of this album are never fully absorbed. Two tracks near the end Pulsation and Testlauf, are equally moody as the first, but the added atmosphere of the equipment’s leftovers produces a sensation that we rarely experience from the mass of more contemporary home noise makers.

Mudboy, from Providence Rhode Island, being one of those “noise makers” stands out as an exception. As prolific as he is diverse in his release of material, Metal USA is the third installment of an ongoing series of Mudboy Beats. Where Bogner’s Recordings emphasized mood over atmosphere, Metal USA is atmosphere, but thick with mood. The beats are what stand out, and at points on both sides of the cassette definable melodies appear, but all of this is at once washed away and held in place by an ever-present mutating haze of detritus. What is really interesting about this recording is that the ambient qualities of the piece seem to have a direct connection to the form and timbre of the beats being produced. In this way the atmosphere morphs with the pace of the rhythm, at times being a slow and deep drone, while at others a franticly precise chatter.

On the inside sleeve of the cassette, under the name “Mudboy” an alternate title appears: “Doctor of Experimental Orgonomics.” Whether or not Mudboy, like Bogner, has sat inside an Orgone Box doesn’t really matter, nor does it matter whether or not Orgone as a bioenergic force really exists. Whether it does or not, our perception and our aesthetics are permanently altered. The effects of an Orgone culture, though obscure in its specificity, is wide spread in its generality. The fact that both these records were released in a year and both of their connections to Reich’s Orgonomics cannot be a coincidence. A novelty in the 50s, the obscure Orgone Box has until recently remained hidden, but thankfully not forgotten. The techniques of atmosphere and the effects of mood the original Orgone Box sought to create through electromagnetism, being rematerialized into media capable of producing an immersive, performative, or collective experience of sensation, achieves a durability its first incarnation as a bizarre psychoanalysis offshoot could not possibly sustain. Though scientific in nature, the Orgone Boxes weird science undermines beauty in harmony, just as much as Metal USA and Recordings produce sensation by way of dissonance.

Ursula Bogner Recordings: 1969-1988

Mudboy Beats III: Metal USA