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Music

• Pure (Ride the World) by (the extraordinary) Brendan Eder Ensemble
• Violette… from Philippe Sarde’s score to Violette et Francois
• Merry-go-Round and People on Sunday by Domenique Dumont
• Dane by Nils Frahm
• Two different versions of Debussy’s Passepied, the piano one is performed by Seong-Jin Cho, the synth one by Isao Tomita
• Love from Matthew Herbert
• Memorial Park from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Obsession.
• Phantom Signals by Tvarvargen

Notes

• There’s plenty written about Ken Allen, but I particularly appreciated Jason Hribal’s book Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance.

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Music

• Je ne pas si c’est tout le monde – Theme Comedie from Vincent Delerm’s score to the film of the same, long name.
• Forbin’s Hi Fi from Michel Colombier’s score to Colossus: The Forbin Project
• Boo’s Lullaby by Maria Chiara Agriro and Jamie Leeming
• Helle (Ballade) from the great Phillipe Sarde score to that picture.
• L’Espagne pour memoire from Michel Portal’s score to Un et a la garoupe
• The Rain Never Stops on Venus by Michael Wollney
• Je t’ai meme pas dit by Vincent Delerm.
• From a Dream by Oregon
• A version of Narcisus for Clarinet and Electronics as played by Thea Musgrave.

Notes

• Good sources if you want to know more are Peter Manseau’s book about spirit photography and the spiritualist age (Cutting intersects interestingly with that crea), The Apparitionists, as well as this article by Jerry Ryan about the history of aquariums in Boston.

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Music

• I Believe in the Night by Keith Kenniff
• Improvisations sur les folies d’Espagne (extraits) from Marin Marais and Jordi Savall
• Finally by Lambert
• Voltige by Marin Lizotte
• Violin Solo no. 1 by Peter Broderick
• Fratres fur violin und klavier by Avro Part as played by Ursula Schloch and Marcel Worms
• Dungen by Henrik Lindstom

Notes

• There are plenty of places to go to read about Smoky and Bill but why would want to go anywhere else than his book, Yorkie Doodle Dandy?

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Music

• Halcyon and Photosynteses and Embryo by H. Takehashi
• Intro by Library Tapes
• The Florist Wears Knee Breeches by M. Sage

Notes

• I found Andrew Isenberg’s book, The Destruction of the Bison, An Environmental History, completely fascinating.
• If you want to do a deep dive on Madison Grant, I’d recommend Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant by John Peter Spiro.
• If you want to do a deep dive on the Catalina Buffalo, this site is a fun place to start.

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Music

• In My Heaven All Faucets Have Fountains by yes/and
• A snippet of Runaway from Olafur Arnauld’s score to Gimme Shelter
• Spectral Canon from Conlon Nancarrow from James Tenney
• The Hourglass by Ben Crosland.

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Music

• Arrival by Dominique Dumont
• Bouquet by Bobby Hutcherson off of his phenomenal album, Happenings.
• Wrench and Numbers from Jeff Russo’s score to Fargo, the FX show.
• Melodrames telegraphies (in B flat Major 7th), part 1 by Brian McBride
• Kembang Andyani from the Gamelan Orchestra

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A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.

Music

• Time Beat by Ray Cathode
• Rabbits of the Void by Tomaga
• Weightless by the Neil Cowley Trio
• Scenes from the Poet’s Dreams I: Racing Through the Stars by The Lark Quartet
• Switchcraft by Chilly Gonzalez
• Sky Breaking, Clouds Falling by Mason Lindahl

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A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.

Music

• Feminist from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurrian’s score to Christine.
• Under Siege from the great Warren Ellis’ score to Mustang
• Warm Canto from Mal Waldren
• M is for Man, Music, Mozart: the Eisenstein Song from Louis Andriessen’s De Stijl album.
• The them to Le Doulo from Paul Misraki
• Manny Returns Home from Bernard Hermann’s score to the Wrong Man

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A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.

Music

• By the Ash Tree and Semolina by Slow Meadow
• Opals by Catching Flies
• Mechanical Fair by Ola Kvernberg and the Trondheim Singers
• La Copla by the great Atahualpa Yupanqui
• Holm Sound by Erland Cooper

Notes

• You can find the original recordings, photos, and film clips taken on the 1935 expedition and after in the remarkable online library of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
• Of the many books on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, the one I enjoyed and relied upon most here is Phillip Hoose’s The Race to Save the Good Lord Bird.

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We hear a couple from Alabaster DePlume’s To Cy & Lee album, Whisky Story Time and Not My Ask.

Bibio’s CAPEL BETHANIA.

The Sage, by the Chico Hamilton Quintet.

The Last Tears of a Deceased by Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou.

Too Small for Eyes by Mothers.

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Music

• Cul-de-Sac from Krzysztof Komeda’s Knife in the Water.
• The Mistral Noir by Daniel Herskedal.
• Trakors by 1900.
• Eloy by Deaf Center.
• Leaping Dance from the Netherlands Wind Ensemble
• And Facing the Obstacles from Rob Simonson’s score to the Final Member.

Notes

• This episode relied heavily on the work and research of Professor Gabriel Rosenberg of Duke, using his article, “No Scrubs: Livestock Breeding, State Power, and Eugenic Knowledge in the Early 20th Century United States” as a guide and jumping off point for other research.

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• The music on this one comes from High Aura’d, a project from my old friend, John Kolodij. The main drone piece is All the Spirits that Dance. The beginning and end were composed specifically for this episode.

Notes

• I read a lot of articles from a lot of sources on this one, but the linchpin here is Jeffrey Lockwood’s book that, to my mind, convincingly solves the mystery of the vanishing locusts.

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• We hear Ferris Wheel by Gabor Szabo from one of his better late sixties records.
• Herman’s Malt from Jeff Russo’s score to Fargo Season 2.
• David Goes Hunting from Larry Groupe’s score to Straw Dogs.
• Double Portrait by Double Edge from the album, U.S. Choice.
• A snippet of Idea of Order at Kyson Point from an album Brian Eno did with Tom Rogerson.
• Bicycles and Flasks by Dan Romer.
• A bit of Il Tamoure dei Bambini from Piero Umiliani’s score to Le Isole Dell’amore
• A Naga Swaram-Snake Charmers Melody from Folk Music of India
• Finishes out on Completely Gone from Ludwig Goransson’s score to Everything Everything.

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• We move between three different pieces from Camille Saint-Saens’: Suite, Op. 90: II Menuet, and two from Carnival of the Animals:Aviary and the Cuckoo in the Heart of the Woods.
• We hit Juneau from Danny Bensi and Sander Jurriaans’ score to Wildlike.
• And The Waltz from their score to 5 to 7.
• And there’s a total gem from George Mukabi called Dila Ni Dila in there too.

Notes

• Do yourself a favor and read Frances Hamerstrom’s autobiography, My Double Life: Memoirs of a Naturalist.
• Do your kids a favor and Jeannine Atkins take on Frances in her book Girls Who Looked Under Rocks.
• And then watch Frances teach David Letterman how to cook a snake.

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• Up Niek Mountain by Peter Broderick
• El cascabel de plata by Federico Durand
• We hear just a little bit of imgs/ r by Kara-Lis Coverdale
• Dissolving Clouds by Biosphere
• Nebula by Julianna Barwick
• Only in the Dark by Ben Lukas Boysen

Notes

• Bittersweet: Diabetes, Insulin, & the Transformation of Illness by Chris Feudtner
• Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of A Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg
• I’d also recommend searching the New York Times archive for Elizabeth Hughes and Diabetes. It’s remarkable to go back and watch the story unfold.

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• We hear a bunch of Ryland, by Julian Lage off his World’s Fair LP.
• We hear the Flamingos do Where or When.
• We hear Chilly Gonzalez’ Salon Salloon
• And finish out on Small Memory by Jon Hopkins

Notes

• There’s a bunch out there about the Camel Corps. You’ll have fun Googling around. But some of the best details in here, including the remarkable thing about the Red Ghost, comes from this article from a 1961 issue of American Heritage. 

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• This piece has two selections from Saunder Jurriens and Danny Bensi’s score to Christine, Yes But and Back to Work.

Notes

• This very good article in the Museum of Hoaxes gives a nice overview and links out to the original article.
• Hampton Sides In the Kingdom of Ice has a nice telling of the story with a lot of background on the editor of the Herald.

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Music:
* We start with Hush-Maker by Moon Ate the Dark.
* Roll on with Freudian Slippers by Chilly Gonzales.
* Hear Bibio’s Cherry Blossom Road a couple of times.
* Hit up Nice Dream by radio.string.quartet.vienna
* Hear Don Redman and his Orchestra play Blue Eyed Baby from Memphis.
* The centerpiece of the middle section is Snow Again by Lambert.
* We hear a couple of pieces by Dan Romer: An Old Fashioned Man and End of the World.
* We finish up on Lullatone’s Falling Asleep With a Book on Your Chest.

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Notes
As per usual, I read a lot about the Audubons and the Bakewells.
I relied most upon the charming and smart, On the Road with John James Audubon by Mary Durant, and Carolyn DeLatte’s lovely, thoughtful book, Lucy Audubon: a Biography.
* Just a quick note: there’s a very enjoyable PBS/American Masters/Nature documentary about Audubon. It’s a fun and informative watch. But, I’ll say, you come out of that thinking that things were fundamentally swell between Lucy and John in a way that I’m not entirely sure is supported by the facts. Or jibes with, you know, human nature.

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* Under the credits is Harlaamstrat 74 off of John Dankworth’s Modesty Blaise score.
* Then, we have the most obvious crickets/summer night song ever: the fantastic, perpetually delightful Green Arrow from Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, which has soundtracked many crickety summer nights for me over the years.
* The cops roll in to a loop of the very beginning of the epic Ptah, the El Daoud, the title track to Alice Coltrane’s album from 1970.
* Then we have a mix of two improvisations from Charles Cohen’s “Brother I Prove You Wrong”: Cloud Hands and The Boy and the Snake Dance.
* There’s a brief dip into Dorian, by Fang Island.
* The jaunty accordion, typewriter thing is Biking is Better on Wintergatan’s eponymous album.

Notes
I researched this one primarily through old newspapers. The easiest place to find a number of them is to read the excellent site, The Museum of Hoaxes’ page on this event. Also: if you’re in the Atlanta area and ever want to have yourself a day, you can see the actual monkey. It’s preserved in a jar at the Georgia Bureau of Investigations museum in Decatur Georgia.

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Second song is “Berlin by Overnight” by Max Richter.

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You can read about Acoustic Kitty (yes, that’s actually what they called the project) all over the place–there were lots of news articles when the files were declassified several years ago. However, my favorite thing on the web is an actual declassified document. Even after the cat dies and the mission’s a total failure, the scientists clearly feel pretty awesome: despite being “convinced that the program would not lend itself to [their] highly specialized needs,” they declare victory in the quest to train a cat to go short distances, even if they can’t control to where, and proclaim it “a remarkable scientific achievement.” To which I say: way to go. You spent millions of 1966 dollars. Sliced open live animals. Inserted wires and microphones and zapped them with electrical charges and now they can go short distances. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

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Most of the details in this one come from Pretty-Much-the-Greatest-Book-Ever, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert Caro. If you read only one thirty five year old, thousand-some-odd page biography of an urban planner this year, make it that one.

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Second song is “Berlin by Overnight” by Max Richter.

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