Squirmelia on Broken Record

[froodle]

In The Broken Record episode of Eerie, Indiana, records played backwards give surprising results- Instead of telling the kid to steal milk vans, the backwards messages actually reveal the complaints of his parents, "why don't you tidy your room?", "why don't you get your hair cut?" etc.

I've been listening to songs played in reverse recently, and it has felt retro enough, even without spinning records by hand. There's a list of backmasked messages on the Wikipedia and even songs containing backmasking that you can listen to online. I haven't listened to any that have told me to tidy my room yet though, but perhaps I should.

Last month, I went to the Slow Life exhibition at the John Hansard Gallery, where dubplates began to decay and radios played broadcasts only of consonants and those sounds sometimes still stutter in my mind.

I have wondered what the wind would sound like backwards, the blustery wind that today has been blowing my (nuclear) red hair into my eyes and scattering multi-coloured leaves upwards, into the air. I have wanted to speak only in consonants. I have wanted all sounds to suddenly be reversed, from the whirl of the coffee machine to footsteps behind me.