Search - ERIK BELGUM :: Strange Neonatal Cry

A 60-minute spoken word text with electronic sound, written and performed by experimental artist Erik Belgum. We all have events in our life that we spend years trying to get away from,only to look over our shoulder to see them trailing closely behind. Set in the spiraling structure of the parking ramp, Strange Neonatal Cry tells this kind of story: a woman witnesses the assault of a parking ramp attendant and becomes obsessed with the surrounding events. The spirally structured parking ramps of late 20th century life create a very dreamlike environment, yet at the same time we know that world intimately: a world in which up is also simultaneously under and over, and forward becomes backward and then quickly forward again as we move back up ahead. The spoken text is bound to the supporting world of sound through the use of instruments that spin, including hurdy-gurdy, sirens, Hammond B3 with Leslie speaker, Bullroar, and Shepard tones. Belgum's "ambient fictions" have aired throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. In addition to his novel Star Fiction, he has published fiction in dozens of literary journals and websites. The Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes called him, "Among the best of the younger writers of fiction, let alone experimental fiction."