Stray Dogs invites Lord Asa
04.20.2026
As May marks both the 46th anniversary of the Kent State shootings and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we reflect on the political identity of transnational solidarity and the shared struggles against colonialism, imperial intervention, and state violence across communities and borders. In the 1970s, at the height of the Vietnam War, the 6th PSYOP Battalion of the United States Army, alongside branches of the Navy and South Vietnamese allies, broadcast encoded audio messages that purported to be the voices of dead Viet Cong soldiers. These spectral recordings suggested that those who died violently in war were unable to find peace or reunite with their loved ones, instead becoming wandering ghosts — the origin of the operation’s name: Operation Wandering Soul. This soundscape uses the figure of the ghost as a point of departure for a deeper meditation on war, memory, and psychological warfare. Sound and the sonic have long been critical sensory sites of both hegemonic domination and resistance. The relentless sounds of warfare and bombardment haunted Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam for over a decade. Between 1965 and 1975, approximately 7.5 million tons of bombs were dropped across the region — more than double the total deployed during World War II. This soundscape hybridizes archival news reports, anti-war speeches, wartime propaganda, and connects them with contemporary club and drone music from the east and south east asian diaspora to explore haptic and sensory dimensions of violence, memory, and haunting. While much of the archival audio comes from the 1960s and 1970s, these sounds provide a timeless reminder of collective struggle and the cost of war. While the themes of this set are quite heavy, we wish to note for listeners to allow these hauntings to inhabit you and move your body as you see fit. Experimental Electronic