Yet another post about two things follows. The first of those things is that a chunk of Bee Mask’s Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico is stitched into Autre Ne Veut’s recent mix for Altered Zones!

The second is that DI31 is now sold out at source, albeit still available from distros. Thanks everyone who gripped; it’s one of my favorite DI’s to date and I’m happy to have found it some good homes.

Thanks to Sounds from the Rust Belt for including DI33 in their year-end best-of!

In other batch-related news, DI32′s getting love from The Fader, Pitchfork, Dead Formats (dead? really?? why’d you check it, then? -ed.), and Earmilk. Thanks everyone for your support!

We considered getting our own year-end list together and even went so far as to turn Tranquility Base inside out in the interest of establishing a stack of recs, but then we had a better idea. You’ll be hearing about it soon!

While we’re at the keyz, we might as well take this opportunity to welcome Aguirre Records to the distro fold. Anyone on the continent looking to grip DI33 and/or DI34 (to say nothing of a whole other jawn raft, incl. a crucial LP reish of Brother Raven’s Diving into the Pineapple Portal) would do well to check them out.

(We’re trying really hard to close this out without saying “the purest distro the world has ever seen.” Instead, let’s talk about how there’s a room at the Great Lakes Science Center that looks like fucking Caroliner. Seriously, these are not, I repeat not pictures of the Whitney Biennial.)

…and it bears noting that while I was gone, TMT Cerberus and Altered Zones (NB: for the millionth time, thanks for the review, but I live in Philly, not Cleveland. Also for what it’s worth, I have never knowingly sold a tape to a bird.) had some stuff to say about DI31 and DI32, respectively.

In case you’ve already synthesized the implications of the preceding paragraphs, lemme take this opportunity to point out that we’re down to maybe one copy of DI31 and out of DI32. Both of ‘em, however, are still very much available from your favorite distro.

Since there’s been some interest in the substance of the presentation from people who were unable to attend, I’ve finally gotten around to posting my program notes (pdf) and audio examples. The mix below was intended to situate the audience in the affective context/general soundworld of Touch and is divided into three ten-minute segments, the first of which concerns the San Francisco Tape Music Center, Mills College, and experimental music in the Bay Area in the 1960s and 70s. The second involves selections from works associated with Subotnick’s Bleecker Street studio and the NYU Intermedia Program, and the third explores the symbiotic relationship between the Buchla System and the various artistic/intellectual milieus within which it was/is employed.

A full discography can be found in the backmatter of the pdf linked above. For the time being, please excuse my flaky editing and inconsistent citation formats. The program notes should be regarded as a draft, insofar as I have yet to find time to work a final edit into my schedule.

…and in the interest of not letting another one slip through the cracks, you heard it here first: there will be another Deception Island Invitational, co-presented with Bowerbird in Philly on January 21, 2011. Details will be posted here as they’re confirmed.

Finally, I gotta ombudz for a minute: J Guy Laughlin reminds me that his Apnoea c30 (DI31) was recorded by John Delzoppo at Negative Space, rather than at the Embassy, as the liner notes claim. This correction will be posted on the discography page momentarily. Mea culpa.

*For those of you who are interested (as you should be) in Thomas’s other activities, allow me to refer you to his excellent music history blog, Acousmata.

…EDIT (11/5/10): Cathedral and MPC have been sold.

Sequential Circuits Six-Trak Synthesizer

Excellent condition, cosmetically and electronically. I’ve had this in the studio (never toured) for seven years or so and it’s been rock solid. Getting rid of it in pursuit of a DSI Tetra to use as an expander for my DSI Mopho. Very minor glitch at the far counterclockwise end of the “value” pot, which I’ve never fixed because I use it for aesthetic effect. All values are still readily accessible, but if you like, a little CAIG DeOxIt would fix it up in a second.

This is a massively underrated classic analog polysynth, with the same general timbral pallette as the Prophet V and Pro-One. Six mono Curtis voices, playable as a polysynth, one “unison” monosynth (killer for overdriven bass sounds), six monosynths, or as a single six-voice-per-key stack (which features six LFOs and eighteen envelope generators and sounds INCREDIBLE). Very characteristically Pro-One-sounding filter, with adjustable audio-rate modulation of cutoff for fm bells/splatter. Latchable arpeggiator with 16-note “assign” mode for Schulze fans, and last but certainly not least, a six-part multitimbral sequencer with master clock rate and independent track volume controls. Arpeggiator and sequencer can be externally clocked via gates/triggers and leave unused voices free for playing with other patches. Every parameter is controllable via MIDI CC, even when the arp/seq is running.

Can email copies of the owners’ and service manuals plus schematics if you like (the Six-Trak is easily moddable for individual voice outputs and external signal inputs, incidentally) and would be happy to share my notes on reverse-engineering its sysex dumps and rolling your own patch editor/librarian, if that’s up your alley. Have used this all over more releases than I could list here. $600.

TEAC A-1500W Stereo 1/4″ Open Reel

Last of a pair of these decks that I had professionally refurbished in 2007, with manual, service documents, and whatever spare tape/reels/etc I still have lying around. 1/4″ quarter-track, 7″ reel machine with weird built-in tape echo. Runs at 7.5 and 3.75 ips. Built like a proverbial tank and very user-serviceable. Beautiful natural compression curve holds up well into the red. Makes a great backup/master 2-track or a fine source of Lee Perry-esque manually executed modulation effects. Defined the sound of “Hyperborean Trenchtown” and “The World is Transformed…” I’ve got $450 sunk in it between original purchase price, parts, and bench fees. Yours for $325. Pickup only, because this thing is HEAVY.

In case you need any further convincing, reviews are creeping in from Olive Music (NB: Hyperborean Trenchtown actually precedes Prelude and First Enormous Peacock and Colony Collapse 2 by quite some time – about a year between sessions and a few months between releases – and Canzoni and Odysseus were recorded more or less at the same time. Sorry to throw a wrench into your theory! -Bee Mask), Sounds From the Rust Belt, and Volcanic Tongue.

Finally, those of you with ears particularly close to the ground may have arrived at the suspicion that a Deception Island Invitational-related update is long overdue. You’re right, of course, and I’ll hopefully get to it early next week!

“This is the first material I’ve heard from Bee Mask, who seems to have broken out of local obscurity in recent months thanks to a fairly frantic release schedule including his vinyl debut on Weird Forest which I am yet to hear. He apparently uses homemade photosensitive circuits, controlled by moving small lights around over them. If you think that might end up sounding like a collaboration between Thomas Lehn and Marcus Schmickler then think again. There’s not a bleep in sight on this tape, instead we are treated to a single piece of spacious drift split over the two sides, conjoined by some distinctly non-electronic chime and clatter.

“Side A opens out with hollow, low passed tones, contented emptiness, patient calm, waves seem to lap against rocks in the distance. This half sounds much like Brendan Walls Outposts LP, or Asher’s Distances piece for homophoni, until joined by a fragile phasing loops of bells and chimes, which blend over onto the second side. The remainder of the side rolls out in sustained tones again, slightly less passive than previously, though far from an onslaught. A really beautiful tape, thoroughly effective in spite of its apparent effortless simplicity.”

It’s worth mentioning that No Mutant Enemy is still available from me as of this writing.