Thanks for all your support, as always!

Yeah, we know…that’s a picture of the DI31-34 covers being printed, but the signifying heft of it is (or at least should be) in the direction of letting you know that DI35-38 are in production and planned for a mid-April 2011 release. Further information will be trickling in soon, but for now, check out that sidebar to your right!

Also, this might be a good time to let you know that we’ve finally owned up to the fact that we don’t have the time to run a mailing list for any purpose more intricate than announcing new editions, so the mailing list is now officially for new release announcements only (which it always was anyway).

Also also, after what feels like years of equivocating, we’ve decided that:

1. DI has no current plans to get back into the business of producing live events (hence the disappearance of the “Events” page). If you’re in/around Philly, you might want to check out GOVT List, though.

2. Information regarding Bee Mask will no longer be hosted here. Instead, it can now be found here.

With any luck, this will keep everyone marginally less confused than they might have been otherwise. More spring cleaning and batch updates forthcoming!

fluxmonkey (Cleveland)
Michael Johnsen (Pittsburgh)
Charles Cohen + Chris Madak (Philly)

8PM at The Rotunda
4014 Walnut St., Philadelphia
FREE

You can check out some further info here. This is a VERY rare opportunity to check a fluxmonkey performance outside the Great Lakes region, plus the public debut of my collaboration with Charles (and, come to think of it, my first public performance in about six months), so don’t miss it!

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.

Two things! First, we’re thrilled that 2010 honors keep rolling in for DI and related projects. The latest crop includes EOY nodz from Akteon regarding DI31, Visitation Rites on DI32, Greg Davis (via Root Strata) on DI33, and WFMU’s My Castle of Quiet on DI29.

MCOQ also reps Bee Mask’s Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico, which has reared its head in lists from John Twells (for Boomkat), Saniel Bonders, and Tiny Mix Tapes, plus a nomination in the Brainwashed readers’ poll (where I believe one can still vote for it, if that’s the sort of thing one’s into doing).

This is probably a partial list at best and we’ll be sure to update it as necessary. We mention all of this mainly to say thanks to everyone who thought we made their 2010 kick more ass than it would’ve otherwise! We also wanna extend our congratulations to all extended DI family who continue to grip well-deserved plauditz this year! It’s been a good one all around!

The second order of business alluded to above is this: holiday travel will be going down from 12/25-28, so any pending bizness will be attended to starting on the 29th! Thanks for the usual patience, etc.

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.

On a more topical note, it also bears mentioning that, due to the usual holiday travel, no one will be around to answer email and take stuff to the post office between this coming Tuesday (11/23) and the following one (11/30). As usual, we’ll be picking up where we left off as soon as possible, but Monday 11/22 will be the last day we ship anything till December.

…and speaking of distros, the inimitable KFW’s back with some considered assessments of the new batch!

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.