To Repel Ghosts - Partisan Songs
[free download, 256kpbs mp3]

A barely audible song
Is heard from the fog,
It is the quiet song
Of the forest partisans.

- - - - -
01. Quiet Forest
02. In the Trees
03. Front Zone Reverie
04. Nightingales
05. Quiet Forest ii
- - - - -

[In response to questions raised in pre-release comments: These songs are the record of our speculative forays into the dreamspace which has grown up in the cracks between the social myth of the Heroic partisans and the ugly reality of the war; in mapping that territory, it was not our intention to pursue any specific political agenda or champion any particular group or concern. The history of the Soviet partisans in the Great Patriotic War, like most war stories, is complex and often contradictory. We believe that it is vitally important, at these intersections of heroism and atrocity, to retain that complexity and resist the reductive impulse which impoverishes our myths and denies the varied humanity of the men and women on all sides of the conflict. These songs seek neither to glorify nor to condemn, and while they do not have anything so crude as a "message," we hope that they do contain some echo of truth. -TRG]

- - - - -

As you can see, the hiatus didn't last long. Only a couple days after I posted about it, a lot of things suddenly started working again. There are still intermittent problems, but we decided to take our chances.

=PD

Hiatus

Due to the ongoing technical difficulties of our file hosts, the Internet Archive, we have decided to hold off on further releases until the remaining problems are resolved (or we get tired of waiting and decide to take our chances, whichever happens first).

Many of our files are still only sporadically available, for which we can offer only a shrug and an impotent apology. Our frustration is tempered only by the knowledge that the Archive technical staff are busting their collective tail to overhaul what is, ultimately, a free service.

The situation is subject to rapid and unpredictable change, so it's worth checking back once in a while.

In the meantime, we're still knocking on hidden doors and developing new machines for dreaming. Stay on the beam for our Post-Repair season!

=PD

New Release: Nagual Art - Adoria

Nagual Art - Adoria
[free download, 192kpbs mp3]

This is the Soundtrack of Adoria - the Lucid Winter Wonderland.

Winter reigns over the Northern Hemisphere, and Nagual Art celebrates in cold ambient beauty. Sound travels far in the frigid air, bringing wisps of voices and the woodsmoke scent of deep dreaming.

1. Fragments
2. Enter Adoria (I & II)
3. Leviath
4. Lisea
5. Mondwinter
6. Traumkristalle
7. Der freundliche Kleine
8. Schneezauber
9. Fatima
10. Theory of the Deep

Adoria - produced by Volador in 2006/07

Artwork by Dravidian A. Ageran (www.dasnachtmahrprojekt.de)

Guest: Hermann Voges, countertenor on "Schneezauber"

(Visit Nagual Art's MySpace page for an exclusive bonus track, Another Day in Adoria.)

- - - - -

To Repel Ghosts' previously-announced album has been delayed, owing to mastering problems. The album is being re-mixed, and will be released as soon as possible.

Work continues, as usual

Winter - meteorologic, if not astronomic - has arrived at the Plaguedream compound, and most of us were relieved from our usual morning duties to chip ice off everything. The automatic de-icer on the auxiliary transmitter tower froze up (yeah...), so I spent the pre-dawn hours up in a lineman's harness with a blow-dryer and a really long extension cord, thawing out the delicate coils on low heat. Not how I planned to spend my Monday, but it did turn out, on balance, to be to our great benefit, since my unusual vantage point revealed a worn insulator that, left to itself, could have burned out the entire unit, at a cost far exceeding the minor annoyance and windburn it took to find it. That's how it goes around here (and good thing, too, despite any grumbling at the time).

(Apologies for the minutiae, but I still have my feet in a warm-water bath as I type, so it's on my mind.)

More relevant to you, dear reader, I am pleased to say that To Repel Ghosts are putting the finishing touches on Partisan Songs, to be released very soon (assuming that the server difficulties of our long-suffering file hosts, the Internet Archive, are resolved promptly - stay tuned). The engineering stage of the album proved trying for all of us at the Institute - TRG's methods are not without their hazards - but things have quieted down since they went to post-production, and what I've heard of the album sounds like it was worth the damage to the studio facilities (which was extensive but, fortunately, mostly cosmetic).

Lastly, I would like to reassure the many listeners who wrote to us concerning the Noel Towers album that what you are experiencing is perfectly natural, and that the psychosensory effects, though unsettling to some, are ultimately beneficial, and will become less noticeable over subsequent playings.

Watch for more news as the month progresses - we have some good things in store!

=PD

To Repel Ghosts on MySpace

Founding Plaguedream artists To Repel Ghosts have a new MySpace page!

We're still waiting on Band and Bio information from this notoriously reticent crew, but they've agreed to post a demo track from their upcoming album - the long-awaited Partisan Songs - by way of appeasement. Watch for the full release in coming weeks!

While we're on the topic, if you're on MySpace and haven't yet Friended your favorite This Plague of Dreaming artists, now is your chance:

This Plague of Dreaming (label page)
Glenn Brown
Harel Gal
Nagual Art
Sublinear
Sypha Nadon
The Threshold People

and our Allies:
[Esc.] Laboratory

MySpace may be a disheartening quagmire, but it's also the place to hear demos and preview tracks, and to show your appreciation to the artists directly, if you like.

(Fabrizio Torri doesn't maintain a MySpace page, to our knowledge, but you can keep up with his doings at his blog, Jitterbug Poetry.)

Moving right along, I am pleased to announce that the Internet Archive has repaired many of the problems that have beset it of late, so that the recent albums from Glenn Brown and The Threshold People are once again available to stream or download. We apologize for any frustration the service interruption may have caused you.

EDIT: The Internet Archive situation is not yet entirely stable. Stay tuned, and once again we apologize.

Instabilities in the Fabric

The netlabels at archive.org are changing servers, and all is in disruption. Our address, for instance, is changing (adjust your bookmarks as appropriate). The changes will, for the most part, be good - it will be easier for artists to update or fix broken collections, and the URL's of the download pages will be considerably shorter - but it also means going back in and changing all the links at thisplagueofdreaming.net and our other promotional venues.

We do apologize for any difficulty you may have accessing the music in the meantime, and we'll let you know when it's straightened out.

[Update: it looks like the collection itself is back up and available for download. There are still some problems (e.g. download statistics not updated), and I still have some links to change tonight, but the music is there if you want it, and that's the important part.)