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

New Release: Noel Towers - To Jest Jądro Orzecha Włoskiego

Noel Towers - To Jest Jądro Orzecha Włoskiego
[free download, 192kpbs mp3]

"This is the kernel of the walnut" - A welter of restless jazz textures and electroacoustic processing, liquid sax taken deep underground for a congress of ghosts.

1. unsheathed
2. pearl
3. hid
4. kernel

Noel Towers - saxophones
Fabrizio "Baka" Torri - guitars
Kowal "The Blacksmith" Wieże - everything else

Noel Towers is an anglo-brazilian musician. At present he lives in Cracow, Poland, where he and Kowal Wieże are students of ethnomusicology at the university. Fabrizzio Torri will be familiar to our listeners from his earlier This Plague of Dreaming release Terra Lucida. [Recorded in Szczecin, Poland.]

Accolades

Sometime overnight, three of our albums have passed the 1000 Downloads mark:

Nagual Art - A Landscape Built By Whispers
[interrupt:Jumper] - "music for unfinished movies"
Sypha Nadon - 11 Chants for Russolo!

If you are one of the lucky souls to have already downloaded these fine albums, then our thanks go out to you. If you have not yet had the pleasure: pray, deny yourself no longer! Life is hard and the nights are cold - seek consolation and strength in music.

Also, at some point in the next 48 hours will burst upon you the new album from Noel Towers! This multinational collaboration marks the end of a busy Summer for This Plague of Dreaming. Once again we thank you, loyal plaguedreamers, for listening.

Keep on the beam!