Palimpsest

Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse -- a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important -- a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life—and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.

The novel, by Catherynne M. Valente, comes out in February (you can preorder--I did), but in the meantime I strongly encourage you to stoke your senses with the original short story at Senses Five Press. The question I'm dying to see answered is: can she keep up this level of dream-drenched intensity over the length of a novel? Do I ever hope so.

=PD

That could have gone better.

News? No News.

This is not a post about the missing airship Jane Guy, I am sorry to say. Since I last wrote to you on the topic, leads have been followed and lost, sightings have been reported and debunked, and little if any actual progress has been made in the investigation. Some of these episodes might make interesting reading when the time comes to tell the full story, but they are not news.

The fact is, there is little enough news coming out of the Institute at all right now. Winter is the time when we settle down to the orderly, indoor task of transcribing and collating data accumulated in the more temperate seasons (for budgetary reasons, each department's yearly reports are due by the end of March). By Spring, some of this tedious industry will yield breakthroughs. Everything else will simply be absorbed into the cavernous Institute archives, to accumulate dust while it awaits the whims of a future researcher to bring it back into the light.

But a lack of anything interesting or relevant to write about has never yet been an impediment to blogging, so I shall forge ahead with this update undaunted.

Let's see, what's been happening... Well, my lab assistant-slash-webmaster (i.e. the Luddite) has been snatched away from me and reassigned to Central, after I let slip word of his coffee-making prowess. We have been forced to fall back on our own inferior brewing skills, which hurts, but on the plus side, the website might get updated a little more often. Oh, and speaking of the website, we are changing servers, so expect the site to be down for a while sometime in the next 24-48 (all music will still be available at archive.org).

I'll be honest, I'm making this post mostly because I'm bored and lonely. My staff has the afternoon off, and I'm just pottering around the lab tidying up loose ends on various projects and trying not to think too hard about tonight's presentation. Oh yeah, I'm speaking at a fundraising dinner tonight. I need to sell the idea of the Outreach program to some of our oldest and most secretive backers (it's a black mask affair, natch), and I don't expect to enjoy myself very much. These things are creepy enough when you're not the center of attention, and by now the prospective donors will have heard the tale of the Jane Guy. It's funny how some of the most eccentric and bizarre people can also be the most conservative and intolerant. Or maybe it's the money that does it. In any case, wish me luck.

=PD

New Release: Siegmar Fricke - Atemkalk

Siegmar Fricke - Atemkalk
[free mp3 download]

(pharmakustik)

"Modulated absorptions, anesthetic ambiences and pulsating dissociative interferences for narcotic rebreathers. Cellular respiration through liquid programmings. Acoustic spaces of cardiopulmonary reanimation." (SF, November 2008)

01 Nebulizer
02 Sevofluran
03 Pulsoximed
04 Atemkalk

Siegmar Fricke has been continuously developing his pharmakustik concept since 2001 after his activities in the experimental, international tape-scene in the 80s and 90s. "Atemkalk" is his newest study in clinical ambiences, mindexpansion and electroorganic improvisation, developed in his pharmakustik-lab. The concept of constant modulation of all sound-particles during the simultaneous machine-interactions is an important factor in the pharmakustik approach.

Contact: www.myspace.com/siegmarfricke

New Release: Gabran - Nowhere Tales

Gabran - Nowhere Tales
[free mp3 download]

(experimental, electroacoustic)

"Nowhere Tales is a story of stories. Horizons of sound, confused words that evoke other worlds, other joys, other pains..."

01 Exasperate Tale
02 Land n.2
03 If a system is only a system, it's an unjustified order
04 From Another World
05 Landscapes and Tales
06 September tale
07 On land
08 Der Wunsch des Matrosen
09 Nowhere Tales

Notes:
"Gabran (Gabriele Ranica) since the Seventies has played in groups of progressive music, jazz and of contemporary improvisation. The interest for electronic music on tape and for computer music was born toward the beginning of the Eighties. The search and the improvisation are at the base of its job."

Double Release: [amt_23] - between the surfaces / [off:Error] - caught in the gap

Not one but two new albums from our German allies [Esc.] Laboratory!

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[amt_23] - between the surfaces
[free mp3 download]

("urban-cyber-blues meets industrial ambient")

This album mirrors the intense and ritualistic character of atmosphere, [amt_23] celebrated at various art exhibitions and in chill-out areas between 2003 and 2006.

Played and recorded live--No Over Dubs were used--archaic archetypes of sound got mixed up with minimalistic electronic elements. The unusual ambient soundscapes of "between the surfaces" are a melange of African Drums, contemporary Electronic Instruments, Guitar, Effects and Location Recordings. The listener will trespass the rusty industrial ambiance, the mantric sweetness of the Fluxus and the Bits of Reality. Urban-Cyber-Blues meets Industrial-Ambient and gives a rebirth to Electronique-Avantgard.

01 isdate recorder
02 duskin
03 us like giants
04 bodyonesomeelse
05 sha thou
06 dance, urban ghosts pt I
07 illizer
08 preek
09 breedbar
10 pneon
11 thou narrow
12 equithium
13 dance, urban ghosts pt II

The original versions of the songs were performed by [analogwerk.com] between 2000 and 2002. Nearly one year after the band split up, Doc.AtmosfearCrush reanimated this Performance-Set and constantly evolved it under Live conditions. The album “between the surfaces” also marks the first project-album hosted by [Esc.]Laboratory / Art Factory Worms and is a mark in the consciousness of spacetime.

= = = = =


[off:Error] - caught in the gap
[free mp3 download]

("industrial ambient")

Industrial ambient music for the theatre of our retinas, uncomfortable sometimes and surely harvesting the mainstream.

This one comes for seduction first. As we get more comfortable dark and lunatic chantings hit our ears, just to scare the shit out of ourselves.

The sample source was a pool of vast stolen fragments, taken from the various project-albums by [Esc.]Laboratory. Mixed with noises of unusual origin, rhythmic loops of our urban hive – shredded, stretched, torn into little bits and grains. In various Dub–Sessions the songs had to destroy themselves and reassemble to an orgasmatic ejaculation of experimental substance.

Just these ruins of doomed music survived: “If the characters of David Lynch`s Lost Highway would meet to perform for an album it would sound naturaly like (caught in the gap)!”

01 call to arms
02 play cursed
03 revolution No. 2.0
04 full moon
05 guitar and handy
06 next is the grid
07 revolution No. 2.1
08 fourtyninecrushes

= = = = =
These albums are hosted at This Plague of Dreaming by special arrangement with [Esc.] Laboratory. For more information, visit the artists' website.

New Release: Goghst - Goghst

Goghst
[free mp3 download]

("ambient indietronica")

"Goghst's second album is a sonic journey through the tired mind, the late at night mind when you think about the universe, and insomnia or fear of the dark or worse keeps you up. This is the soundtrack to the movie you see behind your tired eyes. This is the insomnia rising from the silent night to say "I am here! And I don't know why!" You can call this album experimental ambient indietronica through LSD headphones. If you still need a reason to listen, then maybe you're not even living."


01. Tired Eyes
02. Bodhicitta
03. Giving Up
04. Red Like A Marker
05. The Path of Enlightenment*
06. The Universe Loves You
07. Variations On A Bad Fall
08. The Universe Does Not Care
09. Post-Paranoid Depression (Instrumental Version)

*Lyrics to The Path of Enlightenment

So now we move onward to
The path to enlightenment
Now we move onward
Toward the path of enlightenment
Now onward toward the path of enlightenment
I have seen with these eyes
And I have kissed the sky
I've heard with these ears
And I've tasted the world's lies
I've used this brain
And I've wasted it too
I can't comprehend
This universe so big
Will I ever see the end?
So I move onward toward the path of enlightenment...

= = = = =

Also: watch for new music from Dikital, Gabran, Pharmakustik, Sublinear, To Repel Ghosts, and [Esc.] Laboratory artists [amt_23] and [off:error]--Coming Soon!