The Attempted Verification Of Numerological Eloquence

An experiment with sounds selected and arranged on a numerical basis

Running Time: 2 x 26:26

Later Released On: "International Experimental Music Compilation 400 Way Split" -

 Various Artists (400 tracks) 

Label: Broken Tape Records (btr 182)

Release Date: 8th June 2020

Format: Downloads

Buy Links: Bandcamp

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< Ominous Five (Excerpts - 8:43) Dominant Three >

Now this was an experiment in the absolute truest sense of the word, in that we had not the faintest idea at all what the end result would be! The Magic Bullet project was barely five weeks old when we did this, 9th November 2019, so we had just a handful of musique concrète tracks and the Digitalis sessions under our belt. What we really wanted to do, however, was an epic! The idea of doing a long serious piece had a genuine appeal to it, and this was the first attempt. Having no particular concept in mind at the time, when it came to how we might proceed, we decided to try a random element. So we turned to that legendary folder of mine, Dr. Magic's Audio Lab! We'd decided on a generally electronic theme, so we went to the sub-folder labelled Synths, this is where I'd been stashing all my synth and keyboard samples, all assigned with numbers, Keys 053 and the like. First came The Beguiling Potential Of The Ominous Five; we took all the audio files that had a 5 in their name, made loops of 55 seconds of them, then began to assemble the main build, starting with a fade in. Each file was then introduced at a point in the main recording that was decided by graduated multiples of 5 and effected differently. Virtually anything could have happened and we were well interested in the possibilities at the beginning. But such is the nature of experiments that they do not always reach the level of one's expectations, and by 13:13, we were getting terminally bored. So we duplicated what we'd done so far, reversed it and joined the two together. Two days later, we would have a second attempt, The Hypothetical Deliverance Of The Dominant Three, this time using 3 as the key number instead. But much the same would happen again, and deliverance, there would be none.

Sometimes, when you create a work of any sort, it can be quite hard to be objective. When we sat down to listen to the finished pieces, we found ourselves quite warming to the first, albeit accepting it can get a bit annoying in places, but remain uncertain about the second. Reluctant to bin a couple of afternoons of work, we decided to seek a second opinion and checked with Stefan Knappe at Drone Records to see if he'd be interested, figuring it may well fall within his remit. He was quite happy to give them a listen so we duly sent them in, but silence followed for the next three months. The best laid men of mice with plans, as they say.

When in the February of 2020 we started talking with Alexey Kondart at Broken Tape Records, he was asking about pieces for a 400 track mega-compilation he was planning, so we sent them to him as well. We shoots, we scores, somebody loved them! Well, let's just say somebody was willing to include them at numbers 241 and 307 on a 400 strong collection! When I let Stefan know that we'd alternatively placed them, I was pleasantly shocked when he said he'd been surprised how 'Drone' they were. Took that as a compliment indeed. Or he was being kind, who knows!?

Ultimately though, however ambivalent we were about the tracks, and as proud as we are to have something on such a magnificent collection, we wanted to give them a slightly better chance of being heard than as 1 track in every 200 on a megacomp, so we gave them a freebie release on our own Bandcamp when we set it up the following summer as well. I'd like to say the jury is still out, but 2 downloads in 10 months speaks for itself! Bugger.

TDK NOSTALGIA