i just got my own FM3 BUDDHA MACHINE. so fucking cool... every sombie should own one.

I've been interested in that thing for the past few months...The gadget aspect must be the real appeal, because out of curiosity I downloaded the nine tracks from the buddha machine, and they did nothing, just too minimal.

well, it's all about the presentation and the package. there is a 2 channel switch on the side, so you can actually "play" it. every time you flip the switch a new loop is playing. it's pretty fucking cool. i would love to hear what a few of these sound like in the same room... and it is strangely soothing, i really don't want to turn it off...

Maybe you should do what Brian Eno did, and buy eight of them at once.

I read that the cheapy speaker also makes it a lot different than hearing the drones over a big stereo. This true?

I came so close to ordering one of these in February. 30 bucks (Canadian) is pretty steep, so I keep waffling.

Your most recent release is something called the Buddha Machine. I imagine that most of my listeners have not seen it, heard it, or held one in their hands. Could you explain what one is exactly?

[laughs] The Buddha Machine is really nothing more than a small, plastic box. I guess about the size of a cigarette package in the U.S., which I think fewer and fewer people are familiar with in the U.S.; but it’s a small, plastic box that comes in six different colors and inside the box are loops that my band made over the last six years that we edited down, compressed into six-bit audio, and burned onto a chip that’s at the heart of this box. As I said, it’s about the size of a cigarette pack and it also contains a speaker, much like the transistor radios that we grew up with in the seventies before digital media became the new wave. But you turn on the box with two AA batteries inside, it’s powered, and the loops start to play, so essentially it’s a portable, go-anywhere, loop-playing sound system.

And these are also things, I understand, that are sold at Buddhist monasteries, hence the name Buddha Machine?

Yes, yes. The original Buddha Machine—we actually gave it the name Buddha Machine—the original box was used at Buddhist temples to chant, or play prayers and there are a number of different explanations of why they invented this box in China. Some people say it’s because modern people are too lazy to go to the temples to say the chants to the Buddha like they used to, so they invented this small machine to do it for them. Other people say it’s because there are fewer and fewer Buddhist monks out there. In the old days, the number of Buddhist monks was much higher, because that was considered a very high-class profession, and now more and more people are going into business or whatnot, so there are less monks to do the chanting for the Buddha, so they made a small box to do it in the place of a human.

ZUMPANO - Look What The Rookie Did

I'm convinced now that if I ever come across it in a record store, I'm going to have to buy it!

well, it's all about the presentation and the package. there is a 2 channel switch on the side, so you can actually "play" it. every time you flip the switch a new loop is playing. it's pretty fucking cool. i would love to hear what a few of these sound like in the same room... and it is strangely soothing, i really don't want to turn it off...

Another year, another superb album from Susumu Yokota, but with Yokota it is never just another album. Always stretching the boundaries, trying something new and "Wonder Waltz" is no exception. Inspired by his recent collaboration with singer Caroline Ross, Yokota has recorded with 4 different vocalists to create perhaps his most unusual album.

If this were a film it would be directed by Ingmar Bergman or Ang Lee…"The Seventh Seal" meets "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"…a phantasmagoria of unusual sounds and textures, spectral voices and deep beats. From these disparate elements Yokota creates a deep web of sound that encompasses everything from dub, folk, techno, gamelan, guitar raga, classical and avant garde.

As well as the clear bell like tones of Caroline Ross the album features the curious east European sound of well known violinist and singer Iva Bittova from Moravia who performs and records regularly with Bang On A Can. The delicate breathy voice of Hahimi Karie , a famous Japanese singer and fashion icon now resident in France and the gallic charm of Alex from Tokyo who conversely is a French DJ, famous in Japan.

Another ultra limited blast of ambient free noise form Bay Area duo the Yellow Swans. This time around they are Drift Yellow Swans (their name includes a different 'd' word every time) and the drift couldn't be more appropriate as this lp finds the 'Swans at their most, well, drifty. Three lengthy tracks of shimmering slithering ambience. Electronic grit is smeared over gentle finger picked electric guitars, melodies become more and more abstract, shimmers grow into drones, which grow into sheets of rumble and skree before fading back into swirling slow-shifting tranquility, peppered with clinking chiming industrial clatter. The final 20 minute track builds into an almost Skullflowery wall of distorted guitar, warm and suffocating, before quickly dissipating into gauzy clouds of melodic whir and barely-there drone and rumble. As always, quite lovely.

Rush ~ Vapor Trails

though i'm sure few could really give a crap, i think this is the best Rush album ever. even better than Moving Pictures. though nothing on here approaches the first 5 songs off that record, there are 13 just great songs on here. i love their playing on this. i believe a number of people have criticized the production values (or something), but this is a great record.

Hearing this for the first time, and it's awesome.

pretty cool too. i wonder if i should check out more paul simon albums.

RHYTHM OF THE SAINTS is a pretty damn good record and i'd recommend it.

wow

It's so foggy in that photo that I can't make out the title.

jesu - silver

people have been talking about this one all week and i am finally hearing it... it sounds like hi-fi-doom-sebadoh-dream-rock to me. nice.

it sounds like hi-fi-doom-sebadoh-dream-rock to me. nice.

Is this out yet to buy in the store, or just a leak?

Sounds cool.

I'm enjoying the new Midlake

hey a-team I love that Lovely Feathers disc as well.. they kinda remind me of Field Music.