Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford and author of Sonic Wonderland, has discovered the world record for the ‘Longest Echo’. The 1970 Guinness Book of Records is the last claim for the ‘longest echo’, when the solid-bronze doors of the Hamilton Mausoleum in Scotland slammed shut, it took 15 seconds for the sound to die away to silence. In researching his new book Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound Trevor Cox discovered a place where the sound echoes around for a full minute longer, smashing the previous record.

Trevor Cox travelled to the oil storage complex at Inchindown, near Invergordon, Scotland. These reservoirs supplied the naval anchorage in the Cromarty Firth at the bottom of the hill. The tanks were constructed in great secrecy amid concerns about the strengthening of Germany’s armed forces during the 1930s and the threat posed by long-range bombers, which is why the tanks were dug deep into the hillside. The vast complex took three years to complete. His guide was Allan Kilpatrick, an archaeological investigator for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

Trevor had to enter the tank through one of the 18 inch diameter oil pipes because there are no doors. The tank could hold 25.5 million litres of fuel and has walls 45cm thick. The space is about twice the length of a football pitch, 9m wide and 13.5 metres high.

Allan fired a pistol loaded with blanks about a third of the way into the storage tank, and Trevor recorded the response picked up by the microphones about a third of the way from the far end. This is a standard technique used in concert hall acoustics; old black-and-white photographs show a gun being fired on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall when they tested the acoustics back in the 1950s.

Sonic Wonderland - World's Longest Echo

String Figures vi - Inouï (and free)
Watch video :  https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/252069857 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9qp9ghz9ZI
Album out March 2nd via SVS records @svs-records
Pre-order album : http://bit.ly/2FdEQZa

Music:
Written, recorded, performed, and produced by Zoë Mc Pherson
Mixed by Jeremy Michel
Mastering by Rashad Becker

Video:
Direction - Alessandra Leone
Concept and music - Zoë Mc Pherson 
3D Animation - Andreas Barden
DoP - Julian Moser

Produced by Zoë Mc Pherson
Thanks to the support of Flanders, state of art.

stringfigures.xyz/
Instagram : http://bit.ly/2BCFa0o
Facebook : http://bit.ly/2BCFpbO
Soundcloud : http://bit.ly/2DULkOz
Spotify : spoti.fi/2nmtdqt
Twitter : http://bit.ly/2BCnNg7
Youtube : http://bit.ly/2DIep0q

SVS Records
svs-records.com/
Facebook : http://bit.ly/2BCHAfu
Soundcloud : http://bit.ly/2nqsepA

Part of an ongoing audiovisual album—titled 'String Figures'—by Zoë Mc Pherson, film directed by Alessandra Leone and animated by Andreas Barden.

vi. Inouï (and Free)

From the 'Paper-mâche Planet' ep, released 27th October 2017
Check out the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXKBeWygB3Y

Paper-mâché Planet

Flesh Of Mercury

I song that I made when I was like 5 years old for Mother's Day

Loveheart - Single

Loveheart

Dreaming of sleep on a pillow of hot ash

From the album Genericana available August 3, 2018 from Western Vinyl.

Pre-Order
Bandcamp https://productofpalmyra.bandcamp.com/album/genericana
iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/genericana/1380844018
WV http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv124

Genericana’s opening moments advertise a virtual vacation place, where soft waves of AM static crash and synthetic gulls call to a hazy sun.  A skeleton-thin drum loop jogs by--but these lazy synth tones are just working on their tan.  And then, just as the soundscape approaches maximum repose, a gnarly guitar band busts into the mix like an odd choice by a half-baked algorithm.  

“What?”

Indeed, “what” is the mantra of our moment.  And Genericana aspires to be that moment’s soundtrack.  

“WHAT is happening to our culture?” Americans ask themselves, in the era that sees entertainment, politics, and community life consolidated in a digital communications ecosystem.  Responding, Elephant Micah has tuned its music to an appropriately disorienting pitch.  For songwriter and recordist Joe O’Connell, that means remixing his own cultural experience, and questioning how “where we live” affects “what we sound like”:

“To me, ‘country’ music could mean any of the music we listened to growing up.  When my sister and I were teenagers, in the 1990s, we put a lot of effort into trying to access alternative music.  You had to steal Rolling Stone issues from the public library to find out about artists.  Or stay up late when you could get in some different radio stations than you could during the day.  I think of that whole experience as a ‘country’ music experience.”
  
In the place of “Americana,” the band offers Genericana.  Evoking genealogy, genre, generic brands (and perhaps a bottled genie), the album title points the way to a different theory of what binds our culture together. 
 
“I think Genericana just means ‘the stuff from which stuff generates,’” O’Connell explains.  “It's a short hand way of shouting out to the stock elements that I'm mashing up in this music.  I wanted this project to be sort of like a lucky mutation, that could lead to a heartier version of Elephant Micah for the digital world.” 

Mining the aesthetics of the average compact disc collection, Elephant Micah makes room on Genericana to play with sounds for their own sake.  O’Connell and company follow in the footsteps of songwriter-producers like Arthur Russell and John Martyn—artists whose descent into effects made their voices all the more poignant and personal.  Frequently, Genericana also pays tribute to laid back club sounds, from dub to ambient techno--and to the resourcefulness of the producers who invented these genres.       

“To make this record, we assembled a bunch of gear that was devalued or discarded,” O’Connell explains.  “A cheap FM synth, some Hindustani electronics, and an old three-head tape deck to use as a ‘poor man’s Space echo.’”  

At the top of this heap of equipment was something new.  And in fact, there had never been anything quite like it before.  Working from a series of manic band meetings and napkin drawings, percussionist and keyboardist Matt O’Connell brought to fruition a one-of-a-kind digital synthesizer.  Its inspiration comes from the possibility of alternative playing interfaces—ways of interacting with digital instruments that aren’t based on techniques for existing instruments.  Matt and Joe named this synth The Mutant, a title that’s right in key with the themes of Genericana.  Enjoy!

Genericana

Elephant Micah - "Fire B"

Prototype simple delay circuit being fed by the FSS Brunswick synthesiser via Wonkystuff 5x5 matrix mixer

BEEF And Delay 2

Heavy Lifting live at Club STOMP in Osaka 10th November 2018.  Mastered by Adam Zejma at Tye Die Tapes.

LIVE IN OSAKA

WonkyStuff dr1.a, Akai S01, Elektron Digitone, Korg Volca Bass, live jam

WonkyTonk Women

On the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the discovery of the "Generators" patch/performance/recording-solution, here is a collection showing the piece in its ultimate form; four extended plays captured in-situ across the first few months of 2019, covering studio, rehearsal, live, and installation implementations, with all takes all focusing on gradual, almost imperceptible timbral & formal change.

The emphasis on the constantly re-framing rhythmic center is perhaps the most recent addition to the piece/setup, incorporating several layers of drum synthesis voices & even some classic 90s General MIDI PCM layers to the mix. but these are, as always, meant for unbroken, fully-sensory, semi-focused listening (headphones, maximum volume) and are intended as tools to aid in the ascension to alpha-states.

All pieces are released in here in their native 24-bit, 96khz resolutions; mixed & mastered during March of 2019 at Lafayette Underground. Special thanks to Sanna Almajedi, François Bonnet, Philippe Dao, Rodolfo de Brito, Pedro Gomes, Gideon Kiers, Emmanuel Richier, Lucas van der Velden, Pierce Warnecke, Anne van Waveren, and Annette Wolfsberger.

Generatorss

Buy at Bandcamp

Generatorss (Previews)

Demonstration recordings of the Future Sound Systems Portland percussion synthesizer.

BEEF And Delay 2

namke