Pipe Thumb Piano

 After seeing the band Neptune play at the Aquarium in Fargo and talking to them about their instruments I was inspired to build my own thumb piano, in imitation of theirs. The main body is made of metal pipe and the keys are broken streetsweeper bristles salvaged from the gutter.

Self-Playing Music

 There's something enticing about the idea of setting up a system and watching it run through it's program without intervention, something satisfying about creating it. Like imagining one of Rube Goldberg's machines satisfying it's function, or watching a long arrangement of dominoes cascading in sequence. Like plugging wires into modular (or mini-modular) systems and listening to the way that they change the oscillation of a circuit, or arranging a sequence in a tracker (ImpulseTracker or ModPlug, for example), or making a feedback loop. Human minds love patterns and they especially love believing that they have figured out the limits of variations in the repetition of patterns. We love to believe that we are smart. I have made a series of videos about patterns, and I continue, with variations, to make them.

Still Reunion Noise Schematic

 

I used to make noise in a metal band called Still, and we recently had a reunion show at the Aquarium in Fargo. Here's the schematic for my setup. First section has a Bastl Kastle 1.5 being fed into a Softpop and then through a RE20 Space Echo, basically making spacey Hawkwind-ish kinda sounds. Second section is the Rucci Bent Time Delay through Digitech Super Flange, DOD Death Metal, Alesis MicroGate and a D-Seed II delay (on the Tape setting), making harsh noise that gets kind of rounded off by the D-Seed. Third section is Microgranny through A/B/Y box into Boss MetalZone, Boss Super Shifter and DD3, alternating between playing samples and making a pitch shifted mess of the bass player.

Human Issue 2

 

Well I finished up Human Issue 2 in time for Luke Safely's birthday, as a gift to him, after having made him read the first two drafts of the story, which were significantly longer.

This issue is only one story rather than several, and is inspired by a series of dreams that I have had since some time in the 2010s--I can't pin down exactly when they started, which is the seed that grew the story. Hopefully it will make sense when you read it. 

To obtain a copy you can email edwinpmanchester via gmail and we'll work it out, I'm charging 5 bucks to put it in a person's hand and 6 to mail it.