The ideas surrounding ‘the beauty of decay‘ are very much entwined with analogue recording and delivery formats. The oxide layer will wear on a magnetic tape over time and the grove in a vinyl will mechanically wear out, eventually. Record covers develop marks, wear, fingerprints — patina — and although some of us try to minimise this by using plastic sleeves, entropy is inevitable. The great Japanese novelist Tanizaki discusses a ‘sheen’ that can lead to reverie and tranquility:

“Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them. Living in these old houses among these old objects is in some mysterious way a source of peace and repose.”

Tanizaki

The object itself becomes as important to the experience, as the music contained within. The ‘story’ of where it’s been and who has previously played it, means we often anthropomorphise these objects, imbuing them with a life and even a soul. That connection is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to form with a digital stream. Henry Rollins, interviewed in the book ‘Why Vinyl Matters’ proposes that there is no such thing as digital music:

Digital technology can emulate music and that technology is getting better, but there is no Led Zeppelin on a Led Zeppelin CD. There isn’t a nanosecond of music on any music streaming service.

Henry Rollins interviewed in Why Vinyl Matters

Rollins is suggesting that digital is only sampling “reality” in opposition to analogue recording where the oxide particles are so tiny and so many, that for all intents and purposes the signal can be considered continuous and infinitely changeable. However, digital audio does not produce a quantised output waveform, like many people believe it does. These are technical considerations and it is perhaps, more interesting to consider Rollins’ words from a philosophical perspective.

Jean Baudrillard, in his book ‘Simulation and Simulacra’ suggests a “precession of simulacra” where everything in society passes through four phases, the first being a faithful copy of an original and the last is a pure simulacrum bearing no relationship to reality whatsoever.

It is possible to map music across these four phases (sacramental, maleficence, sorcery and pure simulacrum) with the analogue recording being considered a true copy and the mobile phone speaker playing music aloud, usually a low fidelity reproduction of a (data) compressed audio file made from a digital master, approaching the fourth phase of pure simulation.

However, when examining the idea of reproduction we must also consider what makes an original piece of art, original. Walter Benjamin in his work ‘Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction’ suggests:

‘… what shrinks in an age where the work of art can be reproduced by technological means is its aura.’

Walter Benjamin

These ideas have stuck with me and continue to inform my thought-processes surrounding the practice of recording, producing and releasing music. The idea that a copy can develop its own unique qualities through interaction, use and wear would suggest that a copy can become an original, albeit in a new form and therefore, transcend the procession of simulacra and develop its own aura. Over its lifetime it develops a story that the original does not have.

The most important factor in all of these ideas is us. In our function as collectors, listeners and consumers, it is we who interact with these mediums, we who remember the stories surrounding them and we who recount them to our peers.

Perhaps the patina we celebrate, is not about the object itself. It is instead, a reflection of the imperfect beauty that lies in us all.

Stu Welsh

Owner & Curator here at Fiercely Indie. Stu’s background is in Sound Engineering and Education. He leads undergrad and postgrad courses at dBs Music, acts as Producer for Live in Session and, is a huge fan of vintage recording gear.

* A minute deviation in the thickness of the oxide layer can cause a huge change in output level (up to 1dB per 1/10,000th of an inch).

To many, the format** that crams four tracks (two each side for stereo playback) into just over an eight of an inch, has had its day. However, what makes the format particularly appealing for small labels, like Fiercely Indie, is that anyone with a decent cassette recorder and a printer/copier can make a limited edition, small run of cassettes in-house. Unlike vinyl, which requires a complex physical manufacturing process, they are currently the only viable analogue format that can be created on-demand.

** The Compact Cassette, or Musicassette (MC), we use today was introduced in 1963 by Philips and remained one of the two most common formats for recorded music from the 1970s into the 1990s alongside both the vinyl record and, later, the compact disc.

All in the Name of Research

This week I’ve been doing (the most enjoyable) market research. Purchasing small, special and limited run cassettes. Listening on my Nakamichi Dragon Denon DRM-550 deck, examining the various approaches and generally learning more about underground cassette culture.

When the drums kicked in on the blue Intravene tape, I was instantly transported back to mid-nineties; just from that beautiful lo-fi, saturated cassette tone. Whether that’s just nostalgia, I’m not sure, but it’s been a long time since I blindly purchased this much music and enjoyed listening to every single track.

Love them or hate them, there’s something about an analogue format which can be used as an outlet for creative expression both in terms of music and artwork. I very much look forward to continuing my research and experimenting with the medium of tape as we release some small run, limited edition Musicassettes over the coming months.

Stu Welsh

Owner & Curator here at Fiercely Indie. Stu’s background is in Sound Engineering and Education. He leads undergrad and postgrad courses at dBs Music, acts as Producer for Live in Session and, is a huge fan of vintage recording gear.

The other week we were honoured to host the excellent Dr. Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, an academic and author specialising in fan culture, the cult of dead celebrity, music and music heritage.

Jen’s guest lecture was excellent and our students are still talking about it now.  I took the opportunity to ask her to sign my copy of ‘Why Vinyl Matters’, which she graciously did, with her usual flare.

So why does vinyl matter?

Well, firstly, this isn’t going to be a book review.  The book is excellent though, go and buy a copy immediately, if you don’t own one already (I imagine a lot of people reading this already will). Perhaps a better title for this post would be ‘Why does vinyl matter, to me?’.

Why does vinyl matter, to me?

I’ve tried answering that question a few times, over a coffee, with hastily handwritten notes, discussions with academics, being cognisant when playing vinyl, and it’s a tough one to answer.   Not because there aren’t any reasons, but because there are so many and the majority of them are equally as applicable to any physical, analogue format; but I will attempt to keep this about vinyl.

For me, it has little to do with sound quality.  I am well aware of the format’s sonic limitations and will happily (academically or otherwise) debate formats, sonic perception and audio objectivity vs. subjectivity.

However, this post is not about the sonic pros and cons of the format, instead it is about interaction, experience and human nature.

Digging

There is just something more authentic about being able to flick through a big crate of vinyl albums than scrolling through Spotify.  The feeling of the record sleeves under the fingertips, the special “flick” you learn and improve at, the way the cardboard brakes on the air pressure between the sleeves as one 12″ cascades into another.  A short pause … stopping on a classic cover, or some interesting art I’ve not seen before. The role of the physical format here, one could argue, is almost as important as the music itself.

Ritual

Sliding the vinyl from the sleeve, that distinctive papery crumple.  The very-careful balance we learn, of holding the disk between the fingers and palm of the hand, before placing it on the turntable.  Placing or lowering the needle gently and precisely into the groove.  That pregnant pause before that first subtle crackle comes over the speakers, shortly followed by the sonic signature of that particular pressing.

Entropy

Listening, really listening, sitting in the ‘sweet spot’ between the speakers and actually hearing the record.  Knowing that every play will wear the needle and the groove very subtly; meaning that one play, almost indistinguishable from subsequent plays, is actually unique and will never be exactly the same ever again.  A sonic sacrifice.

Knowledge

Reading the liner notes; before the days of the Internet, so much information came from those notes.  Who played what and on which track, who wrote each song, where it was recorded, who engineering it, who the producer was,  where it was pressed …

The artwork, often full of glorious studio or tour photos.  I still study all the studio pictures closely, occasionally I find a piece of studio or music gear I am not familiar with and that leads me on a new mission to learn about it.

Artwork

Then there’s the artwork, presented as either a 12″ square or a 24″ x 12″ rectangle if it’s a gatefold. Die-cuts (ELP – Brain Salad Surgery), embellishments (Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers features a zip on some pressings), coloured vinyl (which is making a comeback), picture disks (Tool – Lateralus features the art of Alex Grey), shaped disks, inlays, inserts, posters …  I fear we have lost the art of the record.

Experience

During the last century and, to some extent, the start of this one, we lived in a world of collections, where the idea of owning and currating physical objects was celebrated.  Storing them, maintaining them, interacting with the medium itself. 

However, this process has been largely supplanted by streaming media. Spotify and Apple Music means we can listen to any album, at any time without having to own or store that physical copy. Therefore, it could be argued that, the idea of a tangible format become less about access to the music we love and more about having a authentic experience.

Social

I find this ritual highly social too.  It’s great to have friends and family over to hang out and play records.  It’s fun to teach people, who have never had the pleasure of placing the disk on the turntable, or the needle in the grove, how to go about it.  It’s a memorable experience which adds ‘weight’ to the music. That interaction is almost impossible to replicate with modern digital platforms.

That is why I love vinyl.

And, then, all too soon, the last record of the night spins out and the needle sits in the dead wax at the centre of the beautiful black circle …

“Click!“

Stu Welsh

Owner & Curator here at Fiercely Indie. Stu’s background is in Sound Engineering and Education. He leads undergrad and postgrad courses at dBs Music, acts as Producer for Live in Session and, is a huge fan of vintage recording gear.

On August 22^nd, 2016‪, Fiercely Independent Records released Ancient Race of Techno-Voyagers, the new album from elusive analog technicians Thee Koukouvaya, in vinyl and digital formats.

Ancient Race of Techno-Voyagers is the second full-length album from collaborators John O’Hara and Brian Wenckebach, following their debut LP This is the Mythology of Modern Death (Saint Marie Records) and their ambient EP Witches’ Jelly (soundinsilence). Magnet Magazine described This is the Mythology of Modern Death as “dark and claustrophobic electronica,” while Penny Black Music hailed the album as “an atmospheric masterpiece” and Stereo Embers Magazine found themselves “mesmerized, ecstatic, and chilled out down to our very marrow” by “an absolute mind-fuck of seductive electronic imagination.”

The nine electronic experiments on Ancient Race of Techno-Voyagers build on the sound established on that first LP, crafting expansive, cinematic narratives out of dense layers of synthesizer melodies and complex electronic percussion, this time around producing even darker, more esoteric results. Though on the whole moodier in tone than the previous album, Ancient Race of Techno-Voyagers still expresses a range of emotions, like the anxious jitter of “Limbic Crisis for Sparkle and Foam” and the cathartic longing of “Margaritas by the Pool,” which includes a vocoder performance by Ulrich Schnauss, one of electronic music’s most forward-thinking artists.

Products

Thee Koukouvaya / Ancient Race of Techno Voyagers
[vinyl] [very limited stock]

About Thee Koukouvaya

Thee Koukouvaya is the conceptual aural sister city to Vilandredo, Rethymno, on the island of Crete. The group’s architects, based on the East Coast, approach post-rock inflected techno, ambient, and IDM with an eye for depth and structure, assembling crystalline lattices of meticulously programmed drum patterns, frenetically sequenced analog synthesizer rhythms, and luxuriant glacial drones.

Both ominous and celebratory, Thee Koukouvaya engineers inhuman otherworldliness steeped in sci-fi paranoia. The result is a deliberately damaged music, generating a sonic liminal space between the organic and the mechanical.