Another New Benge Release

For the second time this month I've got a new mini-album out! This time it is released on CASSETTE TAPE! Yes it's my first release on this format - and thats quite exciting isn't it? It won't surprise you that it is a synthesiser only recording and quite abstract again - I actually recorded it last year using very early modular systems - heres the track listing:

Side A
1-EMS VCS3 Putney
2-Moog Modular
Side B
1-Serge Modular
2-Paia Modular

It is released by the lovely cassette label Chemical Tapes, and you can buy it and read a review here: Norman Records, and here: Stashed Goods





Click below for some more info (from the J-Card)

Systematic (IUPAC) name

(±)-1-(benzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl) -N-hydroxyl-N-methylpropan-2-amine

FLEA

Technical data

Track one contains sounds from the Putney Synthi which were recorded in one continuous pass via an EHX looping unit, allowing sounds to be layered one upon another

The second piece was created on the Moog model 3C which was subsequently fed through an assortment of echo and reverberation units in a free-flowing manner. It was recorded to tape in two separate passes, the first being sequenced melodic patterns, the second a series of short percussive sounds

Track three makes use of a Serge Modular system made in California in 1972. An extremely complex patch was set up and fed through a DBX stereo compression unit which in turn was layered upon itself using the EHX looper

The final piece also made use of the looper unit, this time with a 1974 Paia 4700 modular system as the sound source, which contains a built in reverberation unit as well as a Phlanger, a unique sound-processing device which alters the phase correlations of an input source

The pieces were finally mixed and balanced on an MCI 400 series console and recorded to tape

Made at Benge Studios, London, ©2011 Ben Edwards

"I have always been interested in discarded technologies. They catalog the places we pass through on our journey towards some imagined utopia, where we experience life with perfect clarity and precision. On the way we create things that are a compromise between perfection and utility. Some become accepted formats and take on an (invariably finite) life of their own. One example of this is the cassette tape, which existed in the 1970s and 80s as the main portable music storage medium. Although it has limited audio fidelity it utilises a completely analog technology which has a very distinct character, something sadly missing in our pristine digital world. In a similar vein, I like to work with early electronic synthesisers and processing devices for they too represent some lost technology. Their myriad circuits and connections hold the ghosts of unknown memories, the glimmer of a forgotten future"