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Destinations Unknown: Early Tape Experiments, 1993​-​1995

by john grzinich

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1.
Destination Unkown 03:39
2.
Motoric Drifts 03:14
3.
Percussive Play 02:14
4.
Messages from the End of the Century, Part 1 01:22
5.
Ecstatic Feedback 02:34
6.
Pulse Grind 03:08
7.
Pulsing Signals 03:07
8.
Messages from the End of the Century, Part 2 01:16
9.
Sine Space Feedback 02:11
10.
Magnetic Scratchery 02:24
11.
Deep Field 08:46

about

Have you ever gone deep into your own archival material only to have your curiosity aroused by what you find? Well, this is the story behind this release. While testing an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, I decided to listen to a handful of old tapes with original raw recordings from the earliest days of personal (and a few collaborative) audio experiments. The machine in question, an AKAI 4000DS MK-II, is a consumer tape deck from the mid-1970s that I found on the side of the road in someone's trash. This free device was partly to blame for kickstarting my free experimentation with tape manipulations, primitive delays, loops, electronic feedback and self-built string instruments, and other audio processes that comprised the core of my early foray into sound making. While most of this material made it's way into the 1995 solo tape release "Feed" and the subsequent remix collaboration with Seth Nehil, "The Lumbering Instransitive Dream of the Alial Straa", there was a surplus of session material that lived on in those early tapes.

Destinations Unknown is an collection of 'lost' material edited into a series of tracks. All material was recently digitized using that original AKAI machine. However, the age of that analogue machine is showing. Anyone who works with analogue media understands the limitations and flaws in the medium. One can hear this in the recordings. In this case I suspect the IC's are are on their way out causing some distortion in the high frequencies. Some persistent leaky motor noise is causing a consistent ticking. I hope this is not too bothersome for the listener. In many ways, these 'flawed' characteristics fit with the analogue revival and modelling methods currently enjoying attention in experimental audio production circles. My intention here is to share in the rediscovery of this material with fellow listeners and to highlight the approaches and outcomes from those early days. The raw material was produced under the most basic conditions with found and borrowed equipment. Nevertheless, this was enough to produce a diverse range of sound material, from raw and playful, to meditative and self-reflexive.

credits

released May 1, 1995

Analogue audio experiments (mostly) carried out from 1993-1995

Digitization and mastering, December 2023

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john grzinich Estonia

experimental audio excursions of an independent artist, sound recordist, composer, filmmaker, photographer and cultural coordinator.

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