The first (and, most likely, last) analogue hackpact entry: a gleeful hour spent playing with "The Putney", more commonly known as the Electronic Music Studios VCS3 (courtesy of James). The unit's matrix-based routing is quite unlike any modular or integrated interface I've seen before, more akin to a strange, solitary game of Battleships.

It's also pretty well-equipped for an antiquated monosynth, with a sexy radiophonic spring reverb, ring modulation and input channels to modulate arbitrary audio inputs. Capable of some screaming 60s tones, and very, very addictive.

(audio CC available as by-nc)

O'Reilly Radar reports that the 'sizzle' sound of mp3 artefacts is becoming increasingly preferred by music listeners. Yes, preferred; in listening tests performed annually over 6 years, listeners have increasingly rated songs with low-bitrate mp3 compression above those that a higher rate.

The author suggests that this is akin to vinyl listeners preferring the crackle of wax over the cleanness of digital recordings — though I have always figured that the vinyl preference is less subjective and more to do with its innate warmth and high-frequency rolloff. The "hot dog at the ball park" analogy is compelling, however, and there's undeniably something comforting about (say) the compression of FM radio when indoors on a cold winter's night, or listening to a cassette through a battered pair of headphones. It's not inconceivable that the mp3 sizzle could be headed for the same fate.

Claude Vonstroke's warped house label Dirtybird are running a remix competition for the new single by the Martin Brothers, a dark, breathy cut with the ubiquitous half-compelling/half-infuriating vocal line. I didn't intend to actually create a complete remix - submitting a remix a week before the voting deadline ends is essentially a pointless exercise - but after paring down a couple of the parts to their skeletal forms, I wound up creating this witchy phantasm of the original:

The Martin Brothers - Dum (Ad Hoc's invocation remix)

To be played at the opening and close of your next seance.

Platnik is the musical spawn of me and the endlessly skilled Mimi Leung. Though her current living situation (approximately 9,648km east of here) makes recording difficult at the moment, we've just finished roughly mastering our 6-track debut EP, which lurches around the graveyards of rave, drone and post-rock, in the murgy fog of an undead comedown.

It's available online in its entirety --
>>> FEAR OF ELECTRONS <<<

I've been gigging around more as Ad Hoc over the past few weeks, from a warehouse party in the industrial hinterland surrounding the Blackwall Tunnel, to next Wednesday's Cybersonica Çonic Social. As a consequence, I've spruced up the website with a series of new photos plus a recording of last night's live set at Dust, Clerkenwell.

There's also much more original material coming soon...

Almost certainly the first and last time I'll be linking to a ringtone website, Toneshared is the exception to the rule because

a) it has high-quality mp3s from such electronic luminaries as Alva Noto, Gudrun Gut, Luomo, si-cut.db, Jason Forrest, Leafcutter John, etc
b) it's free.

You can now identify me by my 8khz telecoms emissions.