All Tags
JUNE 6, 1995
Tim Walters: The Dry Well
The Dry Well is a dark and emotionally charged work of musique concrete, created by extreme digital processing of acoustic sound sources.
JUNE 21, 2017
Tim Walters: The Difficult Third Wish
A collection of electroacoustic works realized between 2010 and 2017, with particular emphasis on complex aggregated modulation systems.
APRIL 15, 2021
Tim Walters: Stricture
“Another presence settles into your cell. The quaking in you starts up again in earnest. It takes you by your shoulders, determined to shake you back into sawdust. You cannot look for fear of reprisal. You saddle near the new thing, crane back your neck, inspect it from under the safety of the blindfold. Itʼs everything you fear it to be. Lying on the filthy planks, unswept since you came here, is that inconceivable device: a cunning, made world.” —Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark
MAY 12, 2020
Tim Walters: Shatter in Place
For this lockdown-friendly album, I asked some of the Bay Area’s finest experimental and improvising musicians to record some of their solo playing at home and send me the result for use as electroacoustic source material. These contributions, seared, scored, scalded and etched, broken into shards and crumbs, then reassembled into new twisted shapes, are what you hear on this album. No other sound sources were used.
JULY 3, 2017
Tim Walters: Kilgrimal
On the sands near Blackpool, out at sea, once stood the church and cemetery of Kilgrimal, long ago submerged. Wanderers near this spot are said, from time to time, to have been terrified by the “dismal chimes of the bells pealing over the murmuring sea.” —T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, English Folk-Lore
JUNE 21, 2018
Tim Walters: Austerity Measures
The recent arrival of a couple of small analog novelties in my studio prompted a set of short etudes featuring self-driving feedback networks. This in turn reminded me of old bits of SuperCollider code, often just a few lines, with a similar quality of deriving lively sounds from modest means. This album collects the results.
DECEMBER 18, 2008
Shalmaneser: Ticker
Shalmaneser’s sophomore release adds recorder and crumhorn to the mix. The result sounds a bit like Mike Oldfield crossed with Venetian Snares. But only a bit.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2020
Shalmaneser: Maybe Face
And just like that, our little Artificial Stupidity experiment is old enough to drive. Like any teenager, he desperately wants to be “with it,” and has started hanging out with the “cool kids” and their “analog modular synthesizers” and “reverberation units.” But we love him with all our dry digital hearts.
APRIL 1, 2004
Shalmaneser: Feature Wars
The product of decades of Artificial Stupidity research, Shalmaneser’s debut album Feature Wars is packed with every drop of sweat, feeling, and axle grease that a badly-wired incontinent robot can muster—which, of course, isn’t much. But he twitches amusingly.
MARCH 26, 2018
Mystery Fix: The Magpie
Polly Moller Springhorn: voice, flute, bass flute Tim Walters: bass, electric dulcimer, voice, etc.
MAY 28, 2010
Mystery Fix: Syllogismobile
Love and horns on the A-side, death and strings on the B-side.
NOVEMBER 1, 2008
mind6spiral: The Redundancy of Suicide
MindSpiral is a series of collaborations between Mike Metlay and anyone who doesn’t hang up when he calls.
JULY 22, 2014
Difski: The New Improved Moon
On July 5, 2014, Difski (a small autonomous subunit of the amorphous Different Skies collective) played an impromptu show as a warm-up and cool-down for the world premiere of Russell Foster’s film Different Skies: An Insider’s Journey at Arcosanti, Arizona. We present the best selections here for your listening pleasure.
OCTOBER 4, 2024
Mystery Fix: Life to Life
After six singles, Mystery Fix have released their debut album of all-new material on Gare du Nord Records. Twelve tracks of distinctive synthpop to put in your ears.
DECEMBER 25, 2024
Various Artists: Let Nothing You Dismay!
At last, due to lack of demand, we have assembled the Doubtful Palace’s annual holiday songs into one tasty but indigestible Bandcamp package. Grab that leftover turkey leg, pour the last bit of flat champagne into that dirty mug, and take a nosedive into nostalgia, one year at a time. Thanks to Mark Wilcox for the cover!
DECEMBER 21, 2017
Usufruct: Windfall
Usufruct (YOO-zoo-fruckt) is the right of the people to harvest the fruits of common property. The duo Usufruct, consisting of flutist/composer/vocalist/improviser Polly Moller Springhorn and computer musician Tim Walters, deconstructs, lovingly reassembles, and improvises around found texts and musical materials in the public domain.
JUNE 21, 2019
Tim Walters: Fission Cuisine
Electroacoustic musician Tim Walters gets back to his roots with this set of melodic analog synthesizer tracks evoking mirth, melancholy, and mystery. Not to mention frog parades.
OCTOBER 13, 2001
Slaw: Snakes & Ladders
Snakes & Ladders is a bizarre yet fascinating interactive construction with 100 tracks (one virtual) on one CD, each track linked to the appropriate square on the well-known board game. The game board represents the individual’s psychic growth pattern, either climbing a ladder toward perfect mental balance or sliding down a snake’s gullet toward the abyss of base animal instincts. Roll the dice, move your mice, and program your CD player to follow and support your halting progress as you slink rat-like through the ever-shifting topography of life’s maze toward the smelly cheese of enlightenment.
JULY 12, 2021
Shalmaneser: Vierhebigkeit
Vierhebigkeit (Tim Walters’ fifth album as Shalmaneser) is a fresh and friendly mixture of simple melodies and modular synth timbres—rainy-day activity music for your inner robot child. Vierhebigkeit captures the spirit of early electronic pop music while inventing a distinctive twenty-first century style. Believe in the bear, and the bear will believe in you.
AUGUST 7, 2013
Shalmaneser: The New Prime
Grandma Davis gave me a copy of Jack Vance”s Eight Phantasms And Magics for my tenth birthday… and here we are.
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
Reconnaissance Fly: Off By One
Reconnaissance Fly was born in 2009 from the dormant and pupating remains of Polly Moller & Company, then the six-year-old vehicle for flutist and vocalist Polly Moller’s spoken word compositions. Growing and transmogrifying, the band embraced progressive rock, jazz, funk, contemporary classical, and free improvisation influences, and became a team of goofball composers and superhero sidemen.
JANUARY 17, 2014
Reconnaissance Fly: Flower Futures
The story of Flower Futures began in 2009, just as the band had completed its transformation from the benevolent dictatorship—Polly Moller & Company—to the democratic Reconnaissance Fly. Polly had begun collecting the best Internet spam poetry, aka “spoetry,” she could find, and proposed a concept album setting 10 of these “spoems” to music. Each member of the band was given spoems to set, and five years later, Flower Futures is the result—showcasing the band’s versatility and each member’s unique compositional style.
APRIL 11, 2023
Mystery Fix: The Great Equation
Anton Barbeau: lyrics, voicePolly Springhorn: flute (2)Tim Walters: music, instruments
AUGUST 5, 2022
Mystery Fix: Blown Away/The Needle
Anton Barbeau: lyrics, voicePolly Springhorn: better angels (1)Tim Walters: music, instruments, vocal harm
OCTOBER 4, 2024
New album released by Mystery Fix: Life to Life
Mystery Fix’s debut album Life to Life is released, on Gare du Nord Records! This is my synthpop project, currently featuring Anton Barbeau as singer and lyricist. You can pre-order the album and check out two of its tracks on the Mystery Fix site.
JULY 12, 2021
New album released by Shalmaneser: Vierhebigkeit
Vierhebigkeit (Tim Walters’ fifth album as Shalmaneser) is a fresh and friendly mixture of simple melodies and modular synth timbres—rainy-day activity music for your inner robot child. Vierhebigkeit captures the spirit of early electronic pop music while inventing a distinctive twenty-first century style. Believe in the bear, and the bear will believe in you.
MAY 25, 2021
New Shalmaneser video: With Prune and With Prism
Andrew Juris has made a very cool video for the Shalmaneser track “With Prune and With Prism”, from the forthcoming album Vierhebigkeit. Check it out!
MAY 1, 2021
New album released by Tim Walters: Stricture
This is my first electroacoustic album created with Eurorack synthesis, after working almost entirely with SuperCollider since the early aughts. I think it still sounds pretty much like me, which might be an object lesson against mid-life crisis I’ve-always-wanted-one-of-those shopping. I can’t deny that twiddling the knobs has been fun, though, and it’s a really good fit with the melodic Shalmaneser identity.
MAY 1, 2021
Welcome to the recent past
As you may have noticed, the DP has been redesigned. I’ve tried to avoid whiz-bangery, but I’ve gathered up a lot of work that was previously flung far and wide, and added an RSS feed, so that you need never lack for news. I might even try to write a post once in a while. We’ll see.