The album is truly Further from the Centre of Disturbance.

You can stream the entirety of the album here – and of course purchase from that same link.

There were only 64 copies made – all beautifully hand-done by HK and Nan, with printed insert, handmade sleeves with a photographic print on the outer, and as each copy represents a unique hexagram of the I Ching, each one includes a small, vintage I Ching card.

With some sadness, I learned yesterday that Suburban Electrification is not going to be released as originally intended. To those of you who bought it from the label, I’m grateful, but I’m also sorry to disappoint you. I understand refunds will be given.

For others who were keen to hear the album, I’ve taken the decision to make it available for free download. There’s an explanation of the genesis of the album on the SoundCloud page. For reasons I won’t go into, it was quite a difficult decision to make this available now. Perhaps it’s my pop album. Perhaps.

Brad has also uploaded the final track on the album, The Realm of Semblance, for streaming on SoundCloud.

I’m hoping to have some copies soon.

Amulets will be in what is apparently the last batch of tapes from Digitalis, to be released very soon. An end of an era, perhaps, but one in which I’m proud to have been involved. Here’s the composite image of the eight sleeves of this last batch. Mine is bottom right.

ONE: I’m delighted to say there’s a new release available to order on Dust, Unsettled. This is a wonderful new album by Glenn Bach entitled Radia.

Here’s how Glenn describes the album: With this new project, Radia, Glenn Bach builds quiet soundscapes from guitar feedback and field recordings captured at various state parks in California and Wisconsin. By combining the unpredictable aspect of analog signal with the mostly natural sounds of protected landscapes, Bach examines the blurred boundaries of geography, place and memory.

This disc has been a long time coming (all down to me, rather than Glenn – the most patient man on the planet!), but I’m convinced Radia is worth the wait. It’s a subtle and introverted series of slow soundscapes, abstract and minimalistic yet contemplative in nature. I really love it, and I’m so pleased Glenn sent it to me for release.

You can pre-order the album here; everything is at the duplicators now and it should be out in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can listen to all of the tracks on the Dust, Unsettled site or on our new SoundCloud page (and on the player below).

TWO: I will have a few new releases out soon.

The long delayed Suburban Electrification should be out in the very, very near future on Overland Shark. I understand that Andrew will be emailing those who ordered many months ago, so look out for something in your mailboxes from him soon. I’m sorry to say it seems this tape won’t now be released.

Amulets is a new album released on tape by Brad Rose’s excellent Digitalis label. This should be out in the next month or so, I think, in Digitalis’s last batch of tapes. Expect more on this shortly.

THREE: I’m also working on new releases for Notice Recordings, sicsic Tapes and a few others. More on these soon, too.

FOUR: Matthew Shaw and I have a new Fougou album coming out shortly on Greengage Sounds. Entitled Further from the Centre of Disturbance, this is a follow-up to, and a progression from, our first album Reversed Dreams of this Nature. The album will be limited and nicely packaged by our great friends HK and Nan.

And that’s all for now, folks. Thanks for reading this far – there’ll be more on all of the above very soon!

I’ve spent a reasonable proportion of the last week or so in the company of the wonderful Nancy Novotny and Hk Kahng, two of the warmest, most genuine, most literate friends I’ve yet had the pleasure to encounter. We’ve wandered along some interesting byways, all the while talking about music and books, cats and the esoteric, art and games and technology, as well as many other shared interests. It might be the single malt talking, or just the sadness of their leaving Edinburgh today, but I rarely make personal posts on this site and needed to record that I’ll miss them and hope we’ll meet again properly soon.

You can listen to a short excerpt of the A side (Corridor of Stars) here:
Brian Lavelle – Corridor of Stars (excerpt) by Sonic Oyster Records

There are just 50 copies of this, in wraparound paper sleeves, and I’m told that there are only 8 or so of these left from the label. You can pre-order it here. I will have a few myself in due course but if you’re interested I’d get in touch with Mr Paine soon.

Empty Transmissions is – nominally, at least – the first part of a continuing space opera project entitled Binary Light. Stay tuned for the next instalment…

Entitled Suburban Electrification, this is quite an unusual album for me: 13 short synthesizer ‘miniatures’ that occupy relatively unusual territory in comparison to what’s gone before.

The album was put together with the notion of restricted instrumentation (i.e. one synthesizer) and short duration in mind: the challenge was to create pieces that convey the same emotional impact as my longform works. I don’t know if I succeeded, but it was fun creating the music on this album and it’s informed quite a bit of what I’ve recorded in the four or five months since I finished it.

The album will be released mid- to late-July 2011. You can preorder it here in both digital and cassette tape formats, although if you order the tape, you’ll also get a high quality download of the album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC or other digital formats. It can also be streamed in its entirety from that page.

OMG Vinyl had this to say:

In case we haven’t convinced you yet, let us say it again, Kansas’ Overland Shark is easily one of the best tape labels in existence. They’ve got two new releases up, both amazing and incredibly different from one another. Brian Lavelle’s “Suburban Electrification” is a near-perfect collection of short, precise synthesizer jams (quite different from his usual multi-instrumental, side-long movements). The genre conventions of drone and ambient are left behind, revealing fields of minimal electronic music ripe for cultivation. This one is fucking tops.

Following this album are two other releases on cassette: Amulets, on Digitalis; and Empty Transmissions, on Sonic Oyster Cassettes. 2011 is the year of the tape, it seems…

Hyperboreans is a 30 minute soundscape composed of minimal electronics and field recordings, quite different in style from some of my more recent work. The sleeve photographs are by Susan, with design by her partner Mark Ingram: much thanks to both of them. I hope you enjoy! Copies are still available from Siren Wire.