42 minutes, 24 seconds

Skinny Puppy
Cleanse Fold and Manipulate

Interesting article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine about something called the Buddha Machine, a small, inexpensive device that plays nine digitally encoded random loops of ambient music. Created by musicians Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian and distributed by the Dutch experimental label Staalplaat, the Buddha Machine has only an on-off switch. Which basically means you don't have much control over what to listen to next.

I was interested in the article because I think in many ways that's what I've been trying to do with my own collection of CDs over the past decade-plus of listening to music in descending order of total time. It's essentially a randomization method, one that eliminates the issue of choice from the music-listening equation.

But the article rang a false note when it tried to call the Buddha Machine "the anti-iPod." It described "the relief of not having to make a choice in a world awash with entertainment and self-expression options." Uh, well, you can do that with an iPod too--it's called shuffle mode.

Still, nice (and weird) to see the Times Magazine give coverage to something like this and name-check Staalplaat. Worlds are colliding!

Also today:

42:24 Stormfågel, Den Nalkande Stormen
42:23 Single Gun Theory, Like Stars in My Hands
42:19 Laibach, Let It Be
42:17 Stoa, Urthona
42:16 Die Form, Corpus Delicti
42:16 The Sundays, Static & Silence
42:15 Death in June & Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Ostenbräun
42:05 E-Craft, DOS_Unit
New arrival! 65:26 Post Crash High, The Apocalypse Came Yesterday, and No One Noticed
42:01 The Moon and the Nightspirit, Regö Rejtem
41:59 Collection d'Arnell-Andréa, Au Val des Roses
41:58 Harold Budd, The White Arcades
41:57 Anchorage, The Bleak Wooden Tower
41:56 Strength Through Joy, The Force of Truth and Lies