Black Mill Tapes (10th Anniversary Box)

by Pye Corner Audio

supported by

Hans den Hartog brilliant soundscapes, unique music that never gets boring.

felixgarcia We bring you the hauntology/giallo fussion you didn't know you deserve. Panos Cosmatos trapped in the elevator with John Carpenter level stuff. Favorite track: Volume 3 - Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen.

Superstix The most beautiful boxed set I own, both aesthetically and music wise. I also love that I can now stream this entire collection at once in order on my device with the Bandcamp app. Thank you for the vibrations, Martin. <3

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€19.95 EUR or more
5LP Box (Coloured Vinyls) + 12-page Booklet // 1st Press
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
5LP (Coloured vinyls) Box Set.
12-page booklet of photographic material created by Pye Corner Audio.

Includes unlimited streaming of Black Mill Tapes (10th Anniversary Box) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Black Mill Tapes Limited Jumper
T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album
Black Mill Tapes 10th Anniversary Jumper:
Garnet Jumper + Embroidered white text.
Unisex.
Manufacturer: Russell.

Includes unlimited streaming of Black Mill Tapes (10th Anniversary Box) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Black Mill Tapes (10th Anniversary Edition) 5LP Box + 12-page Booklet // Limited Re-press
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
5LP Box Set (Coloured vinyls).
12-page booklet of photographic material created by Pye Corner Audio.

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Includes unlimited streaming of Black Mill Tapes (10th Anniversary Box) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	Volume 1 - Transmission One: Lonesome Vale 01:50	buy track
2.	Volume 1 - We Have Visitors 03:50	buy track
3.	Volume 1 - Folk Festival 01:06	buy track
4.	Volume 1 - Electronic Rhythm Number Three 05:00	buy track
5.	Volume 1 - A Dark Door 02:21	buy track
6.	Volume 1 - Theme Number Four 02:06	buy track
7.	Volume 1 - Electronic Rhythm Number Eight 05:06	buy track
8.	Volume 1 - Building Twelve, Room One 01:29	buy track
9.	Volume 1 - Theme Number Nine 02:34	buy track
10.	Volume 1 - Transmission Three: Briar Lane 01:53	buy track
11.	Volume 1 - Gathering 03:35	buy track
12.	Volume 2 - Mirror Sequence 02:45	buy track
13.	Volume 2 - Electronic Rhythm Number Seven 03:41	buy track
14.	Volume 2 - Transmission Four: Crooked Hill 04:21	buy track
15.	Volume 2 - Electronic Rhythm Number Four 03:50	buy track
16.	Volume 2 - Through The King's Wood 02:10	buy track
17.	Volume 2 - Recrypt 04:04	buy track
18.	Volume 2 - Theme Number Six 01:09	buy track
19.	Volume 2 - Toward Light 07:46	buy track
20.	Volume 2 - Sine Times Nine 02:46	buy track
21.	Volume 2 - Ecneuqes Rorrim 02:47	buy track
22.	Volume 3 - Pathway Six 02:29	buy track
23.	Volume 3 - Electronic Rhythm Number Five 05:03	buy track
24.	Volume 3 - Transmission Seven: Pathways Open 01:57	buy track
25.	Volume 3 - Inside The Wave 04:55	buy track
26.	Volume 3 - Memory Wiped 01:32	buy track
27.	Volume 3 - Building Obscured By Mist 02:11	buy track
28.	Volume 3 - Electronic Rhythm Number One 05:51	buy track
29.	Volume 3 - Foreshadowed 01:53	buy track
30.	Volume 3 - Hexden Channel 07:15	buy track
31.	Volume 3 - Transmission Two: Pathways Closed 01:08	buy track
32.	Volume 3 - Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen 07:32	buy track
33.	Volume 3 - Theme Number Eight 01:53	buy track
34.	Volume 4 - Transmission Five: The Old Place 01:36	buy track
35.	Volume 4 - Dystopian Vector Part One 05:54	buy track
36.	Volume 4 - Transmission Thirteen: Line Of Sight 01:04	buy track
37.	Volume 4 - Electronic Rhythm Number Nine 04:48	buy track
38.	Volume 4 - Theme Number Seven 03:22	buy track
39.	Volume 4 - Electronic Rhythm Number Two 03:33	buy track
40.	Volume 4 - Electronic Rhythm Number Twelve 06:06	buy track
41.	Volume 4 - Transmission Nine: Black Light 02:53	buy track
42.	Volume 4 - Void Bound 05:04	buy track
43.	Volume 4 - Dystopian Vector Part Two 03:04	buy track
44.	Volume 4 - Evil Surrounds 04:45	buy track
45.	Volume 4 - Cont No Stop 03:07	buy track
46.	Volume 5 - Became Self Aware 02:02	buy track
47.	Volume 5 - Exhumed 04:35	buy track
48.	Volume 5 - Electronic Rhythm Number Thirteen 04:02	buy track
49.	Volume 5 - Theme Number Five 04:11	buy track
50.	Volume 5 - Return To Synth Mountain 04:55	buy track
51.	Volume 5 - Arlonica 05:40	buy track
52.	Volume 5 - Theme Sixty Eight 01:50	buy track

about

*AUDIO SNIPPETS (5th Volume):
soundcloud.com/lapsus-records/pye-corner-audio-black-mill-tapes-10th-anniversary-box-volume-5-lps-ps06

__________

Pye Corner Audio's enduring relationship with Lapsus Records is something we take great pride in at the label. We are therefore extremely excited to announce 'Black Mill Tapes (10th Anniversary Box)’, which will be the sixth release on our Perennial Series.

**Text by Philip Sherburne:

In the beginning, there was just a box of tapes and “Fate’s Gentle Hand.”

It was the autumn of 2010, and an anonymous figure known only as the Head Technician, an employee of Pye Corner Audio Transcription Services (“Magnetically aligning ferrous particles since 1970”), found himself at an auction in the village of Coldred, pop. 110. He was on the hunt for tobacco pipes when he chanced across a trio of boxes listed in the auction catalog, which described their contents only as “archived magnetic recordings.” The sole bidder, he won the lot, and upon receipt of his purchase took possession of an unspecified number of mouldering cassettes and ¼" reel-to-reel tapes. The collection contained no identifying information save for a single phrase scrawled on each box: “Black Mill Sessions.” And so, armed with razors, eyedroppers, and a bevy of solid-state circuitry, the Head Technician sat down at his machines and got to work.

Whether anyone believed it or not, this was the framing device surrounding Pye Corner Audio’s Black Mill Tapes Volume I: Avant Shards, which took the mysterious tactics of artists like Boards of Canada and Burial and raised them exponentially. Much like the narrator of a 19th century novel, the anonymous Head Technician purported merely to be the messenger of secondhand sounds. These were not compositions, we were told; they were tape transfers—“transcriptions” of an unknown author, slathered with hiss and thick with ambiguity. “Some of the tapes displayed an unusual amount of degradation and …an unsettling amount of background noise, whether electrical in nature, or otherwise,” wrote the Head Technician. “I chose to edit around the worst of the unusual break-ups, but some still remain.”

It was a good yarn, and the music was better still. Like his contemporaries Demdike Stare and Ghost Box, Pye Corner Audio seemed to be tapping into some hidden energy current, channeling spirits via electrical means. The pioneering transmissions of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop could be detected lurking within the music’s staticky swirl; so could the ominous throb of John Carpenter’s film soundtracks. Drones and flutes commingled with chugging machine beats; miasmic clouds of haunted tone alternated with death disco. It all sounded eerie, otherworldly, possibly occult—yet also, in tracks like the glimmering “We Have Visitors,” accented with a hint of mischief.

Over the next few years, Martin Jenkins—for that, after all, was the Head Technician’s name—would go on to release three more volumes of Black Mills Tapes. Among the dozens of releases he has put out since 2010, they remain among the most beloved in his catalog. Those original, digital-only releases—a rarity when they came out—reappeared on cassette, courtesy Seattle’s Further Records, in 2012; in 2012 and 2014, the now-defunct Type label would anthologize all four volumes. Now, 10 years after Avant Shards first appeared, Lapsus collects all four re-mastered volumes along with a fifth disc of unreleased material and a limited twelve-page booklet. The musical landscape has changed considerably in the past decade, but what is remarkable about the Black Mills Tapes material is that it hasn’t aged a day; its retro-futurist transmissions sound just as mysteriously compelling as they did the first time around. While they purport to faithfully transcribe the sound of yesterday’s technology, they end up being something more: a record of what we wish the past sounded like—a rickety tape transfer of desire itself, spooled and boxed, just awaiting discovery.

credits

released December 18, 2020

A selection of 1/4” and cassette tapes sourced and transferred by our Head Technician.
Written and produced by Martin Jenkins.
Mastered by Pedro Pina.
Artwork by Basora.
LPS-PS06.
www.lapsusrecords.cat
© & Lapsus Records 2020

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about

Pye Corner Audio UK

Pye Corner Audio specialise in majestic, cinematic electronica that evokes sci-fi soundtracks, dystopian futures and the sound of haunted dance floors. The discography to date includes seven full length albums and many more singles and EPs across several labels. ... more

Pyecorneraudio.wordpress.com

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