THE FEBRUARY HUSTLE (Patreon)

It's that time again, friends! Another month down. It has actually been the busiest month for 65LABS for quite some time. We're not quite ready to share anything yet in case we abort at the last minute, but we are testing out a new idea and it seems to have legs. So cheers for sticking around and helping to keep this weirdest of dreams alive. Here are some updates for you...

LIVE NOISE

As you might have spotted at the top of this post, we are very pleased to have finally sorted out the recording for the second set of our Wild Light shows from last year. I.E - the set where we play a bunch of other things that are not Wild Light. It turns out you cannot mix away wrong notes, so you'll just have to pretend that they're all on purpose. You got Retreat! Retreat! last month, and that's here again, but this time in context. It's just Debutante at the top of this post because Patreon only allows one track at a time, but there is a zip file attached somewhere at the bottom with the full set, and a Bandcamp code will be arriving today in your inbox. Or at least in the next 1-2 days. It'll come from a '@65labs.ghost.io' email address because we are in the middle of changing some of our online things, so keep an eye on your spam folder.

65LABS 2024

We don't intend to coast along posting random old recordings to Patreon all year (but, y'know, do tell us if this is what you'd actually prefer to the more esoteric 65LABS projects). As mentioned above, this month we have done a lot of experimenting to try out a new direction going forward. It is both an evolution of what has come before, and a bit of a break from it. Bear with us, and we'll share more when we can. Unless it all goes wrong and you can enjoy watching us desperately grasp at new content straws instead.

POLINSKI 

Tomorrow somehow marks an entire year since Paul released Telex From MIDI City. In addition to some lovely vinyl from Data Airlines, it was also available as a very limited VHS edition. The visual album that was made for the VHS has remained unseen by literally anybody else, but to celebrate this record for existing a year, THE WHOLE VIDEO ALBUM IS NOW VIEWABLE ON YOUTUBE. Also, the new Polinski e.p/mini-album, which is kind of like Telex's rowdier sibling, is coming SOONER THAN YOU THINK, once again via Data Airlines. In preparation for this, Paul has relaunched his website polin.ski which, like everything these days, is also now a newsletter/blog kind of thing. It's called The K.N.R.U. (Komoy Noise Research Unit) and the first post went out not long before this one. If you enjoy reading these 65LABS posts, then it would be very much appreciated if you signed up to that via email. It also works via RSS. There will be regular (or at least semi-regular) words of the more tech/glitch/software/MIDI-flavoured Wreckage variety. Check the intro post here. [And thank you! - Paul]

HAUS HORO AND NVLL - LIVE

Now this is gonna be a treat. Haus Horo, the band featuring Rob from 65daysofstatic and also Frank from 65days-when-we-play-live-and-convince-him-to-come-along, are playing a hometown Sheffield show in A GRAVEYARD. Tremendous stuff. Saturday 11th May. And support is coming from the mighty NVLL, aka Simon from 65daysofstatic. Which is really going to tie the tomb together, don't you think? More details and tickets to be found HERE. Get to Sheffield if you can. (Haus Horo are also playing ArcTangent later in the year.)

THE STATE OF WRECKAGE SYSTEMS 

We won't bore you with the details but here is a good way to understand what has happened. Imagine a scene in a classic Hollywood crime thriller where a detective has a wall full of clues and a complicated network of pins and red thread connecting everything together. And then, one morning, they come into their office and all the clues are still on the wall, but somebody came in during the night and pulled off all the connecting threads.

That is a little like what has happened over at the 65LABS Wreckage Systems branch. We still have all the raw content for the various Wreckage Systems, and we still have the coding environment we built ('Wreckage Control') that sits there endlessly bringing the systems online and letting them do their thing for a while on the live stream. But all the links that tie this information together have been irretrievably lost.

Many of these links are obvious... for example linking a command named 'PlayBitDrift' to the Wreckage System named 'BitDrift' is within our abilities to grasp even before our morning coffee. If everything was like that, it would be a relatively easy fix. Sadly, around a third of the systems are more complex, each in their own annoyingly unique way. Which brings us back to the problem discussed in the last mailout: in order to make any significant updates to the Wreckage Systems stream as it stands, there would be a huge amount of work first required just to recreate it. And probably, that precious 65LABS time ought to be pointed toward something more exciting.

So that's what this month has been about - something more exciting. And happily, for unknown reasons, this month the Wreckage Systems Live Stream has been broadcasting away happily, seemingly free from the glitches that mysteriously plagued it over the previous few months. This is the exact same software running on the exact same computer. So for now we're just not going to touch it and see how it goes.

END

That's your lot. Thanks again for sticking around. Check polin.ski if you crave more 65ish writing, grab tickets for Haus Horo & NVLL if you crave more 65ish noise. And more from 65LABS soon.

Take care out there!

65s.x