James Bailey - Little Bag o' Loops

This was originally released in 2004 as a run of ten 3" CDs each in a case with the artwork seen here plus notes, and enclosed in a small cloth bag. Another forty or so were made a few years later, until I ran out of bags, which were no longer available. Most were given to friends as presents or exchanges, but a few were actually sold in stores!

All of the pieces were created using a tape delay arrangement whereby two open-reel decks are situated side-by-side, with the tape running through the head mechanisms of both machines. The left (feed) deck is used to record an incoming signal which then passes along to the right (take-up) deck which plays back into the feed deck. The third piece is a monophonic signal, necessitated by the playback machine. The other two pieces are stereophonic, with the channels of the return signal swapped, so that sound seems to "ping-pong" from one side to the other. Due to the nature of the tape medium, the signals decay and fade gradually over successive generations.

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