James Bailey

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.

Created for the Dec. 30th, 2016 Improv Friday edition of Sound-In (sound-in.org), these pieces were made with a Mini-Moog synthesizer run through a Lexicon LXP-5 multi-effects unit, and recorded onto a Zoom H4n digital recorder.

Sounds like a bag of hammers falling down a long metal staircase, or a drop of rain on your cheek. James Bailey mostly lived in the east end of Toronto, except for four years in England as a wee child. He's been making noises with whatever was available for most of his life, with only a few (failed) attempts at formal training on any sort of "real" instrument. He started recording things after the acquisition of a good-quality open-reel recorder in 1973 (Tandberg 3341X). Most acoustic sound sources are found objects either played as is or modified into something resembling an instrument, though he usually refer to the things as "implements." Electronics are often employed for sound manipulation, or as a source by themselves. He still uses open-reel tape recorders, frequently in a delay arrangement (a.k.a. Time Lag Accumulator, Frippertronics). This album "Dimensions" was released independently in 1986 and is available from https://broken-music.com/products/james-bailey-dimensions. Also released a 3" cd-r "Little Bag o'Loops" in 2004 now out of print, but available for download at the listed bandcamp site. James hosted a strange, weird, experimental, electro-acoustic, modern orchestral/chamber, improvisedradio programme on the now defunct CKLN-FM for over twenty years, and can now be heard on Wednesday evenings at 23:00 Eastern (NA) time on http://www.ciut.fm.