devblog / friday 051121 (Patreon)

Hi friends. How’s it going out there? A particularly Bleak Week out there for the annals of future history isn’t it. Not really sure what to suggest to avoid climate doom at this point, apart from the immediate and swift dismantling of capitalism. While waiting for that, hopefully we can all at least find a little respite in this small corner of cyberspace, where together we try to imagine new possibilities and spaces for weird, noisy music to be made and shared.

That being said, here in 65LABS it’s been a fairly disjointed week. One where it was made painfully clear that there is very much still a pandemic going on. It’s out there, lurking in the shadows of any and all logistical decisions that require 65LABS interacting with reality… Nevertheless, we got through it. And so did you. Nice one.

THIS WEEK

- Look! The V1 Archive is ready for beta-testing. If you would like to be a beta tester, which essentially means that you are up for noddling around with this software while it is in a not-quite-finished state, and letting us know if you find any immediate, system-crashing bugs, then please drop us a DM here and let us know if you’d be running it on macOS/Windows/Linux. (We’re only looking for a couple of people per platform so please don’t be sad if we don’t get back to you.)

- A new Research Release dropped: Mumble Prime. Twenty minutes of skronky, semi-improvised compu-music that, while being a bit of a banger in places, ultimately tied itself too tightly into one particular shape for us to be able to unravel and refine it into something more deliberate. Hence releasing it unedited (at least structurally), and with some context about the experimental live rig, quickly abandoned, that it came from. If you missed the full explanation, the post can be found HERE. Bandcamp codes for this should have arrived in your inboxes a little earlier today: drop us a DM if you missed it.

- Where does reverb go to die? Dave Sanderson, mixer extraordinaire, has been trying to find out. This is because, while mixing the next Wreckage Release, he exhausted all the reverb supplies in his studio and has now resorted to sorcery. For most of this week he has been sat cross-legged inside of a crudely drawn pentagram, surrounded by candles, trying to summon Verb Demons and attempting to reanimate the Dead Sonics of All Echoes. All so he is able to fulfil our ambient vision. We can only wish him luck.

- Other than the above, we have been mostly rehearsing for next week’s shows. This is your last reminder - 11th London / 12th Manchester / 13th Edinburgh. Tickets HERE.

- There will be a couple of new designs on the 65 merch table at these shows: a 65daysOS tee and a useful warm 65daysofstatic hoodie for the impending Eternal Plague Winter. Plus, due to popular demand, we have reprinted the ASCII tee design from the other year. If you can’t make it to the shows, we will getting all of these online on our Bandcamp ASAP once we are back. (And remember - as a patreon you can use secret discount code merchbot3000 for 20% off anything in the store, whenever you want).

THINGS TO COME

- Next week we will be playing our first live shows in over two years. Perhaps we will see you there? Hope so. The plan is to play lots of noisy bangers.

- The next Wreckage Release is coming together but the logistics for wrapping that up will probably be on pause while we’re out on the road. There’ll be other bits and pieces in the meantime.

That’s it for now. Utopia next week?