The Lambdoma Keyboard is a large-scale harmonic tone generator based on Pythagorean theory. This looks fantastically crunk and likely a source of almost infinite mayhem for the more, um, esoterically inclined reader. Check out the video demonstration by Barbara Hero, its inventor, below. (They can be purchased from the site.) Here’s Barbara on her invention (bolds mine):

The Lambdoma Matrix is attributed to the philosopher Pythagoras (500 bc) who spent over twenty years as an Egyptian initiate. The concept of the Lambdoma Matrix in the present age is relatively unknown, and is not cited in most dictionaries. On the surface, it appears to be nothing more than a mathematical multiplication and division table. On a closer look however, it bears a one-to-one relationship to musical intervals in a very specific harmonic series. Because of its numerical framework of ratios, it can be translated into frequencies of audible sound. The Lambdoma bears relationships to aromatics, chemistry, crystallography, cybernetics, art, music, geometry, all of which may be explored by those interested in the above disciplines. The Lambdoma bears mathematical relationships to Issac Newton, the Diophantine equations and the Farey series, as well as in the present century to Georg Cantor…

Players of these keyboards have experienced increased physical comfort and spiritual awareness within which they were able to learn answers to their questions including their life’s purpose and how to become more spiritually aware. The diamond-shaped Keyboard, with 64 keys, produces harmonic stereo intervals, with the second tone relating to the player’s chosen fundamental, based upon the whole-number ratios of the Lambdoma Matrix.  When accompanied by a PC (not included) the keyboard may used as a device for sound therapy,  musical composition and performance.  The keyboard is fully software programmable and is both DOS/Windows and Amiga compatible. Additional software will be available for programming the midi interface.  The unit comes with a user manual. Eight color-coded overlays placed over the keys provide visual cues on musical notation, frequencies, harmonics and solfegio encoded into the keys.  The versatile electronic keyboard is constructed in an attractive and durable diamond-shaped, aluminum encasement suitable for on-the-road use.

(The Lambdoma Keyboard)

 
My favorite Gumby episode. It’s so good I can scarcely believe it exists. Bon Voyage, Art !

Macho Man gets so high on coke that he thinks he has Teh Magick! I’M A CHAMELEON, MAN!

 
I bought my copy of Darker Skratcher at the Wherehouse records franchise in the Panorama City mall in 1980. It was in the “punk” section and sure enough it had a cut on it by 45 Grave that I had heard on Rodney on the Roq a few times and which I’m sure was the reason I bought it. The remainder of the tracks were a glimpse into a mysterious suburban/subterranean music scene that became a huge influence on myself and all of my friends. It was a musical approach that could incorporate free improvisation, musique concrete, obscure pop culture references and pure noise into its “punk”. Sounded like home to me. Each of the groups on Darker Skratcher warrant their own posts, so I’ll refrain from the details for now and defer to the sage Mr. Lumbleau over at Mutant Sounds :

A seminal artifact of the L.A. Free Music Society’s salad days and one that, unlike most extant L.A.F.M.S. compilations, spends most of it’s time highlighting the less well recognized quirk pop perfection dimension of the L.A.F.M.S.’ collective praxis; to wit, it’s a compendium essential enough for me to be willing to bear the karmic burden of sharing a recording containing work by a certain Boyd Rice*. All that aside though, what self respecting freaky fringe music acolyte could be without this watershed document? From The Rick Potts Band’s suavely ludicrous bontempi pop to BPeople’s angular art fracture and from 45 Grave’s delightfully dejected sounding novelty song kitsch to Human Hands’ ferocious post punk juggernaut (one of their finest moments ever), it’s a testament to the sundry modes of ass-backward brilliance collectively deployed by this genre disrupting (and genre defining) art geek mafia.

*fwiw I share his misgivings about Mr Rice, but this track (the opening cut from DS) is just too great not to post.

My new guru.

 
(thx JMJ !)

 
Did you hear about the idiot couple in Chattooga County, Ga., who gave tattoos to six of their seven children? Yup, Patty “Jo Jo” Marsh and Jacob Bartels, decided to give their kids—one just 10 years old—crude, prison-style cross-shaped tats using an old tattoo gun and a guitar string. When the biological mother of two of the children got wind of this, she reported the duo to Family and Children Services. Marsh and Bartels were arrested three days after Christmas and charged with three counts each of illegal tattooing, second-degree child cruelty and reckless conduct.

Sez Jo Jo: ?

As anybody who has ever worked as a graphic designer (or with graphic designers) knows, there are certain fonts that are not so much as forbidden to use but, rather, punishable by immediate death and professional blackballing upon use. They also tend to be the ones that first-time or amateur designers go for first, and so you see them pretty much everywhere. The penultimate font horror is, of course, Comic Sans.*

The font is so ubiquitous and corrosive to all good sense that ByDesign has dedicated a podcast to it:

In just 15 years, the casual typeface Comic Sans has become one of the world’s most ubiquitous fonts, popping up everywhere from street signs to porn sites. Now there’s an international campaign to ban it. We meet the type designer who started it all.

(ByDesign: Comic Sans, Font of Controversy)

(Check out this Anti-Comic Sans Font Hoodie)

* There is only one font which can trump the evil of Comic Sans. It is the indubitably wrong, though mercifully much less used “Sand” font.

 
Before records labels like Slash and Dangerhouse came along to consume my youth, there was, of course, Casablanca Records.  With KISS, Meatloaf, Parliament and Donna Summer under its roof, the label straddled a number of seemingly incongruous musical worlds.

But as the LA Weekly’s Gustavo Turner points out in his review of Larry Harris’ new book And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records, these worlds were all linked, albeit tenuously at times, by Casablanca’s visionary-in-chief (and Harris’ cousin), Neil Bogart.  A genius at both label promotion and self-indulgence, Bogart passed away from cancer in ‘82, but not before becoming one of the defining figures of the ‘70s.  Here’s a snip from Turner’s review:

They struck gold, big-time ?

Well shit my leg off… it’s an excellent retrospective mix of the groundbreaking Sheffield record label Warp’s 20-year history. Listening now, not bad! Tracklist below:

Clark - Herzog
Jamie Lidell - A Little Bit More (Luke Vibert Mix)
Aphex Twin - Ventolin (Deep Gong Mix)
Prefuse 73 - Robot Snares Got No Cadences Or Balances
Harmonic 313 - Dirtbox
Aphex Twin - Window Sill
Nightmares On Wax - Night Interlude
Nightmares On Wax - What I’m Feeling (Rae & Christian Remix)
LFO - Shove Piggy Shove
Mira Calix - Ilanga
Boards Of Canada - Happy Cycling
Jamie Lidell- Multiply (a Cappella)
Autechre - Teartear
Aphex Twin - Ventolin (Plain-An-Gwarry Mix)
Plaid - Alba Eedio
Boards Of Canada - Sixtyten
LFO - Tied Up
LFO - Them
Autechre - Cipater
Mike Ink - Paroles
LFO - Pathfinder
Link - Amazon Amenity (Chameleon Remix)
AFX - Children Talking
Aphex Twin & Squarepusher - Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid
Aphex Twin - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball
Aphex Twin - Cock 10
Boards Of Canada - Zoetrope
Broadcast & The Focus Group - Various cuts
Jimi Tenor - Backbone Of Night
John Callaghan - I’m Not Comfortable In My Own Mind

(DJ Food: Warp Mix)

(Warp: Labels Unlimited)