Various Artists - Anthology of Mechanical Folklore Vol.1 The Ruthless Mechanics of the World Various Artists

Spearheaded by Discrepant label honcho Gonçalo F. Cardoso in collaboration with Robert Millis (Climax Golden Twins, Sublime Frequencies) The Anthology of Mechanical Folklore imagines a world where machines and myths, ghosts and memory, rituals and circuitry converge.

An anthology of works inspired by science fiction (Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, among many others) and presented almost like a 1950s SciFi magazine of impossible stories and outrageous characters. Field recordings from distant planets. Imagined archives. Broken answering machines running call centers. Black sundials that disprove time. Anxiety rendered as data sets. Barren cities.

From the glitchy damage of Despin Convert’’s “The Factory That Builds People Out of Noise and Static” to the existential uncertainty of Romulus Edgar Dimman’s “Nullus Finis In Principio Et Non in Principio Ad Finem” (No end to the beginning and no beginning to the end), the stories here use collage, minimalism, noise, electronics, mechanics, smoke and mirrors instead of words.

Something for everyone...if anyone is left.

Contributors:

Gonçalo F. Cardoso and Robert Millis - Two chattering robots once owned by Chris Marker Leonidas Carondelet -- New Orleans based sound artist known for his work with beignets.

Hannibal Chew III – Dystopian obsessed collagist exploring warped, cheap electronics.

Despin Convert – Hermetic Belgian sound artist who records dying televisions, smoke and static.

Cecil B DeMillis - The Jandek of the farmer’s market set.

Romulus Edgar Dimman - Research project from several Italian eco-utopias. Part robot, part idiot, powered by bio-electricity.

Q. Dunsmere, Seer – Nova Scotian minimalist composer inspired by early-20th-century sonic investigators and outsider educators. Non-meditative electronic frequencies, acoustic string manipulations and layered audio from old classrooms.

The Fun Machines - In the future, if fun is needed, machines will be the only option. Obscure duo from Baldwin, Canada active in the mid-70s.

Niyuki Kami -- Japanese robotics designer and curator of the broken tape machine museum in Osaka.

Reginald Lubbock, 1st Baron of Eynesbury -- Amateur acoustic-botanist and the last scion of a once wealthy British family, now mostly reduced to making field recordings on wax cylinders around his families’ dilapidated estate.

Lakshmi Disambiguation -- South Indian film sound designers and sound artists who focus on immateriality and internality.

Prophetas – Electronic tape collages exploring false leaders, 90s cable TV, and Silicon Valley techno-cultism.

Carlos Shibata – Elusive producer crafting hypnotic, naive, and repetitive motifs through mechanical loops - inspired by industrial machinery and early automated devices.

Haroun Tamerlane – Obscure self-taught musician and sound artist merging expansive field recordings with cinematic tape loops.

Ernest Torrence - Hillbilly sonic experimentalist and bootlegger from North Carolina, released one LP on Folkways in 1966, then disappeared.