I am semi-regularly adding demos and new things to my Soundcloud page. So be sure to stay tuned there. Lately it's been archival Bonus recordings and the GOODWIN demo material.

In other news I'm really excited to play as GOODWIN on May 5th at the LoFi Lounge in Seattle as part of the MOTOR night of the Debacle Festival. The day before is a great show with folks like Gabriel Mindel-Saloman, Matt Carlson, Nate Young, and John Wiese. GOODWIN plays with fellow Portlander Strategy and Chicago's own Heiroglyphic Being. I'm very excited. Should be a fun weekend.

Renewal

First off, Operative is no more, let's get that one out of the way. What a fucking great band that was, though. Best final show I've ever played. Too many folks to thank over the years, but I have to thank Alex Neerman, Spencer Doran, and Jed Bindeman above all for being great friends.

Some "old business" we can count in that department includes our yet-to-be-released LP that we're still hoping will come out in the near future. Also, Grouper's Liz Harris was nice enough to include the track "Spectra" or "Arp" or whatever we wound up titling it on Tin House's CD compilation included in their "Portland/Brooklyn" issue. Is our track more Bushwick or St. Johns? You be the judge.

Other than that, Polonaise wrapped a brief trip up to Vancouver and Seattle with Strategy and Leech (aka Brian Foote of Peak Oil) that saw us perform at the Waldorf Hotel, Cairo Gallery, and David Chandler's basement. All shows were tops. Expect some Polo activity before the spring.

Last but not least, I am working on new music. Things are finally starting to congeal into a direction and I think it's going to shape up nicely. The "new thing" will hopefully be playing a show sometime this winter around Portland (though I haven't ruled out a Berlin working vacation in the future). Stay tuned. Also should have the inklings of VEPA 2 early next year as well. I think a holiday jam session is planned.

On the market tip, I have a restock of VEPA and SG "Referent" cassettes. Prices increased a bit to accurately reflect postage. I was loosing some money on UK shipping on the VEPA tapes. May need some more adjusting but this is a good start.

More to come soon. In the meantime, enjoy the Polonaise soundcloud page!

Lander 5 Arrives!

The Lander 5 tape is finally available and DRAFT has sold out! They're still at MMS, Experimedia, Discriminate, etc and I have some for sale as well. Recorded this tape during the explosion of music making that took place in July/August of 2011 that saw the birth of Polonaise and VEPA as well as the recording of the Operative full-length (announcements there soon). Conceived of as a couple of frequency modulation rich improvs set to a frenetic pulse, I really wanted to try something different to the more ordered dance music I was making at the time. It felt good so I passed it on to Jason Anderson at DRAFT who was excited to release it. Jason's fantastic DRAFT and Gift Tapes labels shouldn't be overlooked as they've been putting out some of the more wildly bewildering and forward-looking electronic/synth music I've heard as of late.

Tapes in the marketplace.

VEPA

Really proud of this one.  VEPA is a tape of Pete Swanson and I playing music together for the first time.  For eight years we've been pushing each other to make the best music we can make by exchanging honest critique on each other's music and generally musing over expensive beers about why we even do this music thing at all.  Usually we were too focused on our own projects to really jam out casually, but we made time for some sessions before Pete left Portland for nursing school at Columbia.  For VEPA we attempted to combine some approaches we've both been working on lately, namely Pete's tape-saturated echo/loop processing and some of the rhythmic density we'd been exploring in Operative.  It pairs really nicely with Pete's recent, excellent Man with Potential, but is much more destroyed and laconically paced.

I have some tapes for sale in the "Market" and they'll soon be available at several East Coast spots (including Mimaroglu) very soon.

VEPA - #2 by bonusplays

Sale

Posted a few things for sale in the "Market" section to the left.  Funds generated from sales here go toward building new equipment, writing new pieces, and releasing records.  Okay, and beer, pizza, etc.  Mostly to building new stuff though.

In other news, Operative is recording for a full-length of some kind to be released in Autumn.  Its sounding pretty good and to date is (with few exceptions) the most chill recording and mixing situation I've ever been involved in with other folks.  Who would have guessed?

Cusp

I'm moving for the first time in 5 years (just down the street), so it'll be a bit before offering anything for sale.  Some new show announcements: two for Operative this summer and one I'm co-presenting with Birch Cooper featuring the Slaves, Jim Haynes, and Brendan Murray.

The upside of life being hectic is that there's tons of irons in the fire.  Upcoming stuff from Lander 5 (myself on fucked rando-modulated analog and digital synths) on Draft Tapes, polyrhythmic house with Avalon K of Finesse under the guise "Polonaise", and a collab tape with Pete Swanson.  Keep watching.

Rebirth, Rehaul, Revive

A new look for Impeccable Surface is done and I like the vibe much better.  I'm attempting to transition this site into more of a resume/CV/collected works archive while my regular blogging duties reside at operativegroup.org and Ecstasy.  In the next few days I'll be adding audio from out-of-print works like Referent and unreleased music from the Kinder score I did in collaboration with Emma Ruth-Lipp.  Some new projects have just begun and I've even fired up the soldering iron for the first time in a long time.  Operative is looking at recording very soon and we should have our first significant release ready by early-Fall.

In the meantime, I have copies of the Operative 12" and Off Light available for sale, but not many are left.  Act soon if you're curious or come say "Hi" at some of the upcoming events I've got going on.