Quick update to say that Is It Too Late For Fan Clubs? has now been played on Amazing Radio's Pop channel, the UK stream and on Amazing Radio USA! They even gave me a badge (which is good, because I collect them).
Additionally, [dramatic clock chime/intense music/delete as appropriate] two songs from Apophonia are currently on the Synthpop News 2024 playlist below.
As well as being on the Electrozombies Spotify playlist for New Synth Pop Songs 2024, Is It Too Late For Fan Clubs? is also currently on the Amazing Radio pop channel. You can tune in to listen here.
Slightly late to the party, given that it's almost March, but Dandelion Radio have uploaded a radio show from January featuring tracks released last year (including Biarritz). You can listen to their 2023 Review below.
P. S. Andy, I'm not sure I got the pronunciation right either!
Those of an electronic persuasion can hear You Live Alone, taken from Apophonia, on a new Beachy Head Radio Deck Chair mix below from Simon Heartfield. It's also features a collaborative track from Simon Heartfield's new release on it and something by 65daysofstatic, who I've seen play a number of times, including their live accompaniment and rescoring of the film Silent Running, which is well worth searching out (and may have filmic links to another song under the old CURXES name).
Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone anyone? That's where you can feast on Murray's Theme, plus a whole host of other sonic treats on NTS Radio. Graham Dunning, of modified turntable and Mammoth Beat Organ fame, hosts the show and the tracklist is as follows:
Ikue Mori - Conflict
Amy Sterly - I Found The Note
Jean VOGUET - Pièces et Miniatures pour UNE GUITARE ÉLECTRIQUE SEULE N°3
Shit & Shine - Joy_12
Iran Sanadzadeh - Oblique Moons
Viola Yip - Viola Yip at Music/Fun April 24, 2020
Max Eastley - Centriphone, Amplified And Filtered
He Can Jog - Spark (Will Long Remix)
abstract poem - where the bird finds solace in memories etched into its feathers (grief is a paper bird flying through a burning forest – part 1)
Jean Tinguely - Sculpture at The Tate (4)
Garden Path - Get Her Mummy
Antez & Seijiro Murayama - Antez & Seiji 01
David Birchall / Andrew Cheetham / Colin Webster / Otto Willberg - Ask A Clown Or The First Face You See That Day
Lamina - Sous la terre
DeForrest Brown, Jr. & James Hoff - Project for Revolution in New York
Anna Xambo - mnnw (extract)
Dusepo - Dashti Karevan
Harry Partch - Castor & Pollux: A Dance for the Twin Rhythms of Gemini: From Plectra & Percussion Dances
Hell on Hearth - one hundred and seventeen.
Roberta Fidora - Murray's Theme
Listen on NTS.live or hit the play button below.
Additionally, several of my releases are now available through jam.coop and Mirlo (as well as Bandcamp and here on the website). I may add the CURXES releases later on as well, but if you have any strong opinions either way, you can send a message through the contact door or over on Mastodon.
Just a short update to say that I am currently uploading a number of my releases to jam.coop, because I think the cooperative model is something that more people should explore and support and I'm delighted to see the folks who helped to build BBC Introducing creating something in this area.
Secondly, in addition to spins from radio free fedi, you can tune into Dandelion Radio throughout the month of December and hear one of my tracks on Andy's show.
Also, there are now some Little Bobby t-shirts. If you buy an anti-Little Bobby design, I hope you have a wonderful festive season. If you buy a shirt showing your love of Little Bobby, I probably won't respond to your emails or sign your merch.
Shoreliner is currently streaming on the Amazing Dance page. 🪩
I hope the year is treating you well a few days in. Today is sponsored by the letter 'X' and the numbers 1971 and 2023.
X-3 was another name given to the Prospero satellite, launched by the BLACK ARROW rocket in 1971 (a technical overview can be found on the Wight Aviation Museum website) and X-1 is shorthand for a radio show on Satsuma Radio and Mixcloud that plays all manner of electronic oddities, including some highlights from BLACK ARROW, which concluded the most recent show.
Apparently there was a radio show in the 50s with the same name too which featured science fiction writers (Asimov was on there, who happened to write a book called 'X' Stands for Unknown and one we borrowed the title of). Anyway, enough rambling connections around the letter X and space. Have a listen to X Minus One below. 🚀
Maybe it should be renamed Dark Krampus instead of Dark Compass given the time of year, but it's always nice to see songs getting a play on the radio, in this case, the song is In Your Neighbourhood.
On that vague song theme, this year's festive Neighbourbood card has now been posted and there is a new collection of things over there which provides a backdrop to my previous seasonal efforts (and a whole lot of hoarding). Last year's festive episode of your favourite puppet adventures is also available to watch too, pending the next instalment.
Speaking of festive and puppets, I knew buying this tiny deckchair would be a great investment. Merry Christmas. 🐻🎄
P. S. As always, suitably wintery versions of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and I Believe in Father Christmas are available to download for free by clicking on the song titles or over on Bandcamp. Thanks to Rob at Synth City for playing the Greg Lake cover.
To badly borrow a quote from a bygone confectionary advert,
"DarkCompass, with these broadcasts, you are really spoiling us."
This time though it's Once Upon A Time, at number 10 on the list in the most recent show, which in Roman numerals is X. X is in both Precurxor and CURXES, which started in 2010. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.
We've also been sitting on our Asimov over at 3Fach, which is playing a host of amazing music over in Switzerland and our sombre spaceward track, The Stars, Like Dust. Listen in, float away.
Finally, for anyone who picked up the CD bundle of issue 79 of Electronic Sound (I mentioned it previously here), you can say "been there, listened to that, got the t-shirt", as there is a wearable version of the cover artwork available from the Electronic Sound website. 
Thanks to Ro from DarkCompass for playing What You Want on the radio last night. Did you know that the show started in 2004? That's way back when MySpace was the go-to place. Speaking of which, you can find Ro on Mastodon and I am now also over here, definitely not following lots of nerdy tags like #postcard and #musodon. 👋
Coaster by Tether.
Earlier in the year, I released my two space EPs with the finest cassette label and broadcaster in Dumfries and Galloway and was beyond delighted that they sold out in under 24 hours (especially in the post-Christmas period - arguably one of the most miserable times of year, perhaps second only to the hellscape known commonly as "summer"). My copies take pride of place in my tape collection, along with some of the earlier fever dream-esque Dark Outside compilations.
Long before this though, I used to send in songs to the radio broadcast component, which takes place in a forest. Sometimes it would be brief sketches sent in, or some horribly peaked-out demo of old. One year it was some dialogue about top secret space documents dumped in a church. Another was a piece that I'm fairly certain was the one I saw described as "two ghosts getting married", although I don't know for certain because I got up to make a cuppa and missed part of the broadcast. This year I will strap a radio to my belt, as is the style of the time. Every broadcast spans 24 hours, so I recommend keeping a portable listening device on backup duty to enjoy the whole thing uninterrupted. You don't want to miss a Radio Cree ident or a techno banger made from washing machines because you got up to make a sandwich.
That's the beauty of these broadcasts each year: you can send in whatever you like, as long as nobody has heard it before. It might then be heard by a goat herd, or nodded along to by someone clutching a fog-obscured biscuit, wandering about onsite with a small radio. Once the transmission ends, it's deleted, gone forever; or until you find it in a folder on your computer again decades from now marked "My Recording Final V10 FINAL". I think the first thing I ever sent in, under the Curxes name, was a brass band composition called State Poet that I made in Reason 2.5, which has yet to see the light of day (brass bands can contact me at the top of the page if the season is slow and you want to lend a tuba or similar to some sad music).
The significant thing about all of this of course, is that the first Dark Outside broadcast was ten years ago, and therefore 2022 is the anniversary of that "stupid" idea - someone else's words apparently, who is probably busy eating them right now like a delicious custard cream. This time around, a remix of something old, a 60s-style space theme and a cut 'n' paste track have been sent from island to forest. You might listen in and catch one of them, with creepy singing children, gloomy monks and an oddly-looped country guitar, because, as I have already mentioned, you and I can send in whatever we want before the deadline, as long as it isn't up anywhere else.
With that in mind, I hope you'll tune in to hear the wealth of wonky and way-out submissions over here (stream will be live from October 1st from midday UK time) and raise your chocolate digestives (or biscuit of your choice), to another ten years of weirdness in the wilderness. 🌲📻
That is Cock Block, of course, which is a mixtape released every Friday at noon on 8k.nz. Incredibly, you can hear ETHER/ORBIT *in its entirety* below. Whew. ✨
Large thanks to the ever-supportive Rob Harvey for playing In Your Neighbourhood on his lovingly-curated Synth City show and just a little reminder that the song is up as a free download when you join the mailing list (I generally send them a few months apart from one another because I'm not a plugin company). Go grab it!
It appears that a whole month has gone by. Here are a few notable things that have cheered me up and cheered me on in recent weeks.
To what does the mysterious title above refer?
It can only be a new show from blue star radio! Here, you can listen to my contribution to the recent Cities and Memory project, Shortwave Transmissions, along with pieces from Moray Newlands and Audio Obscura (and also music from Grouper and Mica Levi for good measure). Get ecstatic for static below. 👂
Broadcasts and radio seem to be a bit of a theme recently. First off, BLACK ARROW & ETHER/ORBIT were released together on cassette via The Dark Outside (normally broadcasting from the Galloway Forest) and now Cities and Memory has released a new project called Shortwave Transmissions (broadcasts from around the world), featuring my contribution, Ottawa Shortwave.
You can listen to the entire release on Bandcamp and hear a special radio programme from its curator on Resonance FM (broadcasts from London).
P. S. Given the recent news that Bandcamp have enabled queuing in their listening app, I've added all of the songs currently on the secret part of the site to Bandcamp as well so they're easier to play on the go. If you're interested in learning more, head this way.
A transmission within a transmission. Thanks to Simon Heartfield for playing some of ETHER/ORBIT on his Secret Self Seance Radio show, along with Pye Corner Audio, Halina Rice, Rupert Lally and many more. You can listen below or view the whole archive of shows over at Mixcloud.
We're back looking and listening to the night sky. My track 'Huygens' can be heard as part of Blue Star Radio's 41st episode, fittingly concluding with those stars who've recently drifted out into the infinite night, and a Leyland Kirby track. Listen below (full tracklist here). ✨
Huygens Probe Shines for Cassini Cameras. Photograph from NASA's Image and Video Library.
As you know, I'm no stranger to song titles relating to the supernatural. See Spectre, Ghosts and Haunted Gold. I'm not going to tell you which one is on this radio roundup of horror harmonies from isvisible isinvisible though. You'll just have to follow the blue star over yonder and listen to it yourself (and you should, there's lots to enjoy)!
Potentially your city, even, depending on where you're tuning in from. Anyway, nice to hear In Your Neighbourhood get a little play here whilst I'm working on some new bits and pieces.
Also, on the subject of synth cities, if the idea of owning a wall of vintage synths appeals but storage is a problem, then these might be the answer. They are made by a graphic designer called Ronaldo Lopes Teixeira Rolt and I love them. Check out the gallery (including a mini Space Echo) or watch one of my favourites, the D-50, below, complete with related soundtrack!
Whether it's blasts from the past or "blast off", I can’t resist a good Mixcloud show and this one features a song from 2014 EP Precurxor. Listen to Once Upon A Time and more eclectic electronica below!
When everything has felt firmly glued to the spot (and the sofa at certain points), I'd like to say thank you to everyone who joined me for a trip into space, with a special nod to Wavegirl, Simon and The Joint radio show (already well into 2021) for their kind end-of-year words and airplay. It's been really lovely and encouraging to read.
Best EP of 2020:
— Simon Pott (@isinvisible) December 31, 2020
Roberta Fidora - Black Arrow
This is a work of stunning beauty from beginning to end, coupled with the artwork... wow!
I really can't wait to see what Roberta has in store for next year. pic.twitter.com/Nkjqt908vM
I'll conclude by saying that this year has been akin to digital mudlarking; trying to find little curiosities or pieces of treasure buried within something that looks pretty grim. Here are two such treasures I've enjoyed reading this year. One from the beacon that is The Creative Independent and the other from Huck Magazine, interviewing Ian MacKaye. Wishing you a Happy/Better New Year.
No, not the name of a forthcoming folk album (somewhat Mulligan and O'Hare in tone), but a little heads up that alongside ACR, Arab Strap, Black Honey and other goodies, I'll be on Andy Morrison's December show with a seasonal song to accompany anyone starting on those Christmas spirits early. There's some more information below and you can listen throughout December here.
Set your radios to hum, because it's time for another instalment of The Dark Outside (the broadcast where you could hear anything from an acid banger to a particularly beautiful washing machine), this time as part of Aerial Festival. Join in here and listen out for something about top secret rocket documents or that sounds like wind whistling through island deckchairs. You can also follow along on Twitter as you listen.
Photo shared by Pete Warren.