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.

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.

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. ✨

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.

• Gaining some Electronic Ears to go with my electronic fingers.
• Ottawa Shortwave on CiTR 101.9 FM.
• The cloud that always has the silver lining.
• This International Women's Day mention.
• Oranges that look like other things.

They're back! Bandcamp will be resuming Bandcamp Fridays in 2022. They'll be on February 4th, March 4th, April 1st, and May 6th.

As a small token of appreciation, every order (at least until we run out) placed on Bandcamp Friday will get a shiny new "Fidoratone" sticker, inspired by a long, meandering thread on synth logos and locally, lovingly made by our friends over the water at Sticker Freak (they're fellow fans of retro design and everything hauntology and horror-adjacent, so have a virtual wander over there). Now you can say you've heard the word about the bird and all that.

Start the countdown!

Just a quick post to say thanks to everybody who picked up a copy of the recent cassette release of BLACK ARROW and ETHER/ORBIT from The Dark Outside. It was amazing to see 100 tapes sell out in under 24 hours and even more incredible that the obi edition was sold out by 18:01 (having gone up at 18:00)!

Appreciate all the folks who enthusiastically shared updates about it too and look forward to seeing those tapes in their new homes! If you do fancy sharing a pic, tag both @DarkOutside and @RobertaFidora (hey, that's me) on Twitter and I will DM you your corresponding Bandcamp codes - there will be one for each side as they're on Bandcamp as two separate releases. Any problems or questions about codes, you can contact me here.

Satellites of love to all. ❤️🛰️

What's that, you say? The splendid Dark Outside label is releasing BLACK ARROW and ETHER/ORBIT together on a special dual colour cassette?


That's right! Tapes will be limited to 100 copies, so make sure you set your alarm for launch and bookmark on Bandcamp ready for blast off tomorrow, Friday 14th January, at 6pm (Greenwich/Galloway Mean Time). You can also get an additional nudge via the mailing list, which is a good idea, as they often sell out quickly.

I've been sending demos and oddities to The Dark Outside broadcasts for a number of years now and I always look forward to listening and taking part, so this is a really wonderful way to commemorate that. A little bird (possibly near a transmitter) told me that The Dark Outside celebrates its 10th birthday this year as well, so if you're partial to generating or absorbing noise, field recordings and music of a dreamlike nature, then keep a look out for a possible broadcast later in the year.

Speaking of commemorating things, BLACK ARROW made an appearance on this list of Stewart Lee's Cultural Year, commemorating a year of things listened to on a music-specific physical device. Good stuff. Keeping the turntable warm.

Well, back to it. These synth won't play themselves! Or will they? MIDI is a magical thing.

P. S. The thumbnail image of Angela Lansbury holding a cassette was found via the very enjoyable Museum Of Portable Sound page.

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.

As it turns out, I’ve accumulated quite a lot of my own space junk (some of which you can see in the video for The Stars, Like Dust) and whilst you can find Apollo moon landing commemorative plates, NASA mission patches and everything from Sputnik t-shirts to Cosmonaut Christmas decorations, there really isn’t much beyond a first day cover for BLACK ARROW or Prospero (and I only know that because Marlene, who I interviewed for BLACK ARROW, told me about having this lone souvenir at home - with a copy archived at Wight Aviation Museum), so I designed a few things that I thought might keep it in people’s memory a little longer, based on wayback space graphics and the kind of things I used to collect as a kid. Go here for ace new patches on Bandcamp, here for them on the main site or let lots of bright colours orbit your eyes over at Teemill. There may even be some tapes to follow shortly, but that deserves its own post.

P. S. If you email or tweet me a picture of you wearing either the Prospero print or any of the puppet designs from Teemill land, I’ll send you the corresponding Bandcamp code for either In Your Neighbourhood or ETHER/ORBIT. Seems only fair, right?

Lost to the atmosphere or coming down to Earth? That's the question often asked in relation to the Prospero satellite, which is still floating around in low orbit, since being successfully launched by the BLACK ARROW rocket on the 28th October, 1971. 

To mark this anniversary, I will be releasing a companion piece to BLACK ARROW called ETHER/ORBIT and it will be available as a digital download from Thursday here on the website and via Bandcamp.

For those who prefer their satellite sounds with a side of tangible objects though, I hope to have some rocket-related goodies available soon, so keep checking back over the coming weeks. Additionally, BLACK ARROW will be played alongside the unveiling of the replica rocket at Wight Aviation Museum during their anniversary event. The museum is currently building a full-size Prospero satellite model which you can read about here.