At last, I’m official. After eleven months, I no longer need to fumble the same lame joke at important meetings (“A design company designing its own business card? Why, that’s like a barber cutting his own…”). Now I just need to say clever, self-promotional things one thousand times. Be sure to collect all four and solve the secret puzzle.

Here’s a good track for working on a grey city day:
Ester Brinkmann – 19′ 50″ (from the 20 to 2000 series)

A clamshell CD case surfaced the other day while sifting through a forgotten shoebox of items whose reasons for being saved were no longer clear. The ticket stubs, tattered receipts, and blurry photographs were perplexing, but the CD was a rewarding re-discovery: in 1999, Raster-Noton released one twenty-minute release per month from minimal & experimental techno’s finest: Wolfgang Voigt, Mika Vainio, Komet, et al. And clamshell CD cases were exciting and new at the time.

Brinkmann’s entry is the best: starting up with an isolated flight of drums, the track teaches you patience before dropping into a cunning, come-hither, and slightly dirty loop that could go on forever. And it pretty much does. Before you know it, a French lady is whispering sweet nothings and you’ve finished a ton work.