Digital Symphony

Thanks to Mark Sng for turning me on to Tristan Perich and his 1-Bit Symphony.

Perich has composed a symphony, and I have a copy of it.
Number 2769.
It is in a cd case, but it isn't a recording.
Rather, this is a rather beautiful (in a tech-geek way) physical object, comprising wires, switches, a battery and a chip, that plays the music live for you when you turn it on.

One of the consequences of this which I rather like is that unlike a normal cd, you cannot make a digital rip. If you were to want a copy of the sound, you would need to record it in real-time, in an analogue fashion if you like, even if you use digital equipment.

Of course to make a copy of the sound would be to miss the point. This is a unique hand soldered artifact, and joy is to be had handling it, appreciating the near liquid quality of solder, reading the code supplied in the packaging, plugging into the headphone jack, and letting the sound unfold.

The sound is hard.
1-Bit doesn't have much space for tonal depth. It won't be to everyone's (many people's...) taste, and I might not listen to it that often, but the object-ness of the whole work will ensure it doesn't get tucked in storage as a physical back-up to mp3s, like so much of my music now.

Listen to a clip, then order your own copy from here.