Wild Light Decade #23 - Live in Manchester 150923

Hi Friends.

Well, we made it to the end of another 65LABS project. Twentyfiveweeksofstatic! A deeper dive than we anticipated into those heady, confusing, noisy and mostly cold days back in old 65HQ. The tale of four humans voluntarily trapping themselves in a room for a *really long time* in an effort to figure out how to write this record. We hope you have enjoyed our attempt to keep nostalgia at bay, to avoid writing our own hagiography, and instead take a look at the mechanics and material conditions of how a band like us might go about making a record like this.

We draw the noise archeology to a close today with a full recording of one of the shows from the recent Wild Light Tenth Anniversary tour. It was captured in Manchester because, happily, the venue had a mixing desk that allowed us to record all the audio channels separately. This is invaluable because, for a band like us that relies heavily on electronics and guitars and live drums all at the same time, taking a straight recording of the live mix doesn't really make any sense. The electronic programming and piano all exist inside computers, so they are only heard through the mix done at the mixing desk which is sent to the big PA speakers either side of the stage. On the other hand, the drums and guitars are already creating a lot of noise of their own from stage, so not as much of their signal needs to be put into the mixing desk mix. It all makes sense in the moment, but not as much sense out of that very site-specific context.

But the Manchester venue desk came through for us, and so our longtime Front of House engineer Tom Maddocks was able to capture all the relevant audio tracks. He has spent the last couple of weeks mixing it again to make it make sense everywhere. Or at least as much sense as a live recording of a noisy band can ever make. All the wrong notes are included for posterity. And there are plenty of them.

It is a pity that we did not have the foresight to set up a couple of microphones pointing back at the audience to capture some crowd and room ambience for the recording. This means that it does sound a little like we are playing to about six very quiet people. You'll just have to trust us that there were a few more people there than that. Perhaps you were one of them?

Because the Patreon Content Management System is useless, we have embedded just the opening track above. You can download a zip of mp3s for the whole show at the bottom of this post. Also...

CONCERNING BANDCAMP CODES

A couple of weeks ago, when we gave you the prototype album, we said that we were going to look into the possibility of sorting Bandcamp codes for you. It isn't going to happen for that particular release. Not only because of the potential legal complications we don't really have the mental energy to deal with, but also because quite a few of you who were asking for Bandcamp codes said it was specifically to be able to download lossless versions of those songs. But they do not exist! All the tales we have told of the messy hard-drive spelunking to recover decade-old audio has not been exaggerated for comedic effect. There isn't secretly a pristine catalogue of everything we have ever written and recorded. There is only whatever we find. The fact that the prototype album still exists at all is kind of astonishing to us. Those mp3 files we shared with you are the sum total of evidence that those versions of the songs ever existed. Put simply: there is no such thing as lossless when it comes to the 65 Archive.

That said. As a parting gift, we are going to make every effort to sort out Bandcamp codes for this week's final live recording release. Right now the 65 Propaganda Network is undergoing maintenance, so we're going to have to attempt something fiddly with spreadsheets in order to get unique download codes sent out to all of you. Expect an email with a code in later today, or an email with an apology for not yet figuring out how to send you a download code early next week.

65LABS BUSINESS

We regularly get very kind messages from patrons saying that they would be happy to keep this patreon subscription going as a means of supporting the band even during the times we don't have an active 65LABS project. This is very kind, thank you for this, and thanks to everyone for all your support so far. Most of you have been here since the beginning, and you're making a very direct and tangible difference to the longevity of the 65daysofstatic project. For real.

Nevertheless, we are going to hit pause on the subscriptions anyway while we figure out the next steps for 65LABS. It helps take the pressure off. Also, as mentioned last week, this latest project brought forth a lurking nostalgia that we need to smite. We are incredibly proud of Wild Light and all of its associated confusions, but we don't want to get trapped back there forever. The Lab is going to need a deep clean and recalibration before we can put it to any further use exploring the futuristic outer edges of all that weird, experimental, romantic, hopeful-sad noise we all love so much.

So. Hold tight! 65 will return. In the meantime: please stick around, don't unsubscribe! You're most likely to find us on Instagram, or in the 65 Discord. And of course, despite the crashes which are for some reason starting to happen with annoying regularity, if you need a bit of fresh 65 noise you can always tune into the Wreckage Systems Live Stream.

Take care out there, and see you soon.

Thanks,

65.x