These showed up on Friday last week and we were so excited we made a whole "in-between" list out of 'em! If you didn't happen to see that, well, we got more in this week and here's that 'first impressions' review again (yeah, we sold out so fast last weekend that none of us here have even gotten a chance to pick one up yet!):
Hey, it's like Christmas in March! The new Buddha Machines are here! We wanted to let you all know, since it's been three long years since the last one - and ten years, believe it or not, since the FM3's original Buddha Machine appeared. Hence, the release of Buddha Machine 5 marks "a decade of drone." If you're not familiar with the Buddha Machine, well... we're very surprised. We've sold SO many of Buddha Machine I, II, III and IV.
But in case you haven't seen one yet, it's basically a small, handheld device - a "battery powered sound box" or, as some would have it, "pocket sound system" - that plays a discrete set of loops of ambient music. Kind of a Zen alternative to the iPod, in a way. Ever since the FM3 created their first iteration of the Buddha Machine, they've been extremely popular, with artists remixing the loops, museum shows, copy-cat sound boxes, and whatnot. Brian Eno was a famous early adopter. You could take a look at our earlier Buddha Machine reviews if you wanna get more info on what they're all about.
So, fans have been hankering for a new Buddha Machine, we were hoping it would be here for Xmas last year (they're the best stocking stuffers for music/sound geeks), but better late than never. We'll let you know the basics about it now - but really you know you want one (or more) already, right?
Buddha Machine 5 contains nine blissful, beautiful new loops by the Beijing-based experimental duo FM3 (Christiaan Virant & Zhang Jian), featuring, among other things, "deep, orchestral drones, a Steinway grand piano, and the ambient washes of a vintage monosynth". It's got the usual volume and pitch controls, and a line out so you could plug it into a stereo or whatever, although of course it's self contained with it's own little speaker. In a departure from the many neon hues of the Buddha Machine 4, there are two colors available for the Buddha Machine 5, a Black one (this one) and a White one, each with "a special five-layer silicon coating", providing "a warm and fuzzy handfeel", which sounds kind of kinky. We'll be trying it out tonight.
And oh yeah, requires two AA batteries (not included).
These showed up on Friday last week and we were so excited we made a whole "in-between" list out of 'em! If you didn't happen to see that, well, we got more in this week and here's that 'first impressions' review again (yeah, we sold out so fast last weekend that none of us here have even gotten a chance to pick one up yet!):
Hey, it's like Christmas in March! The new Buddha Machines are here! We wanted to let you all know, since it's been three long years since the last one - and ten years, believe it or not, since the FM3's original Buddha Machine appeared. Hence, the release of Buddha Machine 5 marks "a decade of drone." If you're not familiar with the Buddha Machine, well... we're very surprised. We've sold SO many of Buddha Machine I, II, III and IV.
But in case you haven't seen one yet, it's basically a small, handheld device - a "battery powered sound box" or, as some would have it, "pocket sound system" - that plays a discrete set of loops of ambient music. Kind of a Zen alternative to the iPod, in a way. Ever since the FM3 created their first iteration of the Buddha Machine, they've been extremely popular, with artists remixing the loops, museum shows, copy-cat sound boxes, and whatnot. Brian Eno was a famous early adopter. You could take a look at our earlier Buddha Machine reviews if you wanna get more info on what they're all about.
So, fans have been hankering for a new Buddha Machine, we were hoping it would be here for Xmas last year (they're the best stocking stuffers for music/sound geeks), but better late than never. We'll let you know the basics about it now - but really you know you want one (or more) already, right?
Buddha Machine 5 contains nine blissful, beautiful new loops by the Beijing-based experimental duo FM3 (Christiaan Virant & Zhang Jian), featuring, among other things, "deep, orchestral drones, a Steinway grand piano, and the ambient washes of a vintage monosynth". It's got the usual volume and pitch controls, and a line out so you could plug it into a stereo or whatever, although of course it's self contained with it's own little speaker. In a departure from the many neon hues of the Buddha Machine 4, there are two colors available for the Buddha Machine 5, a Black one and a White one (this one), each with "a special five-layer silicon coating", providing "a warm and fuzzy handfeel", which sounds kind of kinky. We'll be trying it out tonight.
And oh yeah, requires two AA batteries (not included).
