LD5: Live and Direct Listens II - ESCM - BT

Behold, Live and Direct #5. This, the second episode of Live and Direct Listens, and the 5th episode of Live and Direct, is upon us. This too-long-for-the-air, uncompromising, special podcast version runs for one hour, ten minutes, and seventeen seconds, and will set you back 64.4 megabytes of disk space.

Today's featured Listen is ESCM by BT (also known as Brian Transeau). This album was released in 1997 following his debut album Ima. The US version (featured in this podcast) included the track "Lullaby for Gaia" (5:26); in the UK, the track included instead was "The Road to Lostwithiel" (8:38), which I have not heard but will attempt to dig up.

I didn't have time to play tracks 5 and 6 ("Memories In A Sea Of Forgetfulness" and "Solar Plexus") on air, but I've inserted them in the proper place in the podcast, thanks to Audacity, a podcaster's best friend.

BT rose to fame in the late Nineties and helped define the sub-genre of Electronica called Trance (specifically "Dream Trance"). His albums, however, often avoid categorization and jump genres happily. He has created and employed several production effects, notably the "Stutter Edit" and "Break Tweaker", which are both slated to be released by BT's software venture this year. Speaking of software, BT codes much of the software used to produce his music himself, by hand. Check out some of the interesting trivia and hard-core geekiness behind his latest effort, This Binary Universe. On a more domestic note, "BT has said that the album has a lullaby-like quality, inspired by his newborn daughter, Kaia, who sat on his lap throughout most of the song writing process." [from this Wikipedia article]

As one of my listeners noted, sadly, BT's studio was recently burglarized again (the first time was in 2001), and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment stolen. This includes the data for his current show. On his site, Transeau discusses his intent to create a non-profit dedicated to helping musicians recover stolen gear and also to providing equipment to aspiring musicians who would not otherwise be able to afford it.

If you have ideas for future Listens, please email me. Good night, and enjoy.