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https://www.theverge.com/24034551/floppy-disk-music-scene-underground-diy>
"The first computery thing I do in the year 2024 is nudge a 3.5-inch floppy
disk into a USB floppy drive that I bought from an online merchant working out
of Singapore’s onetime hotbed of ’90s computer piracy. I’m briefly startled by
the drive’s low mechanical whirring — a warm, ambient background score that
instantly transports me back to my childhood. Some of my first painfully
preteen journals were hidden poorly on nondescript floppies just like this one.
I click on the disk’s sole file, an MP3 titled “Inability to Perform Social
Activities Is Considered Inferior,” and Yasuyuki Uesugi’s growling wall of
experimental noise rolls through my apartment like a rogue wave at the beach.
The track is one minute, 27 seconds long, and at 1.33MB, it almost hits the
diskette’s limit of 1.44MB.
Next up is a split release by two artists — Pregnant Lloyd and Team Phosphenes
— then another filled with a mix of short experimental tracks. These small
treasures have all come from a floppy-only net label called Floppy Kick, a
one-man operation run by Mark Windisch in Debrecen, Hungary. Each disk is
numbered as part of a limited run. My copy of “Inability to Perform Social
Activities Is Considered Inferior” is the third of five, which makes sense
since there’s a finite number of floppies being circulated around the world.
Floppy disk music arguably peaked in the 2010s, but in the 2020s, it’s still
going strong; Discogs.com shows a healthy 500-plus floppy releases in the 2020
category, which is more than the documented number of floppy music releases in
the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s altogether. Perhaps it’s because we’ve moved a little
closer to their impending extinction. Or maybe they’re perfect reminders of how
violently smashing bytes together on a thin, vulnerable plastic / magnet
sandwich is still one of the most punk things you can do as a musician and
artist."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
