Spring creeps up again-flowers burst open and all the creatures come crawling out of their holes. Feltbattery has been on deep hibernation but now there are signs of a return to the surface-I am getting ready to hatch a CD of a recording from summer 2006. This will not be feltbattery business but a quartet of sun-stroked freakers rocking out one warm evening in August:
Zak (drums) came to visit from New York, Wylie (bass) had a killer hobbit hole of a space to record and Josh (guitar) had the recording setup. There were paeans to trees and plenty of hoots and somehow it all gelled. We're going to call it Agar Agar! I twisted knobs and ran tape and howled into things....so this is going to be the first release for a 'label' that I want to birth-it will be called Blastoceol or something like that.Look out for this. I hope to work with local artists and construct some rad skins for these souvenirs. In other news, the insect recordings are being mashed and mangled and returned to me slowly. I hope to edit and mold over the summer. Finally, being a dad is best thing that has ever happened to me, endless miracles, endless mystery. I am a very lucky egg. Oh yeah, I am building a website since I ditched my Myspace page but I did post some songs on VIRB in the meantime, hope this finds the odd drifters well....

Slowly, a new set of organs are being formed-with every day their tender shape and inner workings are refined. On the outside the world bubbles on and we lucky few wrap ourselves in fatty flesh suits to make it through the cold months. Another year has passed and with it a litany of transformations. All I can do is look back with awe and thanks and look ahead with resolve and anticipation.
In the year to come I plan on finishing and releasing the swarm compositions (a patchwork sound painting derived mostly from insect recordings). I also hope to put out some tinier releases with/through friends. Live actions will also return-I look forward to finding some fresh venues and collaborators. I will return to Chicago in the Spring and reconnect with some of that city's souls. I would like to play in these locations in 2008:

1.a greenhouse
2.Wilson Library, UNC campus
3.somewhere outside of the Triangle

Beyond this my life exists in the realms of school, forest and home. All of these worlds inform one another and I sense that being a parent means as much to the world as it does to our micro-family, one deed is enlivened by another, resonating with it. So thats it-more resonance in the year of work before us.

Listening Window:

Mammal-The Lonesome Drifter
David Watson-Fingering an Idea
Yellow Swans-At All Ends
A Hawk and a Hacksaw & The Hun Hangar Ensemble-S/T
Pax Titania-Cult of the Colonist
The Aeolian String Ensemble-Lassithi
Lucky Dragons-Widows

There is a beautiful little being living in our house. His feet are perfect. This new wave of life has taken over and I am in it-Little else is happening around here save snail-like movements towards a new cycle of sounds and lots of third grade revelations. Some kind musings about feltbattery appeared today in Paper Thin Walls. Meanwhile, Samuel casts a calm cloud around the house, all sounds and actions are amplified. I can't wait to take him outside, let him hear his first birdsong or eat his first mouthful of dirt. Dirt....mmmm.

Now the gnomes digest the dead husk of summer-this is our time-expositions are over for now and autumn calls me back to ferric work. I sent out a batch of rough insect recordings to my swarm. Over the next few months, as I prepare to be a father, I hope these crude messages will be translated by all the other ears and organs of friends. I am also encouraging visual art folks to start brainstorming for a multiple cover edition of the insect CD when it is released. Trevor intimated a vague plan for this but needs the capital-so that means it may take awhile. But I have plenty of time-And meanwhile, I am refining the rough recordings in anticipation of folding them back into the remixed tranmissions I recieve-All of this between failing computers and a beautiful woman with a blossoming belly. Steal yourselves-

We are here nestled in the deep of summer-the corn is ready to pick and the crickets have reached an astounding volume. I am preparing for summer travels. First north and then across the ocean to work with a wise wise woman. Brian Howe wrote a piece in the Independent about feltbattery. I learn more every time I read a prismatic ray gleaned from my sound work. Recording has commenced for a new sound action that I hope to reveal in late August at a show with Rah Dunes from San Fransisco. These guys are going in some wind-swept terraplane voyager type direction and should not be missed. Keep breathing....

picking beets. picking tomatoes. independence. summer opens her arms and everything is warm. the insects are building a monument out of consonants. I am listening. there are plans to play a show in late August in Chapel Hill, hopefully outdoors. Meanwhile, Trevor has more copies of "it had wings" at migration media. get you some before they all disappear. enjoy the warmth quality.....

The days are beginning to simmer and soon the strawberries will be gone. After getting acupuncture, I have the blessed feeling that the air has been let out of my tires. Vision blurs and sounds tune in and out. The approaching end of school means a return to sweat and outdoor adventures. I took a short trip up to Asheville to see old friends and found the place alien to me. There are good people there but I felt as if I was being sized up like a piece of real estate. I did talk to an old friend about bees and he explained an old technique that beekeepers are using again to attract wild bees and help them propagate. We need more of this. Our survival is linked to the fragile lives of these creatures. The ever mysterious Brian wrote a review for It Had Wings forThe Pitchfork-it feels as though people are listening and perhaps not just people. I am grateful for all the ears out there, no matter how small. I'm getting excited about the seasons changing.The world is unfolding to greet me. Best summer drink: 1 part iced yerba mate w/ honey, 1 part lemonade, 1 part water (chill and serve).

hi.
Spring is creeping in, soggy toes and green everywhere. A guy named Will came to our house and interviewed me. A couple hours worth of footage later and he turned out this bit of editing magic for a local TV show. I really like the news anchor's response to my zoological disco references. I've been paying attention to the colony collapse situation with our friends the bees and listening to the forest with all my little second graders. So much life and so much death. It is Spring after all.

A friendly ghost at Pitchfork Media wrote about ‘It Had Wings’ for the 'Forkcast' section of the site. It makes me wonder how these sounds would have turned out if I had grown up in Hillsborough. I have been listening to Ellen Fullman and dreaming about building a long string instrument to be played outside. Buy this record now.
Incidentally, the house finches that inspired the piece ‘a house finch’ on It Had Wings have returned to nest in the rafters of my porch. I am going to try to record them again and perhaps make a video. So spring is on in full force. Look out for feltbattery happenings in May-June and a split cassette between feltbattery and fellow etheric kinsman Myth Trees. Drink mint tea.

Spring has come in the South and everyone is crawling out of their caves. Meanwhile, Meudiamorte is distributing my cassette releases in Europe. Its actually the only place to buy these on line. All tapes are lo-fi forest electronics from my days amongst the deers. They are roughly chronological records of my escape from Georgia- Order one from Pascal because he is a good fellow and runs a great mail order deal. so long.....

Eating squashes and tubers and weathering the last bits of southern winter: there is a feltbattery song, called "sundog" on a compilation from some good folks in Chapel Hill, Austin and Arkansas. Go here for more business about these rad peoples. i'm off to brooklyn to record some noises with an old friend and have a short vacation. feels like regressing back into winter. there are other plans to release a cassette split with Myth Trees from Sacramento this spring and my buddy Zak (aka Caural) is commencing to work on a collaboration we freaked out last August (see pictures here). it will be a cut-up dialog built on the foundation of those sweaty summer sounds.
canned tomatoes for everyone,
benjamin

it is raining. the earth is cooling. go to
migration media to read trevor's musings on 'it had wings' as well as his project Teith. in addition, a strange and wondrous fellow in Germany has offered to distribute my tapes, feltbattery vols. l,ll,&lll. They should be available this week from mediademorte.
Also, John from Nightpass Handmade Records says nice things here about feltbattery's sound.


I will make noises on Wednesday, November 22, at the Nightlight bar+club+love cave+apothecary as opener for Volcano the Bear. make this your last purging moment before Thanksgiving's comedy of food. these fellows are not to be missed and come from the middle of Britain for our peculiar pleasures. don't forget to layer,
benjamin

so this is fall...mending shoes and patching pants, collecting leaves and soldering...there's a clarity to autumn that moves life along, an engine:
this saturday 10.14 at NIGHTLIGHT Feltbattery with out-of-towners The Furniture/Cassette Concret/Dandelion Fiction/Cristal/To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie=$6, that's $1 per band! all of these folks are going to bring it like its October (check NIGHTLIGHT for details). i promise ferric experiments and plenty of saliva+pic-ups. come around 10:30pm.
good luck foul paws, benjamin

autumn has arrived. sweaters in the morning-sweating by midday-come listen and mold beeswax with me at Bickett Gallery tomorrow night, September 30th, beginning at about 9:00pm.
This is a release party for Phon's CD, The Orm, implicit wonder and beauty-bring your ears, stomachs and livers.
see you there,
benjamin

here is a peak at the art for 'it had wings':



welcome to migrations and September

i just got the finished deal-feltbattery IT HAD WINGS _migration media 05. you may order a CD from Trevor at MM by going to migration media and following the link to his email. all the info is wrong on the site and your best bet is going to a Red Sparrowes or Pelican show in the next few months and checking the merch table. if you want, you can also order one through me but it might take awhile. The disc itself is beautiful and i'm psyched that its finally done-its a silver disc w/ art and title printed in black on the disc-sleeve is Xeroxed business that i pieced together, printed on stock and all packaged in sweet vellum envelopes-
bask in summer's remnants,
benjamin

life has reached the melted haze of midsummer
purging all the body's poison
sweating, crying, oxidating-
feltbattery CD hasn't made it out into the wider world. yet.
i have crafted a new feltbattery tape (volume III),
47 minutes worth of broke air conditioners intoned by dulcimers and epileptic ukes et al. 23.5 minutes per side. go to feltbattery's permanent home
and click on TOUCH to buy a tape or trade-
so....'Nagas' cassettes, bicycle building, historia de america latina, metal scraping metal, compost, blind love and falafel.
love to all

hey all,
feltbattery action went off well, some magic moments, some fist-clenched 'i hate computer' moments as well. Jason's visual work dovetailed nicely with the sounds emitted. i performed on a stage (w/ a real live monitor) which was strange. all in all it was transmutation, sublime, and i got to eat a hard boiled egg in the midst of it all. The entire weekend caused a shift in the way i have been thinking about actions. Although I'm still not converted to watching 'modern dance' i did gain an insight into my own need to utilize my body during performances. basically i need to use the best instrument i have (voice/corpus) instead of depending too heavily on techno-trickery-so i have been getting to know my body again- it seems like this is also the character of spring into summer, waking up the frosted bits and getting back into the psychical.
'it had wings' is still due out in June. i made some CDRs to give out until the official packaged business is done. i gave one to my mom and she says its good music to cook to. other than that, stephanie and i are slowly amending our soil (she tilled for three evenings straight) and preparing to plant. i found a pink-bellied snake in the leaf mold pile. everything is opening, blossoming, and bubbling-black-bottomed feet summer is coming....
ps: I have given in and posted songs on mySpacE. now all my songs can be downloaded and used for diaper commercials!

welcome to May. i hope everyone is having a good spring so far. it looks like 'it had wings' will be packaged and produced in mid June. Trevor is on tour until then and we figured there was no hurry. i'm excited about the release though, especially the visuals which are mutated birds and such that i drew/photocopied etc. My best of friends Jordan Lieb mastered the recordings in Brooklyn and we passed all the files back and forth in this strange computer ether world until they were just right. i suppose this is what an opossum feels like, having a baby in a pouch that's not quite ready to be birthed-so look out for an anouncement in June about how to get a hold of these little creatures....
in other news, feltbattery is still slated for a May 19th action at Local 506. the piece will be called VITRIOL and concerns the alchemical process-it will be a joint venture between myself and Jason Meeks, local filming man and epileptic drummer. we'll be playing earlier in the evening so bring the kids and come join the Great Work.

here is an occasional nonplace to read and listen and see the happenings of feltbattery. there are other outposts in this universe; the feltbattery proper, for instance, but this one will be updated more frequently.
i will be doing an action on May 19th at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill as part of Soundscape Movement Fest.
The night will involve felbattery collaborating w/ a visual magician, plus:


AM Salad (experimental noise musician from Baltimore)
Investigating public spaces project (documentary
style=multimedia projex)
Alisa Cardone-Boston based video/dance artist
Followed by Robo Sapien-dance/music group!


Also, there are plans to hatch a CD next month (May). Trevor (often found roaming the earth as guitarist in Pelican) has been kind enough to offer to put out a CD which is tenatively entitled 'it had wings' on his burgeoning migrationmedia imprint. the record is a series of mutated bird songs, hacked apart by analog and digital means and sewn back together to suggest some kind of avian refugee survival kit for then, now and when....keep yer ears peeled.