Tristan Perich announces Noise Patterns circuit board album

When I think of microchips, I think of secret arms deals, where one party wants the ability to programmatically send missiles around the circumference of the Earth and eventually up the toilet pipes of a sworn enemy — turns out, they can also be used in circuits that produce audio. But before NYC-based artist Tristan Perich came along, this was mostly unexplored territory. A press release says that his 1-Bit Music release from 2009 was the “first ever circuit album,” which makes sense, considering the limiting factors seemingly inherent to the medium: instrumental uniformity and an inability to directly “rip” these albums in the same way that you would a CD. No matter to the conceptually inclined!

Perich’s upcoming Noise Patterns succeeds 1-Bit Music and 1-Bit Symphony, and like those two innovative releases, the new one consists of a circuit that allows you to listen live to the lo-fi electronic composition programmed into the microchip. There’s a headphone jack on the matte black circuit board for that very purpose, and musically, there’s a strong indication of something in keeping with the album’s titular “noisy” aspirations. It’s more of a decided exploration of noise than those previous two circuit efforts.

Noise Patterns is out July 22 on Physical Editions. Listen to an excerpt below, followed by an older video of Perich explaining his process.

More about: Tristan Perich