The Electronic Music EP - Discrete Machines
In a paper, written in 1950 called Computing machinery and intelligence, Alan Turing set out a model for what he described as 'a discrete state machine'. In a carefully worded paragraph Turing described why digital computers might classified as such.
'These are the machines which move by sudden jumps or clicks from one quite definite state to another. These states are sufficiently different for the possibility of confusion between them to be ignored. Strictly speaking there are no such machines. Everything really moves continuously. But there are many kinds of machine which can profitably be thought of as being discrete state machines. For instance in considering the switches for a lighting system it is a convenient fiction that each switch must be definitely on or definitely off...;'
Taking Turing's description as a cue for more freedom in their methods of productionDr Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones, better known as Balearic pioneers A Man Called Adam, began releasing sound, video and installation works under the alias Discrete Machines in 2012.
'The Electronic Music EP', their latest release as Discrete Machines, follows on from 2014's album release 'Supersnickeltip', a collection of real-time imrpovisations for iPad and abandonware. This collection of strange songs and psyched-out electronica is dedicated to some of their musical heroes and the EP opens with 'Ladies of Electronica', an homage to Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram and Pauline Oliveros set to an Afro-beat. Next up is 'Radio Music', a Kraut-rock style tribute to John Cage and his love of non-musical sound. 'Stockhausen's Cardigan', is a loungey love song about the great man's spectacular orange knitwear and 'Sound is a Plastic Model of Time' is a meditative tone poem inspired by the writings of the modernist composer and architect Iannis Xenakis. The EP also includes an extended version of Ladies of Electronica, an instrumental of Radio Music and the 'Cardigan Dub'.