The Buddha Machine and Buddhametrics

The New York Times recently featured a story by Rob Walker on the Buddha Machine, and it's makers, Omaha-native Christiaan Virant and fellow Beijing resident and musical partner Zhang Jian.

The story links over to Disquiet.com, Marc Weidenbaum's excellent web/blog/interview/MP3 linkage site. Disquiet has a post on Wednesday, August 1st of various Buddha Machine-related music and projects, including a link to a podcast I released in 2006 featuring the Buddha Machine.

Live From The Ambient Matyk Cafe with The Buddha Machine was a podcast I put out on March 20, 2006. 6 minutes of the podcast is devoted to improvised music I created on my laptop along with using the Buddha Machine at the Matyk Building in the New Bohemia section of downtown Cedar Rapids.

During the recording session at the Matyk Building, I did two takes of the track with the Buddha Machine. The second version was released as a free MP3 called Buddhametrics (live v2). You can download the track directly via this link. It's a 128kb-encoded MP3, 5 minutes and 53 seconds in length, or about 5.5MB.

Buddhametrics is basically a stripped down version of a rock/electronica track, Psychometrics with the addition of the Buddha Machine.

The original version of Psychometrics appears on my 2004 CD The Driver's Companion. It's also available at iTunes.