Got an email from Charity Queen about this yesterday, copied and pasted below. And although as a creature of habit I only buy wax, this brilliant concept is definitely worth a shout. As Monsta Funk put it “this could only exist in a post-vinyl world.”
Incidentally if you’re still sleeping on A Chronology of Electroacoustic and Electronic Music that Charity Queen did for us, I’d recommend checking it out. Not an easy listening but every time I go back to it discovering something new.
The new album by Icarus, Fake Fish Distribution, is available download only in a limited edition of 1000. The twist is that each copy is different. Very different. Icarus developed generative and stochastic techniques that alter the structure of the music each time it’s played back then rendered out 1000 versions. They’re being sold sequentially from 1 to 1000.
When you buy your copy, they delete their copy from the server, making you the sole owner of a unique album’s worth of music. I’ve heard reports of some versions being +/- 10% longer/shorter than others and reviewers with multiple versions have made it pretty clear that the differences between versions are significant.
Icarus’ release schedule is very, very slow (only one record since 2004’s outstanding I Tweet The Birdy Electric), but I really wasn’t expecting them to come out with this after 4 years of silence. £12 may sound a lot for a digital release, but when you consider the amount of work that went into this and take into account that you’re getting a unique album of music that only you own, it’s pretty damn reasonable. You can pick up Fake Fish Distribution at http://www.icarus.nu/FFD/ where you can also hear samples taken from version 500 of the album.