It's been a busy musical end of year - three exciting releases coming in 2026 - and this one is a bit of a surprise - an uncanny resurrection. More info soon 🙂

The New Mad Elektrons [myself and Gary Monaghan] single is released today on State of Bass UK via Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. Swing & Shake is a song that we began tinkering with when we both lived in London in the early 90s, and then Gary took it to the next level 😎

My artist of the year according to Spotify - in this case they got it right 😎

My new seasonal EP is now available via all streaming platforms (4-track version) and Bandcamp (with 2 extra tracks) on Stateless Bass @ State of Bass UK - some winter calm after the Nostalgia Deathstar autumn storm ... ❄️❄️

Out today - a little different from my recent ghost elektron album - quieter, piano oriented, icy electronics. Available now on Bandcamp (with 2 extra tracks) with a 4 track version streaming from Friday 5th.

Just updated the Nostalgia Deathstar Soundcloud profile - both our albums now on there ...

CDs of my new ghost elektron album 'The Romance of Modern Mechanism' have arrived - available from ghost-elektron.bandcamp.com/album/the-ro...

A review of my new ghost elektron album in the new Electronic Sound magazine - really happy with this! 😎

Right then - next job is to fit a new internal battery in this synth - my Yamaha YS200, bought in July 1989 (A1 Music in Manchester £454) - my first proper synth, including an 8 track sequencer. Then am going to install the Steem Atari emulator for PC so I can run YSEditor and get sound designing 😎

So how have I spent the ghost elektron 'The Romance of Modern Mechanism' release day? Mainly playing around and reacquainting myself with this - and reading up on how to fix the effect selector potentiometer that barely works (apparently many EM1s have this exact same problem) ...

My new ghost elektron album is out today on streaming platforms and CD - ambient-instrumental-experimental - CD available to order via Bandcamp. Good to see this in the world 😎

Finalised CD digipak artwork for my 2nd ghost elektron album - The Romance of Modern Mechanism - out this Friday (3rd October) - with thanks to Louise Morell for putting this together using some of my photographs 😎 [email protected]

My new ghost elektron album 'The Romance of Modern Mechanism' is out next Friday 3rd October. Now available for pre-order on CD or Digital via Bandcamp - the first release on the State of Bass ambient-instrumental-experimental sister label Stateless Bass. ghost-elektron.bandcamp.com/album/the-ro...

After our Nostalgia Deathstar album release, had almost forgotten that my 2nd ghost elektron album will be out on Friday 3rd October via Bandcamp (digital and CD) and the usual stealing platforms - it's ambient-instrumental-experimental. Cinematic, dark and light ... more details soon ...

Just reposted this from January 2025 as something odd going on with my original Substack post ...

Wow - very nice review of our new Nostalgia Deathstar album in Electronic Sound magazine - 'Savage and prescient' - that'll do 😎

Out next week 😎

Our new single - a stomping EBM quality review of the creeping death of the university, anti-intellectualism, the cowardice and conniving of university senior management and more - on all streaming platforms - album follows soon ...

September and October releases from Nostalgia Deathstar and @ghost-elektron.bsky.social

Out September 5th

Nostalgia Deathstar's new venture

I've not been there for about 40 years but have fond memories of bunking off here when I was in sixth form 😎

I was sorting some research files over the weekend and realised I had enough to get a Song of the Atom post together on the forgotten electronic music innovator, Frank E. Miller ... so I put this together today ... songoftheatom.substack.com/p/music-from...

Here's my last Substack post for a while - introducing the topic that will be the focus of the following few posts - phonomanipulation techniques - and a brief overview of Patrick Feaster's excellent article on the origins of the transformation of sound recordings on phonographs/gramophones.

A gentle reminder

My latest 'Song of the Atom' Substack post - on German-American composer Johanna Magdalena Beyer's 'electronic' composition 'Music of the Spheres' [1938]. I 'may' have discovered previously unknown information of her time in Germany as well a a previously unknown composition, 'Song of New York' ...

Here's Part 2 of my Substack article on German and Russian graphical sound in the English language press in the 1930s - this time focusing on Russian innovators who had their moment in the sun from 1935-36

Here's my latest Substack post - prompted by a key theme concerning drawn film sound in my last post on the 1935 John Mills book 'A Fugue in Cycles and Bels', Part 1 focuses on Eric A. Humphriss and Rudolf Pfenninger [1931-35]

This week's Substack post - on John Mills's 1935 book 'A Fugue in Cycles and Bels' that was another key source for John Cage's research in the late 1930s

Wasn't really planning on doing this this afternoon, but this 1932 article has been on my mind ... a shortish post looking at French critic André Coeuroy's ‘L'orchestre éthéré / The Ethereal Orchestra’ article.

This week's Substack post - on Mexican composer Carlos Chavez's book 'Toward a New Music' that heavily influenced John Cage's thoughts of new and future musics.

Here's my latest Substack post - on Carol-Bérard’s 1908 (?) La Symphonie des forces mécaniques [The Symphony of Mechanical Forces], and his thoughts on the 'organization of noise' in a 1928 article that preempts much of John Cage's 'The Future of Music: Credo' by 10 years ...

Got a feeling I still might have to tidy this up a little, but here's my latest Substack post - 'Music and the Laboratory: from John Redfield to John Cage'

Here's my second Substack post examining John Cage's 'The Future of Music: Credo' - focusing on the term 'organized sound', Edgard Varèse and John Cage's usage of the term, and the longer history of 'organized sound' as a formulation for understanding of music - before and after 1940-1941 ...

Here's this week's short introductory article to further writing I'm going to be doing on issues surrounding Cage's 'The Future of Music: Credo' [18 February 1940]

I thought I'd best put together a final short article so that I'd covered what I'd initially intended to on Hugo Gernsback and Electronic Music - so here it is - Part 3 ...

Think I bit off a bit more than I could chew on this one, so had to leave out a few things ... might mean Hugo Gernsback Part 3 at some point ... anyway, here's this week's 'Song of the Atom' Substack post 🙂

This week's 'Song of the Atom: Electronic Music before 1945' article - on Hugo Gernsback and his role (alongside Clyde J. Fitch ...) in propagating electronic music in the USA (and elsewhere) in the 1920s - part 2 next week examining the role of Radio Craft magazine in the 1930s #electronicmusic

This week's Substack post - on Georges von Djounkovski and the Vibrophon - a lost (and very murky) story of electronic music in Paris and Berlin in 1928

Here's this weeks Substack post (and there'll only be one this week ...) - on the lost film 'Das brennende herz / The Burning Heart' and the appearance of the Berlin Laboratory Theremin.

Something else to start pondering on Substack ...

This is my early electronic music history Substack - I'm aiming to publish something every week, maybe more ... where possible new information that doesn't as yet appear in any established histories ...

I wasn't really planning on doing this today, but sat down at the computer this morning and now here it is! The origin of 'electronic music' 😎

Here's my 2nd Substack post - on Lee de Forest's role as an electronic music pioneer - and a mystery concerning Marcel Tournier's 'Orgue Électrique' 😎

It's time to start writing about the electronic music research I've been doing for over 10 years that hasn't found a home as yet. Started a Substack publication called 'Song of the Atom: Electronic Music before 1945' - first post - Maurice Martenot's forgotten Manchester concerts in June 1928

Our latest Mad Elektrons release - Guthriesque guitars sprinkled with synths - proto-retro-space-pop …

For anybody interested in the history of German and British electronic music, you can now download the untold story (before now!) of Martin Taubmann: the Theremin, the Electronde and British Electronic Music 1929-1941 - available from my Linktree research page 🤖🎹 (@30,000 words)

Been unbelievably busy writing about electronic music history and nearly forgot we were releasing this today ... we are releasing a track a month while planning our next move re. substantial releases ...

In the UK we celebrate Misgiving, a year-round festival of formless dread and unease