FM3's wondrous little box has gotten lots of attention over the past few months. As I listen to track 4, "b1", you can take a look at what music nerds worldwide have had to say.
Last week übernerds Pitchfork gave a raving review to the Buddha Machine, saying:
But I don't want to get hung up on its artistry, because most important of all, it's also an object. The minute I opened the box, I wanted to hold it in my hand, and play with the switches, and carry it around with me. It has an output jack, but it's much more fun to listen to its cheap built-in speaker: at low volumes, the loops are placid, fitting into the corner of your ear, but turn up the dial or press it to your ear and you hear hundreds of nuances and crackles of static. And best of all, the music never stops. Sure, you can listen to a minimalist CD and imagine how it would feel to hear it for days on end, but the Buddha Machine lets you try it: There's no 80-minute limit, and the batteries will go for hours. Psychologically, it makes a big difference when you aren't waiting for the music to fade out.
Jon Whitney from Brainwashed seems to miss the point, focusing on the cheapness of the construction (I have a newer one that doesn't have these flaws) and on some sort of strange tangent about authenticity:
And finally, there's absolutely nothing authentic about this unit: this is -not- music captured in a Buddhist temple and boxed up for western consumption. In fact, that mere idea flies in the face of buddhism to even take such a sacred element and profit off it. It is a very neat little toy for the easily amused music über-nerd.
I thought the reuse of the factory's standard packaging was a nice touch, myself.
But before we go thinking that this press attention is limited to blogs, in November the grey lady herself, the New York Times, sung its praises:
Who says a boxed set has to include CD's? ''Buddha Machine'' is, literally, a small plastic box with a built-in speaker, a headphone jack and a little switch you use to toggle between nine different and quite lovely ambient electronic compositions. It's the product of FM3 (www.fm3.com.cn), the Beijing-based duo of Christiaan Virant (who compiled the recent Sublime Frequencies CD ''Radio Pyongyang'') and Zhang Jian. The members say their device is a modified version of a popular Chinese gadget that intones Buddhist prayers; this new model is a weird, mesmerizing, beautifully useless thing. Available in the United States through forcedexposure.com.
For more information, check out interviews with Christiaan Virant at Rare Frequency and Disquiet. The Disquiet interview has a long explanation of what went into the construction and creation. Also take a gander at this video: FM3 playing chess with Buddha Machines, uploaded to YouTube by Lawrence from Global Noise Online. Christiaan replied with an explanation of this sound art game, which they call "Buddha Boxing."
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