February...that month where winter turns around and slaps you in the face, just when you thought it was a mild one. So to spread a little warmth, here's some news:

Feb 10th sees Andy wander up to King's Lynn to do a laptop set at a lush alldayer which includes a performance from Mint who we played with back at Baked Beats last year and who was awesome. Details in the live section.

February 19th and Cactus Island release the long awaited Brittle Behaviour compilation which includes the first brand new Digitonal tune for a while. A little note about this track - Antares was written by Andy last summer, really as an experiment in proper old school 808/303 electronica. Basically, he'd been listening to too much Stasis, Black Dog and B12 and fancied his chances. We hope that you'll enjoy it nonetheless. The rest of the comp is excellent with tracks from Maps and Diagrams, ISAN, Weave, Slemper and many more. You can preorder it at the fabulous Norman Records. New band material is forthcoming slowly. More soon on this we hope.

Finally, apologies for the delays in getting the sampler cds out. Some major postage problems at this end due to Andy's office internal mail system being rubbish. You will recieve the cds tout suite.

Hello-ha!

Hope you're all recovered from the silly season. We are shaping up for a very busy year indeed. We are going to have two major announcements to make in the next few weeks so watch this space like a hawk.

In the mean time, our first bookings of the year have been announced.

In February we return to the beautiful city of Prague to play the opening night of the all new and improved Sperm Festival. This was a highlight of the year for Callum and I last year, and this time we are going over with a full strength band to play a definitive set at the Roxy.

March then sees our first trip to Cargo for the Soundcrash night, playing alongside Luke Vibert in his WagonChrist guise, Subsonic and the fantastic Qemists. Should be the definition on fun.

More on these, a Norfolk based electronica night, and the aforementioned *major announcements* very soon.

Releases

We also have news from the Emerald Isle that our remix of David Bickley's "Sweet Love" is due out on Psychonavigation records. You can find out all about the fantastic Bickley O'Farrell project over at http://www.bickleyofarrell.com/. We should also have a release date for the Cactus Island compilation soon.

Regular visitors to the site, and especially to my blog, will have seen mention of a Christmas carol that I've been working on. It's now finally finished and we thought we'd put it up for download as a little Christmas present from us to you.

The piece is a choral setting of a beautiful seasonal poem by Katherine Venn. Katherine actually wrote the poem for me last Christmas but I kind of took my time getting the setting done ;o). Although it's not a Digitonal track per se, I managed to rope in Samy, Kat and Jo to play some parts and I filled in the rest. The soloist is a very talented young man by the name of Peter Kirk who our friend George managed to find for us and I'm indebted to them both, as well as my sister Sophie for helping me finish it.

Thank you to all for your support and encouragement this year. We have a new album, a new home and our first UK tour to look forward to in the New Year (more on these very soon), but for now, the very best of the season to you and thanks for listening.

Andy.:

http://www.digitonal.com/winter/winterlent.html

Winter Lent

This is our winter lent: the turning of the wheel.

A smouldering wick will flame to light the dark,
The ice be broken and the water blessed,

A downy feather lift the grinding weight
And yokes be eased that we might find our rest;

That snow can cover rutted, weary ways
And fallen seeds in frozen earth take root

And masters dress as servants at the feast
And sacred oaks bring forth, at last, a shoot;

This is our winter lent: the turning of the wheel.

Katherine Venn

Many thanks to those that came down to Brixton last night and apologies for our set being cut short. We're hopefully going to do something there again soon, but in the meantime, massive thanks to Mark from City[Esc] and the fantastic LJ Kruzer, Infinite Scale and Posthuman for playing their sets.

We have the schedule for the Big Chill Winter Festival. If this isn't exciting you, then check your pulse. And it's free before 11pm to boot! This will be our last gig of the year, and probably the last one before the Spring and we'll be playing a full band set with laptop beats, including a couple of new bits and some of the festival favourites.

SATURDAY 9th December
free before 11pm, £5 after.

Ground Floor:
Folk 2 Future 2pm - 3.30pm
Eva Abraham (live) 3.30pm - 4.15pm
Tuung 4.15pm - 6.15pm
Digitonal (live) 6.15pm - 7pm
Ulrich Schnauss 7pm - 9pm
Nick Luscombe 9pm-11pm
Jon Hopkins (live) 11pm - midnight
Jon More (Coldcut) midnight - 2am
Tom Middleton 2am - 4am

First Floor:
Mixmaster Morris 9pm - 4am

See you there!

The running order for Thursday night at the Brixton Ritzy will be as follows:

City[ESC] presents: Digitonal and friends
8pm - Infinite Scale
9pm - LJ Kruzer
10pm - Posthuman
11pm - Digitonal

The Cafe Bar, Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton Oval, Coldharbour Lane, London SW2 1JG, Tel: 08707 55 00 62

Admission is FREE all night and it runs until midnight.

Digitonal will be represented by Andy playing out some remix material and new experiments from the laptop. We're really pleased to be able to present a selection of the current cream of electronica on this night. These are all guys that we've long admired and it's pretty exciting to be able to do a night like this. Thanks to City[esc] for making it happen.

See you there!