Full details now released for this gig which will be the Digitonal band's only Spring date now. Massively looking forward to this - we'll be pulling something special out for it.

Also whilst we're here, We've just confirmed a set of our more pure electronica, acid and dancefloor-orientated material at the ever reliable I Love Acid club on May 29th. Official event details can be found on the facebook group, but will also include a set from our labelmates and all round top blokes, Echaskech.

We've just heard from the promoters for this gig and am very sorry to report that it's been postponed and will not now being going ahead. Massive apologies to anyone that was coming down to see us. We're a bit gutted. if we hear anything else, we'll let you know.

There's a bit more info on this at teh Label page:

http://www.justmusic.co.uk/

we will post more when we have the new date.

We are still playing at Cafe Oto on the 10th of June and i'll release more details about that later.

Andy.:

Established in late 2007, and presented by Chimera Productions, Blank Canvas is a bi-monthly ‘club’ night reputed for its eclectic contemporary classical and experimental music programming, which pays no heed to classical music convention.

To mark the last in the current season of Blank Canvas shows, which has seen incredible performances from the likes of Jon Hopkins, Mira Calix, London Sinfonietta, Shlomo and Plaid at venues such as the BFI Southbank, Kings Place and Ether 10 at the Southbank Centre, British electronic artist par excellence Robin Rimbaud – aka Scanner – presents a new collaboration with pianist Will Dutta and coming off a widely critically acclaimed album, Save Your Light For Darker Days, Digitonal perform a full live set.

There are earlybird tickets available here:

http://www.wegottickets.com/f/1411

for considerably less cash than on the door.

First up is an intimate evening hosted by our record label at the Camden Roundhouse Studio, featuring the very beautiful acoustics of Dan Arborise and a live set by the full Digitonal band.

May 27th
7.30pm

More details and ticket information here:

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/productions/justmusiccafe-4891

Secondly, we have been invited to play at London's premiere new venue for contemporary music, Dalston's Cafe Oto on the 10th of June. Details still to be published, but we understand that Will Dutta and Scanner will also be performing.

Watch this space for more, plus details of our forthcoming retrospective album "Be Still My Bleeping Heart" very soon indeed.

Read and download at the Fenchurch Bloc microsite.

Tracklisting:

Philip Glass - Music in 12 parts (pt2 excerpt) (Nonsuch)
Autechre - Drane (Peel Session) (Warp)
Intricate - Times (Spezial Materiel)
Abfahrt Hinwil - Sonic Surface (Toytronic)
Mr Projectile - Sinking (Merck)
Yimino - Stoek (Ominim)
Kettel - Church (Sending Orbs)
Beaufort Scale - Dreaming in Perivale (Self-released)
Jon Hopkins - Apparition (Just Music)
Fizzarum - Microphorus (Domino)
Gimmik - Maybe (Toytronic)
Posthuman - Asha Grew Wings (Digitonal breaks down remix) (Myusyk)

Digitonal play the Fenchurch Dome at Bloc 2010 this Sunday at 3pm.

Trust me, it's better than it sounds...

Josh and I have played the last 3 of these in our AGT guise. We do so again this year, with the added bonus of a Digitonal laptop set in the Fenchurch Dome. This is looking quite mental and we're going to be dragging along Callum on visual duties as well - the prospect of projecting across the entire surface of a dome has enticed him out of retirement.

Expect a bit of a different set this year as I go back to my ambient, acid and strict electronica roots and throw in some new material to boot. More on all of this very soon.

ANdy.

We'll be making an announcement soon about this year's activities. If all goes well, we'll have 3 records out this year - a mixture of old material and something brand new. Live dates will be sparse, but we're expecting a decent London date in the spring and hopefully something further afield as well. Quality will be the watchword. here's a couple of other bits and pieces:

Josh from Posthuman who works with me on many of the Digitonal tracks has launched a new record label, Balkan Vinyl. This is a first class, subscription based series of very limited edition, vinyl only releases, involving some utterly top notch techno, acid and electro talent, including Mark Archer, Global Goon, Plaid, B12, Ardisson, Cursor Miner, Echaskech and many, many more. I have contributed a track, Volvo, which I can safely say is unlike anything you've heard Digitonal do before - a dark, broody, very abstract acid tune. You can preview and purchase at the Balkan site - there is not a duff tune in the series.

The chaps at the fabulous r.fm just mailed me to tell me that they had posted our classic set from the Norberg Festival in 2005 up to stream. This was pretty much the genesis of the last album and it's interesting to hear it so raw and unproduced as Callum and I improvised around it. Hope you enjoy it.

I'd like to leave this year with a repost of a Christmas Carol that I wrote a few years ago, and which a few people have asked me to make available again. It's a setting of a poem by Katherine Venn called Winter Lent...we hope that it finds you all well.

Music by Andrew Dobson
Words by Katherine Venn

Tenor Solo by Peter Kirk
Choral parts by Sophie and Andrew Dobson
Harp by Kat Arney
Cello by Jo Quail
Violin by Samy Bishai
Recorded and produced by Andrew Dobson, Christmas 2006

Download here

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/srtrallybob/2115057354/

But I do have some information to impart - most notably a Christmas gig at our favourite arty Southbank bar, Concrete. Our labelmates Echaskech run a monthly night there which we have, mostly in our AGT guise, played at a couple of times. Saturday the 19th of December, however, is going to see Josh and I Soundclash it up a bit with a Digitonal vs Posthuman session.

For those unaware of Josh's Posthuman project, it's been going for a good 10 years now and, whilst every album has had a chimera-like quality of completely changing style, he has been at the top of his game this year, with breakout tracks like Lander making waves in techno and breakbeat circles.

I've been a fan since the start (I remember well buying The Uncertainty of the Monkey at the now defunct Mancunian record shop, Picadilly Records - in fact, whilst I was with 65daysofstatic on their first big ITC gig), and it's always a pleasure getting to push the Digitonal boat into uncharted territory. Expect the darker, acid-flecked side of what I do to come to the fore, as I try to bring my sound into line with the cryptid Posthuman techno-monster.

Most of all, it will be a lot of fun :o)

Oh, there is probably another bit of news in that I've started production on a new Digitonal album (you'd have thought this would make the headline wouldn't you?). The last one took 4 years and a collapsed relationship to write. I'm planning to do this one by the Spring, with my family and sanity intact this time :o). More to follow...

I was hunting around my harddrive last night and I found something that I thought I'd share. A while ago, Josh and I did a set at Corsica studios. The room was pretty empty so we just thought we'd abandon our previously planned upbeat set and wing it on the ambient tip. One of the results was this improvised version of Kirsty Hawkshaw's ambient classic Orange. If you don't know the original, it's probably one of my favourite tunes of all time, almost dangerous in it's ability to make me cry. You can find it on the album OUT and it should be an essential purchase for your collection.

This is our version:

http://www.digitonal.com/mpfree/Digitonal-Orange%20Live.mp3

I don't normally post my mixes on the front page of the site, but this is something a bit special. Over the past few years I've been a resident DJ at the Big Chill Bar's Fluidnation night. Fluidnation is run by DJ, producer and all round champion Ben Mynott (ex-fragile state) with the remit of playing "just beautiful music" and has been one of the strongest supporters of Digitonal over the years. This mix is a collection of my favourite tracks over the period of the residency, sequenced, mixed and mashed. Hope you enjoy it.

Andy.Digitonal

Digitonal presents...
Fluidnation Classics

Length: 59:43 minutes (94.41 M
Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 220Kbps (VBR)
http://postbocks.com/uploads/digitonal_presents_fluidnation_classics

The Orb: Little Fluffy Clouds (excerpt)
Ulrich Schnauss: Between Us and Them
Gift of Gab: Rhyme like a Nut
Boards of Canada: Sixtyniner
Populous: Ent the Dexo
Infinite Scale: Pirkel
Blackalicious: Rhymes for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind
+One: Helix
Plaid: Rakimou (excerpt)
Kaom: All of your Mindz
John Tejada: Genetical Love
Populous: My Winter Vacation
Boards of Canada: Aquarius (Peel Session)
Push Button Objects: Non-exis (keyed in by Gescom)
Harmonic 33: Moompah
The Pharcyde: Passing me by (acapella)
Jon Hopkins: Wire
Beastie Boys: Sure Shot (acapella)
Quannum: Bombonyall (acapella)
Plaid: Shakbu
El-P: Stepfather Factory (acapella)
Somatic: No.9 (First Rate scratch mix)
Yimino: Nes [sidd]
Arovane: Cry Osaka Cry
Digitonal: A Lighter Touch
Antipop Consortium: What am I? (acapella)
Mrs Jynx: Dusty
LJ Kruzer: Ter4
WB Yeats: The song of Wandering Aengus

http://www.digitonal.com
Thanks to Ben Mynott, John Heery and Mr Tom

Have a listen to the tracks on Last.fm and you can order the digital now from Bleep.com

Firstly is a new track on an excellent compilation on Fluid Audio records entitled "Hope". It's a charity compilation for Toybox, a charity providing aid, shelter and support for homeless children in Latin America and we're very happy to give them unreleased track "We Three", alongside cuts from Halogen, Iambic and many other top notch electronica artists. Although We Three has appeared in various live recordings, this is the first proper studio version of the track and we hope you'll like it.

Hope is out now.

Secondly, Andy has been tempted out for one last quick laptop gig, supporting our long time collaborators and friends 65daysofstatic at a brand new Clash Music night at The Social, W1.

Full details here and in the live section and tickets are a fiver.

tata for now.

Particular apologies to K-Beard who has been trying to book us for years now. I hope that we'll have another opportunity in the future.

On that note, and since I've had a few emails asking about our live schedule for the Summer - Digitonal is effectively on hold for the moment whilst I become a father (!!!) and do some writing. Things have been tough for us lately with the general slump in everything musical, and we're feeling a definite need to regroup, rethink and get on with our real lives for a change.

I hope this isn't the end of the road (and strongly suspect that it isn't!), but for now, that's it for Digitonal. We may be making some older material available again soon, including, hopefully, The Shining rescore soundtrack, and there are a couple of remixes I've done recently which will surface, including a cracking one for Alice Russell (which sadly looks like it's being left out of their competition). I will try and make it available soon, label permitting.

Thanks to everybody as always for their support and messages and we'll stay in touch.

Andy.:

Listen and download from iTunes
Juno Download (320mp3/Wav)
e-Music (subscription based)

Save Your Light for Darker Days is also available on iTunes again.

We hope you enjoy it. More information and a download link at the Clash Music DJ Mix Podcast page

The Digitonal ClashMusic Dj Mix tracklisting

Jvox - Cadona (n5md)
Elegi - Despotiets Vesen (Miasmah)
SonVer - Anonima (Disconnected Music)
Max Richter - Song for Yulia (130701/Fatcat)
Digitonal - Emberkreiss (Just Music)
Ochre - Lifewish (Benbecula)
Rena Jones - Driftwood (Native State)
Bola - Pfane pt1 (Skam)
Jon Hopkins - Searchlight (Just Music)
Posthuman - Beautiful Beast (Seed Records)
Vangelis - Chews Eye Shop (Esper Edition, Unreleased)
John Metcalfe - The Shock of Recognition (Big Chill)

It's backed with an alternate, downbeat mix of A Lighter Touch which was previously only ever available on a Big Chill compilation, and two other fantastic remixes:

Gone (Winter North Atlantic remix)
A stunning bit of Folktronica from the Giovanni Chrome recordings artist and our old mate from Sheffield, and recently played by Gilles Peterson.

93 Years On (Maps and Diagrams remix)
Our longtime mate Tim Diagram, co-honcho of the fabulous Cactus Island records that released our In Silence EP, turns in what can only be described as an ambient classic. A stunning soundscape that out Blade Runner's the original track and will be the soundtrack to our Summer Sunsets this year. Whilst we're bigging it up, we should also mention that Tim's superb album Smeg is still available and is just about the best bit of proper ambient electronica you're liable to find at the moment and we strongly recommend it.

The single will be available from Monday from iTunes and the Just Music Digital Store for a low price.

In the meantime, here is a video shot by our mate Jim from our first Union Chapel gig last year, performing the title track:

p.s. Andy Digitonal is now on Twitter and about to get mental in Minehead at Bloc this weekend in his AGT Rave Cru persona. Feel free to follow him!

p.p.s. We are assured by our label that Save Your Light for Darker Days will be imminently available to buy from iTunes and all good retailers. Just Music have a new distribution deal and the record should be available everywhere now. The Just Music store always has it in stock as well. Please do email us by clicking the little envelope above if you have any troubles finding it.

I can't even begin to tell you how much we enjoyed playing at Akropolis a couple of weeks ago. Prague is, for me, the most cultural city in the European landmass and I love playing there.

Thank you for all the kind messages, and particular thanks to Teresa and Josef for inviting us to play there.

More details soon on the Silver Poetry EP and what's next for both myself and Digitonal.

Funny how things work out...we're getting busy again.

First thing to report is our return to our favourite European city, Prague. Full details are in the live section, but we are very much looking forward to it. We have formed a new, but very exciting lineup for the gig, including violinist Amy Butterworth and our longtime collaborator, cellist Jo Quail. In addition, visual support will be lent by VJ Myogenic who we have been working with on the AGT Rave Cru project amongst other things. This will be special.

I have started editing and uploading video footage from our Union Chapel gigs and you can find the first of these on Vimeo (it's on youtube as well, but the quality sucks). Expect more, plus additional website content, over the next few weeks.

We are also working with the label on making some older material available and, of course, the Silver Poetry EP drops in a month or so as well.

More soon!

Andy.:

It has been an exhilarating year for me, both personally and creatively and I shall be spending Christmas with my wife, taking the opportunity to relax and take stock.

Whilst 2009 will see some changes in the way we operate and perhaps slightly less output for now, we are certainly not out in any way. yesterday we found out that our label, Just Music, have put new distribution deals in place and will be able to get some of the stock back from Pinnacle. This is great news and we will update you when everything is finalised.

In the meantime, you may wish to know that this evening, Christmas Eve, at 7pm, the fantastic Fluid Radio will be broadcasting an exclusive mix I did for them, entitled "To Drive the Cold Winter". We'll try and make it available to download next week with their permission in case you've missed it.

Also, Pete Lawrence (ex Big Chill boss) has included a Christmas choral piece I wrote a year or so ago called "Winter Lent" on tonight's BBC Radio 2 show. It broadcasts at midnight I believe.

I wish you all the very best Christmas and we're looking forward to all the new creative opportunities that 2009 will bring!

Thanks for listening...

Andy.Digitonal.:x

Anybody London based that makes it down to our Union Chapel gig will also find it for sale there.

Meanwhile, massive thanks to John Diliberto at Echoes for giving us so much support this year and putting us forward for the above. We're gutted about this whole Pinnacle deal - it has affected many of our friends and colleagues in the scene and is a very likely death knell for the industry as was in this country at least. We shall see what 2009 brings...

Kat will no doubt be rocking it with Sunday Driver (whose new album incidentally is very, very good), the Shadow Orchestra and the Cool Kats.
Samy is touring with Tom Jones, Seckou Keita, Natascha Atlas and Zoe Rahman and generally being mr busy.
Josh is starting up the fabulous Balkan Vinyl label, ramping up the Posthuman project and, alongside me, being silly behind the laptops as the AGT Rave Cru.

I'm going to continue writing and recording and occaisionally playing out as Digitonal but it's not been financially viable as a band for some time and I would like to try something different with the project. When promoters are barely able to pay you enough for your transport, let alone cover the costs of rehearsal rooms (normally around £80 a time in London) and allow me to pay the fabulous musicians that I work with even a fraction of what they're worth, then it becomes gradually impossible to function.

This is certainly not the end, and both myself as a solo artist and the various combinations of The Digitonal Band are still available for booking in 2009, but we would rather draw a line under the project for now and concentrate our efforts elsewhere in the new year.

It's been an honour working with this group of musicians and I hope that we get to do it again in the future. For now though, this'll be it.

ta, andy.:

It is, therefore, unlikely that anyone trying to order Save Your Light for Darker Days through outlets supplied by Pinnacle (i.e. most record retailers) will be able to get it through those sources. I believe that it is still in stock at Amazon and Play, but this may not be the case for long and we're not sure how long, and even if, the label will be able to get the defunct distributor to release the stock they're holding.

My suggestion is to order it directly from the label - they definitely have stock and it's even a little cheaper than most shops.

http://www.justmusic.co.uk/store/TAO024/

On a personal side-note, Pinnacle going down is disasterous for many of our friends and other labels that we have worked with in the past. This, coupled with the failure of Neuton and E-UK is adding up to some pretty grim times for independent music in this country, despite what the major-wannabee wankers at AIM say. We are well aware of how easy it is to find music for free on the internet, our album included. We urge you to support the labels and artists that bring you an alternative voice in music. The loss of shops like Smallfish and the communities they engendered has already had a catastrophic effect on Electronica. Microlabels like Uncharted Audio, Sending Orbs, Cactus Island, Seed Records and countless others need and deserve your support to keep producing physical music!

You really don't know what you've got till it's gone...

Quick heads up to let you all know that we've bowed to the sheer
number of requests to make some of these tracks available in a
digital format. We've licensed the LJ Kruzer/Plaid track to Fabric
for John Tejada's Fabric44 mix cd, out in the new year, so it made
sense to do so. Please note that this new digital edition contains
only 5 of the 13 tracks from the vinyl set, of which we still have a
few available. Here's the lowdown:

Various Artists - "Signals (Digital Selection)"
Released 8th December 2008 in high quality MP3 and WAV formats.

1/ On/off - One Day, Machines (Digitonal Remix)
2/ Cursor Miner - William Tell Routine
3/ Cyan341 - Heptagrammic
4/ Line - How I Saved the World Single-handed
5/ LJ Kruzer - Huba (Plaid's 15 Years Lost remix)

http://www.unchartedaudio.com/releases/signals for details of the full Signals 7" series.

Our last gig at the Union Chapel was very special indeed and we're very much looking forward to returning there. The concert starts at midday with a performance by the splendid Glissando, and we'll be on around 1pm for an hour. It's totally free and we'll be seconding to a nearby pub afterwards for a little celebration so do stick around.

More before the close of the year about our 2009 plans but it will involve some new material and, hopefully, a brand new rescore project. Speaking of which, our old Shining Project is now up on youtube in case you missed it. It's mostly been slated by the internet Kubrick purists and perhaps it needs a live event to really transmit the vibe (and we damn well KNOW it worked well), but it's up there anyway for the curious...

Andy.:

After many different mixes and performances, this is the definitive version. Released today as a digital single, it's backed with an Echaskech remix of Nothing Left to Say and a 65daysofstatic remix of Ana Kata, both originally from the album Save Your Light for Darker Days (Just Music TAO24, available now).

http://www.7digital.com/artists/digitonal/93-years-on/

£1.79 for 16mins of quality music. enjoy.

EDIT > It appears that 7digital only let UK based people download it. It's also on iTunes and [url=http://www.junodownload.com/artists/Digitonal/releases/
]junodownload[/url]

It's available on CD from all good record stores (Just Music TAO024), and digitally from iTunes and from the following recommended online sources:

Just Music Store

Amazon

Norman Records

Play.com

Boomkat

Digital single 93 Years On will be released in a couple of weeks and will include album track remixes by Echaskech and 65daysofstatic, plus the acclaimed Medlo video for 93.

Thanks to everybody who came down to the launch gig last week. We'll be announcing some more live dates this week. I'd also like to thank everybody involved in the making of this album, but particularly to Samy, Kat, Josh, Joe, Joe and Niko for their musical contributions and to everybody at Just Music for their help and support.

For those unfamiliar with it, Echoes is a US based radio show which covers the fringes of contemporary music, with a particular interest in ambient electronica.

They have recently published an audio review, with samples, of the new album which you can listen to or download on their blog.

Look out for a full length interview with the band later in the month as well.

Released today on the fabulous netlabel Myuzyk is the Posthuman Hilda Family remixed album.

Aside from being an active member of the Digitonal band, Josh from Posthuman has been one of our most frequent collaborators and even influences, with the classic Uncertainty of the Monkey album being a firm favourite here.

This release contains a Digitonal remix of Asha Grew Wings - our take being a dark, acid-tinged reworking of one of our favourite Postie tracks of late.

It's available on a limited edition CD direct from Myuzyk and also includes remixes by LJ Kruzer, Benge, The Village Orchestra and Shelley Parker.

There is also a free EP available to download from the site containing the originals.

You'll also find a track on the front cover disc of this month's Clash Magagzine.

Here's a selection of press quotes about the new record:

DMC Update *****
Essential Album
“If you’re only gonna treat yourself to one chilled instrumental album this year, make sure it’s this one”

The Guardian
“ ..Save Your Light for Darker Days is an album that seems eminently suited to accompanying a book, a dinner or a hangover. It is beautiful…”

Uncut Magazine ***
“Andy Dobson has been releasing ambient electronica as Digitonal for nearly a decade, but it was only when he hooked up with Egyptian violinist Sammy Bishai that his music really found its own wings…this album features 10 lengthy tracks that ….mutate into cinematic anthems featuring multi-tracked strings and majestic melodies courtesy of guest musicians Ket Arney and Jo Quail ”

Music OMH 4/5 ****
“A heavenly overture… sweeping bows and tumultuous build ups… If the bass doesn't get you then the throb of the cello will”

Plan B
“There is depth and lovliness here… an opportunity to breathe, a moment of calm amid the tumult”

Rock Sound
"a slowburning atmosheric beast… shimmering with a yearning romanticism… heartbreakingly lovely"

The Line Of Best Fit 70%
“Digitonal find that delicate balance between crystalline beats and epic orchestrations… Perfect early morning music”

Room Thirteen 8/13
“Almost too good… a strange and mysterious sound…”

VainZine - 5/5 ****
“Simply mindblowing… It's a heady fusion of ambient electronica. It's bold, fresh, mellow, emotive and the perfect soundtrack to those lazy summer days in the garden soaking up the rays”

New-Noise.Net
“A beautiful array of ambience, classical ideals, symphonic arrangements and a reworking of the electronica style that will bring new life into a scene crammed full of pretenders… this is aural pleasure par excellence. At times lush and sublime, and at others intense and enveloping”

The Skinny 4/5
“At times the arrangements echo Nick Drake’s pastoral soundscapes, and there’s the same emotional timbre to the likes of 93 Years On that made Bryter Layter such a masterpiece… Digitonal express a driving surety that lifts the listener to the skies, to float above the crass mediocrity of so much electronica…This is one of the strongest albums of the summer, and a truly powerful piece of work”

Gigwise.com
“By bridging classical composition in an experimental and cutting edge way, we’re gifted to listen to some of the most beautiful compositions that will last in memory for a long time”

Fluidnation
“Beautiful string based music fused with stunning electronica”

Teletext
“Luxurious classical music and minimalist electro beats. Like a slow-motion fireworks display”

Directed by Dave Holloway for Media Lounge.

Single 93 Years On released on August 22nd with remixes by Maps and Diagrams and Echasketch.

Album Save Your Light for Darker Days released September 8th on Just Music (note new date!).

[youtube]ErQqkl1di-A[/youtube]

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ErQqkl1di-A

The new studio album by Digitonal, Save Your Light for Darker Days, will be released by Just Music on the 1st of September.

The album, 10 tracks of widescreen, string-drenched electronica, features contributions from Joe Shrewsbury, Niko Tsnoev, Kat Arney, Josh Doherty and Joseph Aquilina and full painted cover art by our longtime friend Neil Bunn.

Tracklisting

1. Ana Kata
2. Silver Poetry
3. Wide Eyed, Wrapped in Love
4. 93 Years On
5. Nothing Left to Say
6. Emberkriess
7. A Lighter Touch
8. Gone
9. After the First Death
10. The Beating of Her Heart

We will be having our launch gig on the 3rd of September at The Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell with our former labelmate and melodic electronica guru Infinite Scale playing in support.

Listen to selected tracks
Read an early review
All about Digitonal

celebrating the launch of the new B12 album "Last Days Of Silence"

B12 [warp/b12]
The Doubtful Guest [seed/planet mu]
AGT Rave Cru
DJ John Power
Digitonal (dj set)

Sat 26th July
8pm-3am, £6 on the door
@ Ginglik, Shepherds Bush
ginglik.co.uk

myspace.com/iloveacidclub
facebook.com/group.php?gid=2401566888
flickr.com/photos/28197989@N05/sets/72157605941458716

Excellent turbosound rig
free cloakroom
pub prices all night
good food & friendly staff
Nintendo Wii & playstation on the big screens
Smoking area on the green
rave goodies provided

flyer: undergroundelectrics.com/acid/ACID-JULY-web.jpg

videos and photos @ iheartacid.com

The "classic" lineup of Samy, Andy and Callum will be guests of the Inspiral Stage at this year's Glade Festival. The UK's best dance and electronic music festival runs from the 18th - 20th of July in lush parkland in Berkshire. We will be doing an album-orientated set of beautiful cinematic electronica alongside a fantastic lineup which includes our old Toytronic labelmates Infinite Scale and many more.

Tickets are running out fast. We strongly recommend getting on it.

Secondly, we will be playing at a small and perfectly formed boutique festival in Suffolk in aid of the ABC trust. Also featuring The Bays, Hexstatic and the fabulous Echaskech, this is going to be a perfect weekend in lovely surroundings.

These are our only UK festival appearances this summer.

It's been a long time coming, but B12, the seminal UK techno act and one of our greatest influences, release their first album since Time Tourist. We mention here mostly because it's a fantastic album, but also because the Digitonal remix of Hall of Mirrors opens the album.

This remix was previously only available as a bonus download from bleep.com and we are honoured to have it included here. There is a limited edition available to buy directly from B12 records, or you can find it at most major retailers

Expect more B12 related news soon.

We have also had two new festival dates confimed.

The first is July 18th-20th at the fabulous Glade Festival as guests of the Inspiral Lounge. Possibly the biggest dance festival of the year and certainly one of the finest, we're particularly looking forward to this one as it will feature the "classic" Digitonal lineup of Andy, Samy and Callum on beats.

The second is a festival close to our heart - the fabulous Festinho on the 29th-31st of August. This will be a beautiful weekend in the countryside with some fine bands playing. There are still a few earlybird tickets at £50 left and I urge you to snap them up - this will be a marvellously chilled weekend.

Two more gigs ahead of us this month. Firstly, the Firegathering festival is THIS WEEKEND! And it's going to be a cracker. Set in beautiful farmland which is only about 40mins from London by train, our first festival of the summer includes performances by our mates Alucidnation, Octavcat and Uncharted Audio Records amongst many others. We're on at 7pm on the Saturday main stage. There are day tickets still available as well as weekend camping tickets and it's going to be a lovely weekend.

Secondly, we bring the full band back together for a very special gig at the Union Chapel alongside SonVer. It's a daytime gig so note the time (Midday kickoff!). We're on around 1pmish. In the evening, Josh and Andy will be doing their Digitonal vs Posthuman acid session for a dancier take on our brand of atmospheric electronica.

New site and more festival infos coming soon - Glade (featuring the classic Digitonal lineup reunited!), Festinho and lots of album information.

A head of steam has been building on this project for the last few months with performances at Bloc, Telephasic and Ginglik (where we were honoured to fuel their New Years Eve). This Friday we take on our most ambitious project yet: The Triumphant Return of Peepshow:

See you there - we'll have a tequila, thank you.

More soon.

Stream here: http://yuricdm.com/
Download here: http://www.mixdownloads.net (requires registration)

Tracklisting:

* B12 - Soundtrack of Space
* Future Sound of London - Ill Flower
* Alexei Zakharov - Peace 3 (X3: Reunion)
* Future Sound of London - Everyone in the world is doing something without me
* Low Profile Society - Example 10
* Vangelis - Rachel's Song
* Global Communication - 14.31
* The Black Dog - 18 4 3s 555 [Part 2]
* Yasume - Rengoku Condensed
* Mr Projectile - Underneath the Evening
* Abfahrt Hinwil - The Light
* Elegi - Despotiets Vesen
* Cliff Martinez - Wear your Seatbelt
* Bola - Pfane Pt. 1
* Posthuman - Beautiful Beast
* Miles Tilmann - Through the Tubes
* Flotel - Untitled (Norberg live)
* Michael Land - The Madness of the Crystals
* Biosphere - Warmed by the drift
* Digitonal - Antares (Yuri's mix)

DigiMixed by Andy.Digitonal for Yuri's Night, April 12th 2008.

Digtional play a live set at Yuri's Night, NASA Ame's Reseach Centre, San Francisco Bay Area on the 12th of April 2008.

http://yuricdm.com/
http://yurisnightbayarea.net/2008/
http://www.digitonal.com

Not to mention Mixmaster Morris of course who is one of the reasons I started doing doing this in the first place.

Anyway, this will be large.

20/03/2008 - 11pm-5am

FUTURE SHOCK
@ Corsica Studios, Units 4/5,
Elephant Road, London SE17 1LB

www.corsicastudios.com

Nearest Tube: Elephant & Castle

Lineup:
COLIN DALE
COLIN FAVER
MIXMASTER MORRIS
DIGITONAL vs POSTHUMAN
KONE-R
SP
JOHN POWER
EG689

Tickets: £7 adv (+bf) http://wegottickets.com/event/26271
£10 on the door

14th - 16th March: Bloc Weekender
12th April: NASA Ames Research Centre, San Francisco as part of Yuri's Night
12th May: Brighton Joogleberry as part of the Brighton Fringe
16th - 18th May: Somewhere in Sussex at The Firegathering Festival
31st May: Union Chapel, London

More coming soon!

More information on the album will be slowly released from Digitonal HQ over the next few months, and you'll have the opportunity to hear some tracks on my purple radio shows. Keep an eye on our music page as well for the new Reverbnation audio player which will have new tracks on rotation.

We will also be shortly publishing the details of the launch party and some other exciting gig and festival appearance news! In the meantime, catch us at Synergy this friday night (at 3am!!) and at the Bloc Party Weekender in March.

All at Digitonal HQ wish you all a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year. We've been working really bloody hard on the album and it is very nearly finished - we'll be able to bring you some proper news about it early in the new year all being well.

For anybody knocking around London this Friday evening and looking for something to do, Samy, Josh and Andy are doing a Digitonal live gig down at Cargo as part of the long awaited return of Red Alert. A top notch night of breaks-related fun is guaranteed with a slightly more upbeat set from us early on in the night. Full details in the live section.

Also worthy of a mention is New Year's Eve at Ginglik, featuring a full on live set from AGT Rave Cru (Josh Posthuman and Andy Digitonal). Rave and hardcore classics with some surprises from gone midnight to late in the am.

All that remains is to once again thank you all for listening and to wish you a very happy new year.

Andy and all the Digitonal crew.x

So it's basically all my fault and I'm really really sorry. All outstanding orders will be posted this week. I'm also going to take them off sale cause frankly it's more hassle than I can afford at the moment (this is what you get from working in a wilderness!).

Massive apologies to those who have been waiting. You will have them asap, I promise.

Andy.

Fragile State Compilation

It's barely covering it to say that Fragile State are one of our biggest influences. Their 2005 Big Chill set will go down for me as one of the all time classic festival sets and their brand of downtempo with touches of jazz, world and electronica remain the sound of summer for many more to come. So it's been a bit of an honour to be asked to contribute to this 3cd reissue set with a remix of Song of Departure.

It's out on October the 22nd and you can preorder it here.

Signals

Whilst we're talking remixing, there's a Digitonal remix of On/Off's One Day Machines on this very, very cool, ultra-limited edition 7" subscription series which is available now on the peerless Uncharted Audio records. A nice departure from our usual style, this is string free, has some phat breaks and even a vocoded vocal and has been very well recieved amongst the electronica cogniscenti. The rest of the series is stunning, with every release containing something special from some very big name artists in the scene indeed (like Si Begg for instance!). It is essential listening and subs are running out so go forth and pick it up.

For full details of the series and how to subscribe, click here.

Live Music

Announced this week are Digitonal live bookings at the very marvellous Drop Beats not Bombs at Birmingham's Custard Factory on November the 10th alongside the likes of Mixmaster Morris and Pete Lawrence, and our first festival booking for 2008 at Bloc Weekend alongside too big a lineup to even contemplate. We'll also hopefully be doing a pre-christmas gig at Cargo. Watch this space for details.

Hopefully see some of you at the Distillers in Hammersmith tonight (from 8pm) for the Just Music Cafe night with our stripped down lineup.

We wish Cal all the best with his pixels and hope to work with him again in the near future.

We'll be announcing some new live dates in the near future, including a return to our favourite toilet, Ginglik in November and a pre-christmas blowout, plus news of some hot remix action.

We have some new live news. Andy Digitonal will be crossing the Atlantic again in a few weeks. Originally he was going to be seeing our mates 65daysofstatic rock Madison Square Gardens but The Cure have postponed that tour and their loss is our gain as Andy will now be doing an exclusive laptop set at Share. Expect to hear some new album material and classics remixed with a New York state of mind.

In addition to this, our new home Just Music are starting a new night up at The Distillers in Hammersmith. We'll be taking to the stage on October the 18th along with acoustic act Padma.

Full details in the live section.

p.s. international orders for the sampler went out this week so if you don't have it in a few days, drop us a mail.

thanks to http://www.undergroundelectrics.com/ for the hosting:

1) Ochre - Sticklebrick Symphony
2) NumNum - Toytronic Jingle
3) Infinite Scale - InMotion
4) Abfarht Hinwil - Trilogy
5) Loess - Sixt
6) Gimmik - Backtobasics
7) Ochre - REM Sleep Research
8) Mr Projectile - Capcavernal
9) Miles Tillman - Through the tubes
10) Dude - Wave
11) NumNum - Hinum
12) Abfarht Hinwil - Radiowellen
13) Infinite Scale - Fade
14) Multiplex - All within you

mixed by andy.digitonal for purple-radio.co.uk

http://www.undergroundelectrics.com/em_pee_threes/digitonal_-_toytronic_mix.mp3

Andy Digitonal appears regularly on http://www.purple-radio.co.uk with a two hour Sunday Session of the finest in warm melodic electronica, classical and anything beautiful.

update on sampler orders - all international orders are going out tomorrow. sorry for the delays, it's been mental here.

Over the last few months, Andy Digitonal and Josh Posthuman have played a few gigs together - kind of a hybrid mixture of the two styles, with Andy providing the tunes and Josh performing his beats up against them. Totally improvised and a lot harder edged than the material normally sounds, the pair finally got around to recording a decent version of the set.

The recording was made at Andy's flat in Battersea on Saturday the 28th of July. They each had a laptop running Ableton, synced over midi, and a few controllers. The recording has been made with no edits and captures the performance completely live.

Download it here (192kbps mp3, 75Mb)

Tracklisting
1. Shining intro
2. Nothing left to say
3. Silver Poetry
4. We Three
5. A Lighter Touch
6. Amberkreiss
7. AnaKata and Maris Halcyon

In other, regrettable news, we are very sorry to have to announce that our performance at the Antiworld 070707 festival has been canceled. Whilst we're not prepared to go into the full story here, Antiworld have acted extraordinarily arrogantly and unprofessionally in their dealings with the artists and bookers and we fully support the decision made by the fantastic Folktronica to pull the stage. Apologies to anybody that was hoping to catch us.

As for the next couple of months, we're keeping it low key, with Andy doing a series of solo electronica sets as Digitonal, assisted by Josh Docherty (Posthuman/Snapmouth) on beat duties. Confirmed dates are:

June 7th - Brixton Ritzy, London
June 30th - Shepherds Bush Ginglik, London
July 7th - Antiworld 070707 Festival, Hampshire.

We've updated the live section with the details.

June will also see the release of a Digitonal remix of B12's classic Hall of Mirrors, as part of the relaunch of the seminal B12 records label. The album recording is continuing apace and we'll be chatting more about that soon.

Since we like making things even more difficult for ourselves, we've also got some new Digitonal tshirts done, thanks to the awesome illustration skills of Lord Bunn. There are only 50 of these pressed and they are ultra, ultra limited and won't be pressed again. Watch this space for availability but give me a few days to sort it out.

Here's a sneak peek of what they look like:

Kat and Andy will be doing a set of new and improvised ambience for harp, clarinet and electronics. Thanks to Ginny for sorting this one out. See you there.x

Running times for the night:

8pm - DJ Power Sherlock
9pm - Feedle live (with visuals by Tim Medlo)
10pm - Digitonal vs Medlo: The Shining, Remixed and Rescored
11.15pm - Medlo AV set plus more from the Sherlock.
12.30 - close.

We hope to see you there for a night of snowbound terror. All together now: "heeeeeeere's Johnny!".

More infos at the Roxy

Saturday 28th April
Digitonal and Medlo present:
The Shining: Remixed and Rescored
plus Feedle vs The Media Lounge live
Media Lounge AV Set
DJ Power Sherlock.

8pm - 12.30am
£4 on the door.

The Roxy Bar and Screen.
128-132 Borough High Street,
London. SW1.
Transport: London Bridge/Borough

We have just about recovered from the tour. Reports, photos and suchlike things will appear forthwith. Massive thanks are due to The Bays for literally everything - they have been a band that we have respected, been influenced by and learnt from for almost the entire duration of this project and to be given this opportunity was an honour. There are few bands I've come across with so much integrity and willingness to try things out and we sincerely thank them for taking us out on the road with them. Thanks also to Ricky, AJ and John Metcalfe for their good company and patience, to Michael Page for his work at the Zodiac, the various local crews and promoters and of course, those that came out to see us. Finally thanks to Kat Arney for being the only girl on the bus and being a level head.

For some time now, there has been machinations in the background of Digitonal and the time has finally come that we can reveal what's been going on. We are very pleased to announce that Digitonal has a new home at Just Music having just signed a new deal with the label. Just is the home of Jon Hopkins, Laroca, Echasketch and Leo Abrahams amongst others, and we're greatly looking forward to working with them.

First in the priority list is our long awaited album. Recording starts in earnest on this next week and, although it may be some months until it sees light of day, we'll be posting tidbits along the way. We will be taking a bit of a break from live performance as a band, although Andy will still be throwing the odd laptop set here and there (for instance, June the 7th at The Ritzy), basically until we have something new to say and the album is safely tucked up in bed. There are also some other things in the pipeline, including a 4-way remix with Dollboy, Animat and Sonver and hopefully another rescoring project.

As ideas become plans we'll post them here and don't forget to keep an eye out on Andy's blog for his personal ruminations.

Thanks to all, as always, for your continued support. It's been a rocky few months for the band, but we're feeling positive about the year to come and are looking forward to getting our teeth stuck into it all.

The rest of the tour is still going ahead (I write this backstage at The Junction, waiting to soundcheck). We will keep you posted, and massive apologies for anyone that was planning to catch us in Manchester.

In the meantime, we have news of the resurrection of an old favourite, Andy's rescore of The Shining. The media-lounge driven cutup and rescore of Kubrick's classic tale of snowbound terror will be getting a special on-off screening at the fabulous Roxy Bar and Screen in London on the 28th of April. Also on the bill will be an exclusive media lounge AV set and a rare London appearence from the mysterious Feedle.

Details here.

Tomorrow we leave to tour for 5 days. We have good news and bad news. The good is that it's happening at all, given the current climate and if the Oxford gig on Saturday is anything to go by, The Bays are on blistering form at the moment and will be unmissable.

The bad news is that due to some transport nightmares, we won't have much in the way of cds and tshirts to sell. Which is gutting becuase Lord Bunn of 65daysofstatic fame, has designed us a frankly beautiful t-shirt for this tour and we have a very limited edition run of them in blue and tan for sale for 15 notes a piece. We're working on how we can at least take a few with us so come and ask. Failing that, we'll stick them up on the website as soon as we get back.

Keep an eye on Andy's Blog for a rough as nadgers tour diary. Kat's blog will also have the odd report i'm sure.

Please note that the rest of the tour dates are still going ahead!

Apologies to all who were going to come and see us. We're really gutted.

Koko Lineup in full
Whilst we're here actually, I should give a better plug for the Koko date of the tour which is shaping up to be a stunner. The full lineup for the London leg may have got lost in translation, and for some reason, the Koko website doesn't list it...This is not to be missed though. I very much doubt that you will find a better lineup of beautiful, live electronica outside fields in Eastnor this year. The even starts at 2.45pm and goes through till late. AND Plaid are playing their all time top 100 records in the bar which means that we're almost certain to hear some Redcell and that is worth 20 notes alone ;op. God I love Redcell. If I hear anything else about timings etc I'll post it up next week. I will also be keeping in touch during the tour on my personal blog so keep an eye on it.

You can listen in on these links:

please note change of URLS due to technical problems

Winamp/JetAudio/Windows Media Player etc

itunes:

1. open up iTunes
2. press apple + U ("open stream")
3. paste http://88.111.173.144:8010/ in the box

The show will go out monthly from 10pm-midnight from this weekend. Watch this space for more information.

playlist archived here

We went to Prague last week and had possibly one of our best ever gigs. Massive thanks to Michal and his better half, Ales, Jacob, Josef and everybody that came and supported us. It was quite stunning the reception we got and we were really grateful for the opportunity to bring the whole band out to Ceska. We'll hopefully make another trip out there when the album is done.

A couple of things on the horizon for next week. Firstly, we are doing a short laptop set over at the Big Chill House on the 8th, alongside proper sets from Echasketch and Laroca, with Jon Hopkins and Honeyroot on DJ duties.

Secondly, on the 10th we're playing a full band set at Cargo, supporting Subsource, The Qemists and DJs Saffrolla and Shorty, plus a further set from DMC finalist Mr Thing.

Callum is busy pushing pixels for both those dates so we've recruited Josh from Posthuman as a ringer.

More news on the album coming soon. Things have been moving slowly, but it's shaping up.

Apologies to all still awaiting copies of the sampler, especially overseas - there have been delays and it's all my fault. I'm going to do my best to get them out tomorrow am.

After much speculation, we can now confirm our first proper English tour as guests of The Bays. We'll be sharing the stage with the legendary improvising electronic group and the fantastic John Metcalfe who we played with at Bestival last year. The two Sundays of the tour give way to a pair of fantastic all-dayers in London and Brighton with a fantastic lineup which includes Max Richter, Plaid, AMBA, Jon Hopkins and many more. Full listings are in the live section with more details still to come.

March

31: Oxford Zodiac (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal AJ +Guest DJ)

April

01: London Koko (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal Max Richter Jon Hopkins Tom Middleton Mixmaster Morris Plaid AJ Nick Luscombe Pete Lawrence Max Sedgely Ben Eshmade Jimpster + Palmskin)
03: Cambridge The Junction (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal AJ)
04: Bristol Trinity (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal AJ)
05: Exeter Phoenix (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal AJ)
06: Gateshead The Sage (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal AJ)
07: Manchester Sankey Soap (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal AJ + Guest DJ)
08: Brighton Audio (The Bays John Metcalfe Digitonal Max Richter Jon Hopkins Tom Middleton and more)

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.

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.

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

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!

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!

*excited* doesn't even begin to cover it.

A couple of other things...Brittle Behaviour, the Cactus Island comp which contains new track Antares has been put back until January now. We'll make an announcement as soon as it's ready.

I (Andy) will be playing the clarinet in the Arctic Circle Orchestra next Friday as part of the Artic Circle Xmas Carol Concert. Since it's the first time i've played in an orchestra in about 14 years, this could get interesting. You can point and laugh at Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Road, Shepherd’s Bush, London W12 7LJ on Friday the 1st of December from 7.30 till 11pm.

That's all for now. Don't forget that Andy and Cal are in Brixton next Thursday night for some laptoppery, alongside the excellent Posthuman, LJ Kruzer and Infinite Scale. Kick your silly season off in style!

In short, what happened was that our host experienced an attack on its database server which wiped out loads of db tables, including all those that our backend system uses.

I'm going to spend today trawling through the google cache and trying to restore the missing content, but some of it may be gone forever...Sorry about that! Let this be a lesson to all - backup your site EVERY week...

Anyway, some more news to come later today...(edit: did I say today...I meant this week. gotta wait until it's all official like).

Full details can be found in the live section of our site and it's free to boot! See you there for what will be our last gig of the year.

Work on the album continues apace and it's looking good that our first proper tour is coming together for next Spring which we're very excited about. More on all of that very, very soon, along with a little Christmas treat which we're keeping dead quiet about for now.

You Tube linky.

This Saturday, as if you need reminding, is Soviet - The Seed Records big autumn party featuring sets from Kenny Larkin, Phil Hartnoll, British Murder Boys, B12, most of the Seed crew and many, many more. The media lounge are running the cinema again and may be convinced to run The Shining again...we'll see. Either way, we'll see you under the bassbins.

Apologies if you're still waiting for your sampler cd - I've got another batch ready to go out today...

Andy.x

We'll do our best to get it posted off to you asap. If you experience any problems, please email us at the usual address.

Futhermore, in the spirit of trying to make our stuff more available, you'll also find The Centre Cannot Hold EP available through the Seed Records Ebay shop for the bargin price of £3.99.

Our myspace page has had a design overhaul as well so if you haven't done so already, add us up!

The compilation is the 3rd in the Intelligent Toys series and includes a brand new track from us, St Lucius Waits, alongside such luminaries as Bauri, Maps and Diagrams, Lackluster, Manual, Ochre and Tim Koch. It's top notch and well worth the 123Mb it sizes up as.

Forthcoming from us is another brand new track dropping on a Cactus Island compilation, available on cd in November. More on that soon, although you can get a sneak preview of the tune on the following mix.

I did a nice little mix for Chill FM which was played out as part of Pete Lawrence's show yesterday. Since i'm secretly quite pleased with it and I didn't have the opportunity to plug it, I thought i'd upload it to the site. You'll find it on the music page for your downloading pleasure.

Apologies that we still haven't sorted the sampler cds. They are coming - we're just having some issues with Paypal. A resolution is on the horizon...

I'd also like to give a very special mention to our long time friend Anna Phillips who went above and beyond the call of duty to deliver Samy to the Isle of Wight last weekend, getting him on stage right as the set was starting. Thank you Anna, we genuinely couldn't have done that set without you and we know how much you put yourself out to do that.

We are now taking a bit of a break to record our new album. We know its been a long time coming, but we've wanted it to be just right and we're now in absolutely the right place to deliver a corker. I'll be trying to update my personal blog a bit more in the coming weeks with info on how things are progressing, and some select snippets and bits as they get recorded. All should hopefully be finished by the end of the year. We'll also have the sampler cds up for sale in the next few days, and an announcement about a Digitonal-curated evening in South London this winter.

That aside, enjoy the last warm days before the leaves fall away, and once again, thank you for making the summer for us!

Can we just make it absolutely clear that these cds are not rare. We've produced about 1000 of them. A certain amount are being used for promotional use and the rest are being sold at gigs etc. Whilst they won't be available in the shops, we are going to try to make them available through our website soon. Apologies for the time this is taking - we've been seriously busy lately with our festivals etc and are barely taking the time to breathe at the moment. Once we're back from Bestival, we'll sort it out, I promise!

In the meantime, if you're attending Bestival and want a cd, then come and grab one of us after the set and we'll sort you out for a few quid.

And please, don't bid on these. The only rare Digitonal stuff is the In Silence EP, the original O2 cds and the live at Norberg 5x5 CD...everything else should be readily available.

Please let us know if you're having difficulty finding anything you want. We really want people to get hold of our music and want you to pay a fair price!

Speaking of Bestival, only a few days to go now and we're seriously excited about our set. We will be full strength, although Kirsty can't make it now. We're going to be doing a hybrid of our Big Chill set, alongside some new electronica stuff and an couple of old favourites from the first album. We're on at 3.30am on Friday night/Saturday morning (depending on how your bodyclock works) in the Rizla Blueroom Pavillion as guests of the wonderful Bays who are playing earlier in the evening. The Saturday night in the blueroom pavillion is frankly ridiculous as well - Ulrich Schnauss, Mum, Amorphous Androgenous, The Black Dog, Claro Intellecto and Gescom's Rob Hall!! WOW!

In other news, you can listen to the Big Chill Radio 1 One World Special here all week. It's way cool. There's also a lovely review of our Big Chill set over on the big chill website.

We couldn't have done it without the following:

Kat, Jo and Kirsty for their fantastic performances which have finally enabled us to be the band we wanted to be.

Michael for his sterling engineering and helping us to sound like what's in our heads.

James, Warren, Charlie and all the Big Chill technical, stage management and artist liason team. It's a privilage to be looked after by such a professional team and enables us to be musicians again. I really cannot emphasise enough how important these guys were...they took the complexity of our setup in their stride and were never anything less than brilliant.

Scott for his help on the drum-tech side of things for Cal and for being generally a star.

Ted and Squirrel for the morning bacon sandwiches and tea.

Katherine, Dave, Woody, Ricky, Mark, Anna, the purple people and all our friends who supported us, entertained us and got on one with us.

Ally for his kind words of introduction and for playing Plaid's Rakimou just before we went on stage...chilled me right out that did and gave us the bar to aim for.

The Vasilkie boys for being a laugh and providing a beer stop in the Village Green.

Pete Lawrence, Tom Sweet, Suzi Green and all at Big Chill central for continuing to support us and treat us like we're headliners. We appreciate it more than one can imagine.

Echasketch, Laroca, the frighteningly amazing John Metcalfe, Jon Hopkins, Sundaze, Tom Greenwood, Psapp, Whoever it was playing Abfaht Hinwil on the main stage one afternoon, Tunng, Bussetti, Nicole Willis, Longrange, Plaid and many, many more for soundtracking the best Big Chill we've ever attended. Long may it lie in the sunshine drinking cocktails.

And in 3 weeks time we do it all over again at ABC and Bestival. See you there!

Setlist for the Big Chill was:

1. Intro/Ana Kata
2. Silver Poetry
3. 93 Years On
4. Untitled for Harp
5. Come and Play
6. Leaving Alpha
7. Orange
8. Maris Stella/Halcyon

Sadly we couldn't record it for contractual reasons, but there will be some video posted soon. The sampler CD was available for sale - don't worry if you didn't get the chance to pick it up...we've got loads and will be offering them up on the website very soon (literally building the shop as I type).

We regretfully have to announce that the Foundation Festival has now been cancelled due to licensing issues. We're really gutted about this cause it was looking great, and it was lovely to see a major event have such a great committment to electronica. We're hoping to do something else with the Nvelope guys that put the lineup together soon and will let you know as ideas become plans. The eagle eyed amongst you may spot that our Bestival set is going to be at 3.30 in the early hours of the Saturday...we hope you've got stamina...

I'd also like to take this opportunity to announce that we have produced a sampler cd which we will make available for a low price at the festivals, at gigs and, eventually, through this site. It's a look back over the past 4 years of Digitonal, including album and ep tracks, remixes and an exclusive new track to introduce new people to what we're up to. It's been produced in conjunction with Vasilkie, makers of fine handmade belts, with a cover illustration by Lord Bunn who co-created the Centre Cannot Hold cover. Look out for it at all our future gigs:

Full tracklisting over at the releases page.

We have been busy in the studio recently and have completed a couple of new tunes, and a remix for David Bickley which will be appearing soon. Check out David's new album, Still Rivers at Night cause it's lush...

We've also had confirmation of our slot at The Big Chill. It'll be at 6.50pm on the Saturday evening of the festival, on the brand new outdoor Sanctuary Stage which sounds like it's going to be the very definition of lush.

This, alongside someone on the ninjaboard giving his album away and current contractual wranglings for a side project of mine, has got me thinking about the value of music, and whether what we attain too cheap we really do esteem too lightly. What is the intrinsic value of music? I know exactly what it costs to make this band run and it's a hell of a lot more than what we scrape back from our recordings, tours and the very little bit of licensing we've done (see front page for the latest). Shouldn't at the very least we be compensated for our efforts? Or is this selling out?

I've given away quite a bit of music over the years, over the net, on cd-r and to labels and compilations where I know I won't make any money back. One thing that i've always felt is that people seem to value the properly produced stuff more than they do the cd-r or the mp3 download. The latter becomes disposable - people assume that they can replace it easily so they listen and discard. They're also more likely to not place any monetary value on it which makes it hard for labels to sell. The other thing is that I think a lot of people actually regard internet/cdr/self-releases as being somehow less professional than a proper release and that the band themselves may therefore not be a 'proper' band.

Electronica is, obviously, full of self-producers. I just wonder how many of them are really valued by the record buying public. The last I heard of most indie electronica labels, not too well...

Just a thought...

Things to do: upload some more photos. upload the 02 album artwork which i've had for months and haven't gotten around to posting it. Finish my David Bickley remix...more on that soon.

Oh, and I know I promised more on A Silver Mount Zion. That post is going to have to wait but suffice to say that they are my new favourite band and that "this is our punk rock..." is just about the most perfect album i've ever heard and is everything that I want to achieve in music.

To mark this most auspicious occaision, i'm pleased to announce that Digitonal have had a late booking for Bestival this year, as guests of The Bays. The Bays are a band that we have long admired and have served as the template for our brand of live electronic music so we're dead happy to have been invited to share their stage. You'll find us on the Friday night. More details when we get them.

Whilst i'm here, can I also sneak in a plug to say that Andy will be playing records in the Big Chill Bar next Sunday, 11th June from around 7.50pm.

Next stop, Big Chill! We're hoping to announce a pre-chill warm up date with Kirsty, as well as another major festival appearance, and full details of The Foundation Festival which we'll be putting something together for. We are also going to release a new track exclusively for free download as part of a sutemos compilation, coming out soon. Watch this space!

We've got the live section kind of sorted, and added the latest information to it, which includes a Dublin date for Andy, and full details of this month's Arovane support slot. Whilst we're pretty sure that most visitors to this site will know Arovane well, if you haven't come across his work, we strongly recommend you wander over to arovane.de and check him out. We're proper excited to be sharing a bill with one of our influences.

We'll hopefully have a new track available soon courtesy of Sutemos and some other tidbits as well.

Samy and Cal should also have their blogs up over the next few days which we're sure will make for interesting reading.

The compilation also features tracks by Jon Hopkins, Tom Greenwood, Dollboy, Animat, Andreas Vollenweider and Sebastian Tellier and is available at all good record shops (probably in the chill out section of the dance compilations), online at Townsend Records, or directly from The Big Chill. You can read some reviews here.

Incidentally, Dollboy have also done a superb remix of Seraphim which will hopefully be made available in one form or another soon.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. This has mostly been due to the rebuild of the site that has been going on. Although it won't look visually much different, we've got a new blog-style backend system in place which will mean that updates are much easier.

Other new things are W3C XHTML standards compliancy which might not mean much to anyone, but it's a badge of pride for Andy who actually builds these things for a living. We've also added a personal blogs section. At the moment, you can view Andy's which has been migrated over from our myspace page. We'll hopefully add new blogs from the rest of the band as time goes on.

Please let us know if there are any other bugs or problems with the site. It's been a bit of a rush to get everything done this week and we haven't had time to test it thoroughly!

Bank Holiday Monday, 1st May

Andy will be behind the laptop-shaped decks for this afternoon of excellent music. More live info next week.

BAKEDBEATS
@ Shillibeers, London.
2pm until 10.30pm (sunday closing innit!)

the artists in alphabetical order:

Alucidnation
Animat
hopkin green frog (bastard love spawn of belleruche and sunday driver)
Boomclick Soundsystem
Bussetti - minus 2
Digitonal - DJ set
Gary Dunne
Sanchita Farruque
The Shadow Orchestra - Laptop set
The Fantastic Laura B

Djs: Mr Black, Kai vs Stricky

all this incredible talent under one roof, yes it's mind boggling!
Plus: Good food - Kids Area - Booze Promotions!