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Mannequin

NORTON, DORIS - Artificial Intelligence

"Mannequin Records concludes its trilogy of reissues from the avant-garde Italian-born producer Doris Norton with Artificial Intelligence (1985). Apple's first music "endorsement" (Norton was also later a consultant for IBM) and early Roland affiliate, Doris Norton is one of the most important women pioneer in the use of synths and in the early electro/computer music. While the beat-oriented style of Norton's music aligns her with such global fellow-travelers as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk, her championing of the personal computer as a tool for self-sufficient musical creativity also connects her to musicians such as Pietro Grossi, Laurie Spiegel, and the League of Automatic Music Composers. Norton's predilection for the bright, glossy timbres of early digital instruments also recalls Hubert Bognermayr and Harald Zuschrader's bizarre Erdenklang (1982). A year on from Personal Computer (MNQ 120LP, 2018), Norton released Artificial Intelligence in 1985, setting a step up in her deep electronic music research and innovation.

"The whole album was composed and programmed only with the alphanumerical keyboard of the computer. The total of the notes and coded events takes to the number 124,648: of these 123,827 were coded with 'step time' procedure and the rest with real-time procedure. Having reduced the keyboard, Norton used only a hexaphonic JX.8P with memory processed by her and interfaced to the computer. No drums were used, neither electronic nor much less acoustic. All the rhythms were obtained by A.D.A. conversions and processing of wave ranges with the use of expanders with a very special handling of envelopes, frequency, resonance, and noise. Doris Norton fed the computer the parameters of vowels and consonants of her own voice, like A, O, U, E, D, and N, through an A.D.A conversion card. By processing these values and assembling them in phonemes in hundreds of different combination, at various compressed resolutions she was able to make the computer sing a complete song in a totally human way (with the voice of Doris). Many other synth sounds resulting from A.D.A. conversions are present in Artificial Intelligence, amongst these: pipe organ, plate, electric discharge, iron beat, birds, dog, harp, and woods, all sampled and handled by the computer. Artificial Intelligence is a perfect example of how human intelligence can bend the coded 'artificial intelligence' to its own will." --ComputerMusik, 1985." - Mannequin.
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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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