20 x 20 = 65 MP3s

In his always timely monthly update, Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) mentions the following free download, to which he contributed: “Tune your URL to godxiliary.com and download the massive .zip file of a year long project, where 20 songs were built and destroyed by 20 musicians, so it’s been a constant recycling of each other.” The website provides a grid visualization of the musicians’ participation, and though the exact meaning of the coordinates isn’t immediately apparent, there are 65 tracks total, consisting of between two and six variations on 20 original tracks. For example, there are five versions of a track listed as number 15: initially 30 seconds of vibrant sparkling and plucking (courtesy of unscrew); then a downtempo edit by deceptikon, stretching the original to three times its length; then, thanks to jerohme spye, a more blippy, upbeat rendition; then a randomized take by serocell that leaves little of the original; and finally a 15-second held tone by michL bridge, the project’s most prolific participant. Bridge, unlike the rest of the musicians, uses the files’ tag fields to comment on all his entries. That edit of track 15 is described as “15 seconds of love.” The zip file (archived at scene.org) includes all 65 tracks, plus four different playlists, sorting the files chronologically, reverse-chronologically, numerically and reverse-numerically.