Time changes everything — especially when time is slowed down. And that is the modus operandi on Bob Downes‘s album Episodes at 4 am, recently released by the Paradigm label (stalk.net/paradigm). The experiments heard on Episodes date from a period in recording-technology history when sound was measured not in kbps (kilobytes per second) but ips (inches per second) — that is, the era of tape recording. Writes Downes in the liner note: “Around 1970 I bought a 2 track Revox A77 tape recorder and 2 Calrec microphones (as the latter were known at that time). I soon discovered there were many ways to use this tape recorder. For example: Sound on sound and the use of echo in various ways or recording at 15 ips and then play back at half speed.”
The resulting audio tracks are dreamy, trippy extensions of the familiar, recorded moments stretched to emphasize stereoscopic activity and the waveforms inherent in the sounds themselves. He’s made one track, “Marimba Electronic” (MP3), available for free download as a sample of the full album. Other instruments that serve as source material on Episodes include gong, zither, dulcimer and the instrument with which Downes is most closely associated, the flute — as a veteran of the John Barry Seven, and leader of the group Open Music, whose membership has included Barre Philips (Yoko Ono, Eric Dolphy), Chris Spedding (John Cale, Jerry Harrison) and Kenny Wheeler (Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey), among others. He also composed music for the mime troupe Mummenschanz. More info on Downes at bobdownesmusic.de.
In an exciting development, the record label Boltfish has begun to produce its own netlabel. That is, a “proper” label with some three dozen releases to its credit since 2004 has recently released music intended for free download, and that MP3 is no anomaly; it’s described at the label’s website, 
The Poland-born musician Bogdan Raczynski fits right in on the Rephlex label — run by musician Aphex Twin — where he’s the house prankster in a house of pranksters. His songs have a brevity and goofiness that makes them stand apart. And his music often includes a tenderness that elevates the work well above mere goofiness. Using simple, Casio-style tones and rudimentary, four-four beats, his records can sound like a throwback, some sorta old-school video-game backing sounds — even when he adds modern-day elements like breakcore beats and jungle madness. But in fact, there’s a lot more melodic development at work than the glimmery surfaces might suggest.