Compendium – Old Apparatus

Too Much Pink Floyd

The long story is how I stumbled into this “album,” as I’m unsure of what it is, exactly. Ambient? Trance? Loosely labeled as “Dark Electronica,” but frankly, I don’t get that.

Compendium – Old Apparatus

This CD was playing when I wandered, quite literally, into a CD/music store near downtown Seattle. Strange place, one of the “under going gentrification” neighborhoods, be my guess, a little old school, a little urban decay, just part of a wandering miscellany from my ancillary travels.

I poked around in the CD bins, the place was clean, but haphazard, like, maybe there was a pet cat in the store. There seemed to be a limited system of musical taxonomy with the sorting and filing system; although, to be direct, there was an obvious love of music by the owner/operator, the sole proprietor behind the counter.

This was the audio background, and the man behind the counter, around my age, around my build, perhaps two shades thinner, maybe, he was sitting on a stool and poking at something on computer’s screen, he sized me up, answered when I quizzed about the taxonomy, and then offered to sell me the CD that was playing.

I bought it. Paid full retail, didn’t even try to negotiate a deal. Sure, it had been opened, but it seemed like a limited edition, and it was a rarity, to my mind. Something odd about the sound track.

More odd, the longer I listened to it. When I got home, ripped it onto the iTunes, then played it through the computer’s (detached) speakers. Ambient, background, sort of a “found objects” of sound. Some vocal, some musical, more an arrangement or composition instead of a traditional “album.”

Glad I bought it. Turned out to be quite delicious.

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