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Unlocking The Secret Codes

by Nonlocal Variable and Hal McGee

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chrisn23
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chrisn23 This one was quite enjoyable because of the soothing, drone-y tones provided by the artists. Favorite track: Unlocking The Secret Codes Part 1.
Kestrel Sky
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JYG-autiste
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kiyotei
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Henry Denander
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Phillip Klingler
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KAZUYA ISHIGAMI
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VisioncreationnewSon
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Pedja Kovacevic
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Nonlocal Variable
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Rafael González
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Hal McGee
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1.
Unlocking The Secret Codes Part 1 29:12
2.
Unlocking The Secret Codes Part 2 32:11

about

a collaboration
Visual artist Nonlocal Variable’s electronic sounds from the early 1980s mixed together with Hal McGee’s dictaphone recordings from June 2025. We offer these recordings with love and joy to you, our listeners. You complete the audio art by attentive listening!

Nonlocal Variable is a visual artist from the Pacific Northwest, part of the Cascadia Mail Art Alliance. Between 1975-77, he hosted live Avant Garde “new” music, often using tape loops running across a room between two reel-to-reel tape recorders. In the early ‘80s, he fooled around with instruments for personal pleasure. Playing stopped, and NLV focused on corresponding artists in the DIY cassette culture – which led him to join the Fluxus/Mail Art community. Decades later, the only recorded music left was a cassette of random electronic noodling on a 1981 Casiotone VL-TONE-VL-1 portable synthesizer, recorded on a Revox B-77 reel-to-reel recorder. He was inspired by Hal McGee’s latest electronic psychogeographic collaborations and thought it would be cool to see what they could put together.

From June 24th through 30th 2025 Hal McGee collected more than 120 recordings on two Sony ICD PX-470 stereo digital dictaphones in Gainesville, Florida: the sounds of his daily life including his dog Stanley, neighbors and family members, and spoken words; as well as electronic sounds made with his Casio VL-Tone that he bought in 1983, Casio CT-S200 RD, circuit bent Casio SK-1, Stylophone CPM DS-2 analog synthesizer, and KQ Unotone and John Cage Prepared Piano iPhone apps
— with the participation of Kestrel Sky, who played the Borderlands Granular iPad app in an impromptu jam with Hal on KQ Unotone in Ben’s car after lunch at Metro Diner.

On June 30th Hal mixed together Nonlocal Variable’s Casiotone recordings along with his own dictaphone recordings played back in random shuffle mode and created an audio assemblage blending together sounds from many different times and locations.

credits

released July 2, 2025

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