Flow State - FM3
Flow State recommends instrumental albums from an interesting artist every weekday. To support our work and unlock extra features, become a subscriber: Good morning. Today we’re listening to FM3, a duo consisting of pianist Zhang Jian and producer Christiaan Virant. They paired up in Beijing in 1999, collecting samples of traditional instruments like the sheng (mouth organ) and matouqin (two-string fiddle).¹ Inspired by audio-looping speakers found in gift shops of temples, they set out to manufacture handheld “Buddha Machines” that would play samples of those instruments on repeat. They produced five such machines, of which the first edition was just reissued as is available for sale in five colors. We’re playing the LPs that loop the recordings made for the first two devices, though music from all five is available on streaming services. Buddha Machine 1 - FM3 (40m, no vocals) Buddha Machine 2 - FM3 (40m, no vocals) We wish you a great start to your week.
1 The Wire. Thanks to Marc Weidenbaum for surfacing this personal history in his newsletter This Week in Sound.
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