Blake's Crystal Machine?

[Craig Shipley]

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From:   Max Wilcox[SMTP:s333271 at STUDENT.UQ.EDU.AU]
Sent:   Sunday, March 30, 1997 7:28 AM
To:     Multiple recipients of list BOC-L
Subject:        HW: Blake's Crystal Machine?

Hi All...

        Right... I'll come straight to the point, rather than rambling on and
on, and not to actually come to the actual purpose of this post  until
several paragraphs down... er yes...
        What is a crystal machine? Everyone goes on about "Tim Blake's famed
crystal machine" in the 79/80 period - what the heck is it? I think it's
some kind of percussion instrument, but know not the details. It can't
be a bike, also, because it's not silver...

"Crystal Machine" was the name Tim gave himself for the performances that he
performed with Patrice Warrener (Crystal Machine projectors and Spectra Phusics (sic)
164 Argon laser. There was no "Crystal Machine" synthesizer that he performed on.
Only the first release had any reference to "CM", nope, wait a minute! There, on the front
cover of "New Jerusalem", on what appears to be the top (?) of the mixing  board (?) the
lights spell out CRYSTAL 256 MACHINE. Warrener does get credit for "electromagnetic
radiation" but that is it.

One of the photos of Blake in the "New Jerusalem" release shows his custom EMS synths
with what appears to be a row of small crystal balls across the top. Maybe this was the
famed "crystal machine", who knows...

obCDPlayer: Tim Blake / New Jerusalem (well, I did dig it out for reference and it was
just sitting there and...)

Craig Shipley
craigs at pyramid.com