Recent crime-solving video games like L.A. Noire have seen grand success with their intricate story-lines and highly detailed, modern graphics. Electro rocker Polinski, aka the side-project of 65daysofstatic frontman Paul Wolinski, hasn’t forgotten the granddaddies of games like that, though, and with his new video for “Stitches” (featuring Big Black Delta), he’s crafted them one incredible homage.

Forgoing all the bells and whistles of current technology, Polinski, along with director/writer Caspar Newbolt and director/animator Josiah Newbolt (some relation), gives us an old-school text adventure detective story. Murdered dames, trippy visions, and ominous clues surround Detective Polinski as self-typing texts scrolls through an engaging mystery. Mostly stationary graphics outline the story as it’s played out by a man, presumably Wolinski himself, seen only in the reflection of an antiquated tube TV set. See the remarkably engrossing video below or over at Cluster 1.

Having already stated the 70s and 80s sci-fi influence on his upcoming debut, Polinski’s early video game theme might be logically foreseeable, but no less bad-ass. Be sure to check out our previous taste of that effort, Labryinths, in the form of the album track “Tangents”. The record is out stateside November 7th via Monotreme Records.

Labyrinths Tracklist:
01. 1985-Quest
02. Stitches
03. Tangents
04. Still Looking
05. Like Fireflies
06. Kressyda
07. Awaltzoflight

Ah, the solo project – you could say it’s like moving out of your family home for the first time. Or if you’re Paul Wolinski of British electronic post-rock band 65daysofstatic, you might say it’s more like exploring unknown reaches of the galaxy on the U.S.S. Enterprise. That’s the sort of direction he takes it with his new solo endeavor Polinski (see what he did there?). We’ve got a taste of that space exploration with the premiere of a cut from his upcoming debut, Labyrinths.

On “Tangents”, you’ll hear what it’s like when Wolinski steps out from behind his band and in front of a laptop, an army of synths, and a childhood fantasy to become Polinski. “This is basically an album I daydreamed of writing back when I was 15 and just learning how to program MIDI,” Wolinski says. Furious synth distortion and stout, determined beats pound out songs inspired by “a steady diet of 70s and 80s sci-fi movies and endless second hand paperbacks from the golden era of sci-fi publishing.” In “Tangents” especially, there are qualities that could help score one intense spaceship launch or alien encounter scene. Check it out it below.

Labyrinths is out November 7th from Monotreme Records (or, perhaps more fittingly, Halloween for our European readers). A trailer for the release, with segments of all the tracks, is below. Further on you’ll see the complete tracklist.

Labyrinths Tracklist:
01. 1985-Quest
02. Stitches
03. Tangents
04. Still Looking
05. Like Fireflies
06. Kressyda
07. Awaltzoflight

That might not have been a night-driving hallucination, my friend; You might’ve just caught a snippet of a number station. Dating back to at least World War I, people have reported hearing short, repeated, mysterious messages and/or music samples popping up between longwave radio station signals. Though never officially confirmed by any government, it is generally believed that number stations are encoded signals sent to undercover operatives by their homelands.

The theory follows that short-wave radio signals are simple to broadcast, and the externally random occurrence on frequencies unused by commercial radio would be nearly impossible to pinpoint or predict. The signals, short in length (to avoid locating the source) and mysterious in substance (like any good cipher), would be decoded by the listener with the appropriate codebook.

But, it wasn’t only spooks that heard these signals. Radio hobbyists and amateurs would occasionally pick them up, and, intrigued, search around, hoping to catch that strange, eerie lightning in the bottle again. The ones that get located enough times wind up with nicknames, fans. One superfan, Akin Fernandez, even put put together a compilation of number station recordings, called The Conet Project, which is available for free on Irdial Discs‘ website.

Famous number stations featured in the Conet Project include The Lincolnshire Poacher (named for the few bars of the famous folk song of the same name that ushers in each message), Atención (which is thought to originate from Cuba), and Magnetic Fields (which incorporated blasts of music by French electronic composer Jean Michel Jarre).

While The Conet Project is an awesome bit of found-sound music, some prominent musician/number station fans have used the recordings in their own work. The best known fan may be Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy. 2001′s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was named for a slice of “Phonetic Alphabet: Nato” in which a monotonous female voice with an English accent repeats those three letters of the phonetic alphabet. A sample was even used in one of the album’s lonelier, denser tracks, “Poor Places”.

Boards of Canada used number station recordings for their stuttering, rocket-fueled “Gyroscope”. Scottish indie rock group We Were Promised Jetpacks sample pieces of number station audio for “A Half Built House”. The purest form of this, though, would have to be instrumental math rockers 65daysofstatic‘s remix of The Lincolnshire Poacher.

The age of radio may be over, but the mystery of number stations is perfectly encapsulated in The Conet Project, digitized and reusable for the modern era of musicians…who can then make their music mysterious. Spies from Moscow to Havana probably love Wilco, and never would have had the inkling without Fernandez’s hard work.

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Audio Archaeology is a presentation of Media Potluck and Consequence of Sound.

The final result is a CD/DVD combo aptly titled Escape From New York. The CD comes in at 10 tracks and 45 minutes and is a great representation of their unique blend of electronic and live drumming. The DVD shot by Casper Newbolt is an entertaining look at the seven week long North American tour that consisted of 50+ shows.

Although the combo has been available in the UK since earlier this year, it’s just now getting a stateside release via Monotreme Records. The quartet is currently in the studio writing their 4th album which is the follow up to The Destruction of Small Ideas which was released in 2007.

Be sure to take a listen to “Retreat! Retreat!” before you run out to pick up the release which is available now.

Check Out:
“Retreat! Retreat!”

Escape From New York Track list:
01. Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here
02. No Use Crying Over (Some Techno)
03. Retreat! Retreat!
04. Await Rescue
05. Fix The Sky A Little
06. 65 Doesn’t Understand You
07. Primer
08. Radio Protector
09. Four Score And (Some Drum’N'Bass)
10. A Failsafe

65daysofstatic 2009 Tour Dates:
08/28 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival
08/29 – Reading, UK @ Reading Festival
09/10 – Brighton, UK @ Digital
09/11 – Isle of Wight, UK @ Bestival
09/25 – Mouscron, BE @ Netto
09/26 – Hasselt, BE @ Muziekodroom
11/17 – Manchester, UK @ Academy 2
11/18 – London, UK @ Heaven

The title of this EP is probably the most applicable album name I have heard in some time now. After the first listen, that is exactly the mental picture I got, a vast dance interwoven in old industrial Europe’s architecture. The two versions of “Dance Party” that were recorded only seemed to share the common name of the original track on the previous album. They feel more like separate entities almost to the point of being new tracks, not re-mixes.

The last two tracks listened to back-to-back play like the soundtrack to a slasher movie. “Goodbye 2007″ plays as the intro building to a climax. The opening notes even resemble the “Halloween” theme. The low tones and fast tearing beats are intertwined with slow suspenseful breaks as you wait for the quick pace to resume. The action rolls right into the last track, “Antique Hyper Mall”. With no song break and a similar theme, it feels like one long song with the bittersweet ending that always leads to a sequel.

The EP is a slightly new direction for the instrumental post-rock band who is used to a more guitar driven sound, but also offers up a welcome introduction into a new possible direction for the band. Its good to hear a band can make a slight deviation and still create quality music.

Check Out:
“Goodbye 2007″