Cyrnai - To Subtle-Drive

Cyrnai - To Subtle-DriveA reissue of the 4th full length from Carolyn Fok Cyrnai, an Asian American female solo artist from the Bay Area. Carolyn's adventures in sound began with recording stories on a tape recorder at age 9 in 1976. A short time later, exploring the scattering of musical instruments and effects units her father left lying around the family home. She became especially fascinated by his TEAC reel to reel recorder that set off a lifelong fascination with sound

A reissue of the 4th full-length from Carolyn Fok / Cyrnai, an Asian-American female solo artist from the Bay Area. Carolyn's adventures in sound began with recording stories on a tape recorder at age 9 in 1976. A short time later, exploring the scattering of musical instruments and effects units her father left lying around the family home. She became especially fascinated by his TEAC reel-to-reel recorder that set off a lifelong fascination with sound design. By the age of 16 Carolyn had become inspired by industrial electronic act Cabaret Voltaire, as well as anarcho-punks Crass. Creating the stage name Cyrnai, a rearranging alphabet of Carolyn Fok, she played in several Bay Area bands including Treason, A State Of Mind, Trial and Rhythm & Noise between 1983 and 1991. By 1988 Carolyn's recording gear had many changes and upgrades, from cassette 4-tracks, 8-track reel-to-reel 1/2 inch, a TASCAM 388 to DAT, to floppy disk sampling. She spent three to four nights a week developing sequences for 14 hours from 10pm onwards. Samples would sometimes begin on a Synclavier keyboard with it's sophisticated sequencing capabilities. Her fourth album, 'To Subtle-Drive', was self-released in 1988 as 8 untitled songs spread across a 30-minute cassette. Then in 1989 Carolyn discovered the first Digidesign digital recording software and changed the project to have more ethnic sounds and samples stemming from tapes collected during a trip to Egypt. In 1990 'To Subtle-Drive' was re-released with 2 songs from the 1988 release and 4 new compositions. This reissue adds 5 bonus tracks recorded during the same period spread across a double LP set. Each copy includes a double sided insert with lyrics, photos and notes by Carolyn. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. "Old-soul beat tracks on cassette with time and techno-guilotine songs."