Threads (New LP)

Label: Dais Records

The saga of composer Tim Story's 1982 debut is a case study in the shifting sands of the early progressive music industry. Recorded on a Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel in his basement bedroom in Whitehouse, Ohio using a ragtag array of equipment – salvaged vibraphone, pawn shop Les Paul, his mother's spinet piano, a PAiA synth kit assembled by his girlfriend's father, and a Yamaha CS-30 – Story optimistically dubbed six cassettes and sent them around the world. Following a polite rejection from Klaus Schulze, the French avant-garde label Atem (This Heat, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd) reached out with an offer to release Threads via their new instrumental electronic subdivision, Labyrinthes. After several letters confirming terms of the arrangement as well as multiple rounds of test pressings, correspondence suddenly ceased. Some months later the label folded, never having begun.