When Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin and I interviewed Throbbing Gristle in Los Angeles, during the sound-check we were talking to Charlie Poulet, TG’s brilliant sound engineer. There was an insanely trippy song coming over the PA system and I asked him what it was. “Oh, THAT. That is a Buddha Machine—ever hear of one?”

A Buddha Machine is a little plastic box that resembles a cheap transistor radio. It has a built-in speaker and runs continuous tape loops of chanting or soothing, natural, trippy, etc, sounds. They are hipster remakes of the Tibetan prayer loop boxes (they’re ubiquitous all over China) and are manufactured by a company called FM3.

Charlie was running several of them at once to create the amazing sound-scape going on in the background as we spoke. A little while later, Chris Carter hinted that soon TG would be announcing a “special musical project” that involved no CD or MP3s whatsoever. I suspected at the time he was hazily describing something similar to a Buddha Machine. TG-stylee and I was right. Check it out!

The Gristleism box features:

Thirteen original TG loops: a mix of experimental noise, industrial drone, and classic melodies and rhythms.

Built-in 50mm speaker, volume control, pitch-shift control and loop selector switch.

Features more loops and almost twice the frequency range of the original Buddha Machines.

The device is powered by two AA batteries and was designed by Throbbing Gristle and FM3’s Christiaan Virant.

I have to get one of these! Order yours here.

Thank you Gord Fynes!

It would be cooler if they followed FM3’s lead and made the sounds available for download.  Not only would it be good for previewing the box before purchasing, but also it make clear that people are allowed to use the devices for sound performances and other artistic endeavors.

I purchased two Buddha boxes after hearing the clips.

i ordered the special edition boxed set and i CAN NOT WAIT to get those little beauties in my hands.
i also have 3 buddha machines that i enjoy quite a bit. the only negative i’ve noticed is that it seems like the TG boxes don’t have a headphone jack. not a big deal, but that’s a nice feature of the BMs for nerds like me who want to run them through other machines.
then again, maybe they DO have em and it’s just not being mentioned. either way, i’m excited beyond measure.

christiaan here from buddha/gristleism… we should have sound clips on the gristleism site in the next few days!

Beautiful. I just ordered a red badged one. Can’t wait!
And according to the website they do not have audio out jacks.

I’m going to have to buy one.

  Shame about the lack of audio jacks, but re-amping can only add to the sound. TG isn’t about pristine sound quality.

One could always install a headphone jack.