"In 2004 and 2005 Tod Dockstader and I created two albums of electronic music/musique concrete, the first of which was based on frog and toad sonorities, the second which was a mangling of some of our favorite film soundtracks. Following these efforts I proposed a third project in which we might deconstruct well known classical music pieces. Unfortunately at that time Tod's health was beginning to decline, and whether due to that fact or an artistic hesitance on his part, it did not come to be. The present collection represents my attempt to resurrect the concept.

Halfway through this project I remembered Lucas Foss's 1967 "Baroque Variations" which I had acquired on Nonesuch LP in 1971. My memory of the liner notes has always been his saying that he had a dream where the notes of a Bach composition were washing in and out like waves at the beach - not entirely accurate, but close enough, and it inspired my continued pursuit of this direction. Foss's subtitle for the Bach section of his suite was "Phorion" (Greek for "stolen goods") and I confess to being a thief of perhaps even a greater degree than he."-David Lee Myers, Pulsewidth

"While playing this new release by David Lee Myers, deconstructing the music of Johan Sebastian Bach, I am thinking about Bach and deconstruction. That might seem a regular thing, right, but here is what to consider: does that deconstruction require any knowledge of Bach's music? And what do I know about Bach? Not a lot, other than his music is very mathematical. I don't know if Myers is a fan of Bach or if the fact that Lucas Foss did an LP in 1967, Baroque Variations, was enough to get him going. The only bit of Bach I recognized is the opening of 'Fullness Of Wind' which starts with opening notes of the 'Toccata And Fugue In D Minor' (one of those signature classical tunes that I assume everybody knows, perhaps not by name; I only had to look up how to spell it), which he effectively stretches out, repeats and mangles.

He applies This process in all nine pieces on this album, but not to pieces that sound familiar. Now that made me think, how relevant is the fact that these are Bach's pieces? The more interesting question is, why was it released as Arcane Device and not by David Lee Myers? Then it would have sounded even more 'classical', an interpretation. And, to what extent does Myers apply techniques from Arcane Device in this deconstruction? Is there some kind of feedback system in play here? I don't know, but it sounds like something else here. Think sampling and computer-based processing, for instance, stretching, looping, and mangling classical sources, rather than Myers playing Bach in a more traditional meaning of 'playing'. I would have never thought that Arcae Device would do a record that can be labelled as 'plunderphonics', but why not? And at that, he does a great job of doing that. Classical fragments still shimmer through here, but electronics dominate the record. Playful music that, for all I know, doesn't have much to do with mathematics; or Bach. I don't think I would have known it was Bach's music and probably would only have frowned upon that toccata thing. As such, it's a strange concept, but also: whatever, the music is great."-Frans de Waard

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." -Pablo Picasso