A Tachyon history...

Roots: The Auricle Music cassette label (formerly Dark Star, and various other names) was born as a hobby in the early 1980s, as an independent outlet for our own music (brothers Alan & Steve Freeman) and our various projects (including Alto Stratus and ZBB). A full history of all this is available on the Auricle Archive "Rarities" CD-Rom. At this time we got mentions in Sounds, Interchange, The Mix and a special feature on Inkey$ presented by Peter Harrison.

We previously duplicated cassettes ourselves, one at the time, but this wasn't practical if we were to do anything serious. We decided to make use of Colin Potter's ICR cassette duplication service (as also used by the Mirage label and United Dairies). This was the only way to produce quality releases on virtually no budget and, as his service was been so consistent and reliable, we still used Colin's duplication services well into the early 2000s.

Before Auricle and Tachyon we were Dark Star, and this was
a prototype web-site type program on the Sinclair Spectrum

Tachyon Studio: "Tachyon" became the name of our home studio, after recording the album of same name, which we believed to be our finest definitive creation. A tachyon was defined in the dictionary as "a hypothetical elementary particle capable of travelling faster than the velocity of light" but nowadays scientists claim to have proved its existence. You'll often find it mentioned in Star Trek! Such scientific theory, particle physics, sci-fi, the plausible, implausible, and the comparable sonic exploration of our own music, all meant "Tachyon" would be a name that stuck!

left: our synths set-up circa 1985, right: relics of the past, lost forever!

Diversions: Albums by friends, local talents, and other musicians soon followed. The focus of Auricle has been on making available music we personally like, promoting new talent (we introduced the world to Peter Frohmader, Robert Rich, Djam Karet, Tangle Edge, Ole Højer Hansen, Courtyard Moth and others) and unearthed classic lost albums by the likes of Günter Schickert and Asmus Tietchens.
There's become a kind of focus to what Auricle is about: music that is adventurous, different, challenging... or, just because we like it! Auricle's bounds run from synth through psychedelic rock, from classical avant-garde through to ???

Publications: In parallel to this, we also established Audion Magazine as a vehicle for promoting such music, originally billed as the "New-Music Magazine" covering the world of Eurorock, progressive, Krautrock, psychedelic, synth, avant-garde, etc.
As of January 2002 (after almost 16 years) there are 45 issues of Audion Magazine, as well as a few specialist publications, and the mammoth Krautrock encyclopedia "The Crack In The Cosmic Egg". It all adds up to Audion Publications being a world revered source for information on progressive and experimental musics.

Ultima Thule: In 1989 we established a proper mail-order business. Auricle was adopted as Ultima Thule's cassette label, but it took a bit of a back-seat for a while, as we got Ultima Thule running, with releases during the 1990's becoming increasingly few and far between.
But now, with advances in studio and digital technology (and that cassettes don't sell so well these days) Auricle Music moved on to releasing CDR products, produced in-house on a professional M-Tech CDR multi-copy machine. This means high quality productions in the CD format, at an excellent budget price. Thus, we've had a very busy phase of reissues and new releases, plus the Auricle Archive 12 CDR set.
Going back a bit, 1999 saw Ultima Thule take up CD production proper, establishing two labels: Ultima Thule and Ultimate Transmissions. Basically, Ultima Thule is the general production label, which will co-produce, license, and act as co-ordinator for a wide-range of projects. Ultimate Transmissions is for the more bizarre musics, largely focused on the Leicester scene, with reissues from the Auricle catalogue, new projects from Ultima Thule's Alan & Steven Freeman, and friends, etc. More recently we established the Cosmic Egg label which will concentrate on Krautrock material.

Rebirth: Because of an increasingly heavy work-schedule only an odd few items were recorded (circa 1989-97) whilst the equipment lay idle, everything covered in polythene. Later, after a move from the increasingly noisy Highfields area of Leicester to the calm of Knighton Fields, my (Alan) activity in Shapeshifter (recording backing-tracks for solo live stints) started to get the Tachyon Studio working as an active creative workplace again. Subsequently, with leaving Shapeshifter, the Endgame project, rebirth of Alto Stratus, other projects like The Newt Hounds, solo works, and use as a mastering studio, etc., all means the Tachyon studio is now a busy hub of activity!

Page under construction: I intend on expanding this little history further.