THE LATEST NEWS:

6 November 2024 - Granby Land Trust Art Show selects Michael Bentley photo! I am pleased to announce that I have had a photograph accepted for the Granby Land Trust Art Show, a juried exhibition at the Lost Acres Vineyard in North Granby! Please join us for the Opening Reception tomorrow (November 7th), but if you cannot make that the show will be running at the vineyard tasting room through December 8th. Grab a glass of wine and enjoy the art!

1 November 2024 - Michael Bentley's Scottish Journies on display in East Greenbush NY.  I was invited to join painters Bob Blackmon and my father Bill Bentley to show work at the East Greenbush Community Library (10 Community Way, East Greenbush, NY 12061) this month. The show runs from November 1 to 30, and if you are in the area please join us for the Opening Reception this coming Sunday (November 3rd) from 2 to 4 pm. My wife Susan and I will be playing some Scottish and Irish tunes as well!

18 October 2024 - Michael Bentley and the Granby Artists Open Studio this weekend! I have been working hard to present new work at this year's GAA Open Studios, along with a few of my past prints and projects as well.  I, along with three of my GAA compatriots (Pam Jones, Don Shaw, and Bill Bentley) will be located in Cook Hall on the North Campus of the Granby Congregational Church, 219 N Granby Rd, Granby, CT 06035. There will be lots to look at and talk about, so please come on out and see what I have been up to this year!

7 June 2024 - Granby Artists All-Members Show is up! I will be presenting three pieces in this Granby Artists group show. The show will run from June 7 to July 7 at Lost Acres Winery in North Granby.

5 March 2024 - New photos on display! I've gone public, public library that is. I am part of the Granby Artists Association group show on display at the Simsbury Public Library through the end of March (well, the 29th). I have three photos on display in the FSPL Room on the lower level of the building. Check out that room and the display case in the hall for the complete show!

19 January 2024 - Charles Browning show You Gorgeous Thing opens in NYC! Foundry associate Charles Browning will have a solo show in Manhattan at 14bc Gallery opening tonight, January 19, 5-9pm! You Gorgeous Thing features recent work alongside a few older pieces and can be seen for the next two weeks. 14bcgallery is located at 626 E. 14th Street NYC.

13 January 2024 -Michael Bentley joins the Granby Artists Association! I am pleased to announce that I have been accepted in the Granby Artists Association following a portfolio review of the photographic work. This seems like a positive step in meeting other creative folks in the area, and giving myself some strucvture within which to develop my photographic work. Looking forward to participating the GAA's shows and events through the year!

18 September 2023 - A new release in honor of a friend. My long time friend Kirsty Fitch passed away last month, and I've been thinking about her regularly these past few weeks. Kirsty enjoyed a chat, and our chats were often centered around music, whether it was recommendations for new bands, or pondering the history of a Child Ballad. So I'd like to share some music on her birthday. The small collection of tracks linked below are recordings I made almost 30 years ago, during a time when I was caring for my mother at the end of her life. Music was an outlet that allowed me to lose myself in a bit of creativity, which was really helpful in that dark time. Kirsty was so helpful in pointing me towards printed sources for tunes, and often sent me lyrics and sheet music that I was having a hard time finding. I talked with her regularly as I worked on this project, and it certainly would not have been the same without her help. I remembered these recordings at some point after I got the news of Kirsty's death, and while these are far from perfect finished tracks, I thought they would be worth sharing as a way of remembering Kirsty on her birthday. Thank you my friend, the music goes ever on. The Salt Box EP

1 October 2022 - The Foundry is on the Move! After many years living in the San Francisco Bay Area, my wife and I are leaving California. While we will miss our familiar surroundings and friends, a new adventure awaits us in the Off World colonies, er, New England.

4 December 2020 - Two CDs added to Merch page on Bandcamp! As part of our prep for Bandcamp's final fee-waiving Friday of 2020, I have added two CDs to our merch page. First of all, 2006's wonderful CD Invisibility, the work of Forrest Fang and Carl Weingarten, has been added. And secondly, I found a few copies of the original Fällt issue of Import, and have posted those as well. Additionally, the complete Foundry digital discography (excluding Invisibility) is available for 50% off. Visit the Foundry Bandcamp page for all the releases and information.

6 November 2020 - Photographic cards added to our Bandcamp shop! Greeting cards featuring the photographs of Michael Bentley/Blithely Meance have been added to The Foundry Bandcamp shop. Each card is blank inside and printed on heavy stock, and every card comes with it's own envelope. There are five different sets, each centered around a different theme. The Bay Area Views Series can be found here; the Artists Choice Series can be found here; the Scottish Views Series can be found here; the Tintype Series can be found here; and the Gothic Views Series can be found here. These cards were originally produced for a special event, and there are limited quantities.

30 October 2020 - St. Michael Oubliette video posted! This meditation in honour of All-Saints revolves around Archangel Michael, and includes concepts of renewal, growth and evolution. This video was created for the Uninvited Guest performance at the Pt. Reyes Dance Palace, which took place on the 1st of November 2003. You can find the video, with both visuals and audio from Michael Bentley on Youtube.

3 July 2020 - Rhomb's Lost Horizon's compilation released! Lost Horizons gathers Rhomb tracks that never made it to an album or have become quite difficult to find. This album includes three previously unreleased recordings, as well as remixed and remastered versions of tracks originally issued on compilations. The work here spans the early cassette releases, and carries on through the Hidden Topographies and Mote sessions, including work that was slated to be part of Rhomb’s follow-up to Mote. You can find the digital-only collection at our Bandcamp site here.

3 July 2020 - Michael Bentley's Miscellany released! The Foundry Archival series rumbles on with this collection of Michael Bentley's early Foundry work. Some tracks on Miscellany are drawn from the long out-of-print compilation Eclectronica, some from incredibly rare Foundry cassette releases, while others are previously unreleased in any form. The Previously released work benfits from a ground-up remixing and remastering, and the unreleased work was also mixed and mastered specially for this release. You can find Miscellany at our Bandcamp site here.

3 July 2020 - The Port Klang EP released! This EP gathers the handful of completed pieces for what was to be the soundtrack for an unpublished novel. The story was firmly planted in magical realism, a kind of travelogue through a present that never was. The EP gives a taste of another "lost" project, as well as providing some listening pleasure. You can find the digital EP at our Bandcamp site here.

3 July 2020 - Double A-sided single released! In an unexpected twist, the next release in the Archival series is a double A-sided single featuring two songs! Yes, that's right, songs! Charles Browning's The Wheel and Michael Bentley's Lucifer's Song suggest one of the many unexplored paths The Foundry might have taken.You can find the digital single at our Bandcamp site here.

28 June 2020 - Four new releases from the Archival Series coming next week! Four new digital only Archival releases will release July 3rd. The albums and single will focus on work from the early period of The Foundry, including recordings made prior to the first CD releases in 1997. All releases will be appearing at the Bandcamp site here.

5 June 2020 - The Apiary's long lost album A.D. released! "Even now, despite the passing of years, it is difficult to write about this project. Among other things, there’s too much to say, and it is hard to know where to start." So begins the liner notes for this Foundry archival release, A.D., the long lost second album from The Apiary. Never finished, with elements put to tape more than two decades ago, this release brings together all the material Michael Bentley recorded, along with extensive liner notes and photos included in your purchase as a downloadable PDF. The 23 tracks cover the original acoustic sessions, as well as the later electro-acoustic sessions. The material is personal and engrossing, spanning different styles and moods. A.D. is a fascinating statement from an artist who has demonstrated an abundance of ideas over his many releases, and here reveals hitherto unknown aspects of his work to great effect. A.D can be found at the Bandcamp site here.

1 May 2020 - Expanded editions of three Foundry albums ​released digitally! As part of the ongoing Archival Series, The Foundry has released expanded editions of three albums, including previously unreleased and hard-to-find material. All The Stars Burning Bright now includes two tracks originally released on limited edition compilations, you can find this expanded edition here. eM’s first album Greater Than Zero, Less Than One now includes five remixed tracks, including the one minute version of On that appeared on MIT Press' Computer Music Journal compilation. This expanded edition can be found here. And all of Mollusk’s work has now been gathered on the expanded edition of Accretions, which now boasts 20 tracks and includes everything originally released via the short-lived Mollusk website. Accretions + (The Complete Mollusk) can be found here. All three albums have new artwork as well!

1 May 2020 - Broken Moments EP ​released! Recorded and posted under the pseudonym eM, Broken Moments is a suite of short pieces that revolves around sounds created by malfunctions and/or errors in the digital recording process, and was composed specifically for .tiln sound works (a sort of proto online label) in 2000. These tracks were available via their website for a year or two after issue, but have been unavailable since. Re-issued via the Foundry Bandcamp page... find the EP here.

1 May 2020 - 2003 - A Foundry Mix ​released! This massive two-hour Foundry mix was commissioned by Maer Ben-Yisrael (Dub Beautiful) for use in their Field Of Drones venue at the 2003 OM Festival in Ontario, Canada. The mix includes tracks from a number of Foundry releases up through early 2003, including the work of Seofon, Jonathan Hughes, Dean Santomieri, Rhomb, Mollusk, The Apiary, and eM/M. Bentley. Available as a free (name your own price) download via the Foundry Bandcamp page... find the album here.

25 April 2020 - Apologies for the long sience! Everytime I think I have sorted out the website, something else comes along... I realize nothing I've posted over the last 18 months seems to be there any longer. The behind-the-scenes issues seem to be resolved now, so I hope updates will be more regular from here on out. Lots of activity of late, lockdown having given me the opportunity to work on reissuing some archival material from the early days of The Foundry... stay tuned!

13 October 2018 - Archai is officially released! Please visit the Foundry Bandcamp site for samples and further information. As stated before, this release is available as a digital download, a limited edition CD and postcard set, or a limited run CD. In addition to the full album, as part of your purchase you will have access to exclusive videos that Michael created for two of the Archai tracks. Go forth and listen!

26 September 2018 - Michael's new album can now be pre-ordered via the Foundry Bandcamp site here! Archai can be pre-ordered as a digital download, a limited edition CD and postcard set, or a limited run CD. Prints of several of the postcards can also be purchased via the Archai page.

15 August 2018 - A Thousand Glistening Snail Trails released! This download-only album features six mixes which evolved from Michael's DJing appearances between 2000 and 2004. The tracks, which are explorations of Michael's musical inspirations, re-contextualize material from various artists into new aural narratives, employing a form of layering somewhere between straight-up DJing and audio cut-up. Featuring work from artists as diverse as John Cage, Surgeon, The Residents, Ryoji Ikeda, and Duke Ellington with John Coltrane, these mixes are available as a free download for a limited time via the Foundry Bandcamp site.

13 August 2018 - Video release for Night's Silver Egg! Ahead of the release of the album Archai, artist Michael Bentley today releases the video for the album track Night's Silver Egg. A kind of lunar meditation in sound and image, Night's Silver Egg can be found on Michael's Vimeo page.

23 July 2018 - Bertram's Room video posted! The long lost video for Bertram's Room has been recovered and posted! Issued under his pseudonym eM, Michael created the audio piece Bertram's Room for the No Compression Festival compilation in 2001, and then presented this video at the festival venue in Syracuse NY immediately after his live performance. You can watch the video online here, and find out a bit more about the piece as well.

10 June 2018 - Foundry Archival material upcoming! Foundry founder Michael Bentley has been spending some time combing through discs, hard drives, and file folders in search of several lost and lesser known projects. Expect news shortly about audio and video additions to these Foundry pages!

8 March 2018 - Michael's new album Archai is entering the final stages of production, look for news on pre-ordering and other details shortly!

22 February 2018 - The audio mastering for Michael Bentley's new album has been finished!

1 January 2018 - Happy New Year, here's to a happy and healthy year for us all!