Studio Chapter 4: Circle IX

Circle IX was the second name the Studio went by in its long history. Whereas the previous name, Quintessential Disco-Quest, was used just for the recording period of Mune Mud's 1992 album Underwater Problem Factory, Circle IX (C9) was used for two years and covered the release of several albums. The albums released under the Circle IX label were:

Mune Mud Pryme Material [September 7, 1993]
NueroMorgue Devis Tortura [December 14, 1993]
NueroMorgue E. Phantasmata [April 5, 1994]
Mune Mud Mune Mud re-release [August 2, 1994]
Mune Mud Devaulted [August 2, 1994]
Binary Pipedream Binary Pipedream [September 6, 1994]
NueroMud ...Libra 971 [October 18, 1994]

The name itself comes from Dante's Divine Comedy. There are nine circles in the story, the Studio was named after the ninth one.

There were two phases to Circle IX. After Underwater Problem Factory was released, recording soon began on the next album. The Studio didn't really use the QDQ name any more. On May 19, 1993, the Studio was taken apart in preparation for a large amount of new equipment that had been ordered. The equipment arrived and from June 7 to June 10 it was rebuilt from the ground up. But this new version of the Studio had a new element, MIDI. Now the sequencer could be programmed to play back the sounds from the sound module and drum machine. This was a real break-through for the Studio and this is when the Studio actually took on the name Circle IX Studio.

The first song recorded following the Underwater Problem Factory sessions was "Palace" (which appeared on the 1993 NueroMorgue album Devis Tortura) on October 21, 1992, and the last song recorded was the original "Albino Boy" song on November 4, 1994.

After the "Albino Boy" song was recorded, the Studio was slowly dismantled to be moved to its new location. A couple of months later, on January 28, 2005, everything was taken out of C9 and delivered to the new studio. It was the end of an era... but the beginning of another.

This period of the Studio's history lasted from October 1992 to November 1994.