This anthology collates every completed yet otherwise unreleased track written by K.Lubiszewski and myself while ilkae was a two-person collaboration.
10 of these 16 tracks have remained unreleased for well over 10 years.
I swear, we wrote more than just loops.
I had assumed that my archival work was over with the release of 'incidental guilt jazz' in 2011. However, for reasons unknown, I omitted our 2002 EP on Monotonik as well as the 3 tracks present on Neferiu Records' debut compilation. NEF001 along with MERCK002 were both crucial for establishing a link between demoscene musicians and the nascent North American IDM scene.
The final prompt to compile this collection was the recent rediscovery of the source files I had used for my first live appearance, which was part of the Safety in Numbers music festival in NYC, October of 2000.
Of the unreleased material, some dates back as far as 1998: the year that ilkae began as a collaboration via internet relay chat. I have done my best to present these without modifying the original XM files. We were really big about 8bit 8386hz samples back then. An archive serves no purpose when subjected to revisionist inclinations.