51�Թ�

I put the computer on as a tape machine, press record, play for an hour, then stop and listen to what I’ve got.

Although ABC’s studio could be rebuilt from original plans, the devices — walkie-talkies, phones, tape machines, all state-of-the-art technology then — couldn’t be replicated if they were to be used accurately onscreen.

Burnett told me he captured the session on a restored Nagra tape machine as well as a digital recorder.

“Negativland” buzzes with a distorted twang created by Plank manually phasing two recordings of Dinger playing the shamisen, a Japanese banjo, standing between two tape machines and slowing down one tape and then the other.

“I didn’t realize I was making an album and there was something about the tape machine that kept me honest.”