The Overnightscape Underground

Check out a preview of Pocket Overnightscape

For the 10th anniversary of the show, I wanted to create a new collection of the complete archive of The Overnightscape Underground. Currently with nearly six month of audio and 5,000 tracks, organized into 97 Lots, and totaling over 200 GB, the main archive on Archive.org is an awesome permanent record, but a bit difficult to navigate.

So, I set out to create a new, compact version of the archive, containing the exact same set of audio. The result is Pocket Overnightscape. And while I still need to work on the guide and the introductory audio, you can preview the main part of Pocket Overnightscape at the above link. The page is a simple file browser with very basic audio playing abilities – so really only appropriate for a preview.

Pocket Overnightscape uses a new “patch” format, which is 12 to 24 hours of audio in a single file, with 20 hours being the target length. It uses the lo-fi MP3 audio format, so each patch is around 200 MB.

The set is organized into 8 channels, each channel containing between 21 and 41 patches, for a total of 225 patches.

So, a listener need only choose a channel, and then choose a patch from that channel to listen to. Patches are similar in length to a longer audiobook. Each track has a computer voice intro and outro, to orient the listener by sound alone.

Most audio players support a function of keeping track of where you last left off listening, to make it easier to listen to a patch over time.

Pocket Overnightscape is 42.4 GB, and can easily fit on a 64 GB flash drive, which currently sell at retail for around $30.

Like a book or a movie, Pocket Overnightscape is a static work. Any audio additions will be done as supplements or a completely new edition. It was a huge personal effort, taking a massive amount of time and energy, but in the end, I think it was worth it.

I will be releasing it to Archive.org in the next few weeks. And I am hoping to produce a limited series of flash drives containing Pocket Overnightscape.

If you want to download some patches, the file browser does have that functionality, or you can browse directly here:
pocket.overnightscape.com/Pocket_Overnightscape/

Note: The name “Pocket Overnightscape” was previously used for the Lo-fi Archive – but now it is exclusively being used for this release. The code name for this project during development was “Overnightscape Tavern”.