Bjooks Celebrates 909 Day With Shipment of BEAT GEMS: Drum Machines in Modern Music
Bjooks is celebrating 909 Day with a “major milestone for drum machine lovers”: physical copies of BEAT GEMS: Drum Machines in Modern Music will begin shipping this month.
The celebration also includes an early look at the book’s TR-909 feature for PATCH & TWEAK CLUB members, as well as new online content exploring the people and machines behind electronic music.
BEAT GEMS Starts Shipping
Written by electronic instrument historian Oli Freke, BEAT GEMS: Drum Machines in Modern Music is a 336-page journey through six decades of drum machines, rhythm boxes, and grooveboxes, from early home-organ accompaniment to the machines that ultimately shaped hip-hop, house, techno, and modand modern electronic music.
Appropriately for 909 Day, the Roland TR-909 appears on the cover, while the book opens with a foreword born from a conversation with Detroit techno pioneer and drum machine virtuoso Jeff Mills. Throughout the book, readers can explore around 100 rhythm machines and the artists, engineers, and ideas that transformed these boxes into instruments capable of defining entire genres.
The TR-909 occupies a particularly important place in that history. Released in 1983 as the successor to the TR-808, its combination of analog synthesis and digital samples helped create a distinctive rhythmic vocabulary that became inseparable from house and techno. Like the 808 before it, the 909 would ultimately transcend its original purpose to become one of the defining instruments of electronic music.
Electronic music and synth enthusiasts are also invited to join PATCH & TWEAK CLUB to access the feature and discover more exclusive content celebrating the machines, techniques, and people behind electronic music.
The 909 Day celebration also arrives as Bjooks completes another deep dive into electronic music culture. All three parts of Capturing the Invisible: A Conversation with Robin Rimbaud/Scanner are now available to explore on PATCH & TWEAK.
The three-part series follows the pioneering British electronic artist through a wide-ranging conversation about sound, technology, experimentation, and a creative career built around finding music in unexpected places, continuing PATCH & TWEAK’s mission of documenting electronic music through the artists who continually push its boundaries.
For more information, visit the Patch & Tweak website.
