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Great Find, Sad Story (with a happy ending): That is Torley Wong in a nutshell. I found the Torley’s final release on archive.org last fall. It is massive by archive.org standards: 230 tracks, over 16 hours of music included in the release appropriately titled, The Final Selection.

I’ll let Torley continue the story:

Learning to let go is a difficult thing, and actually letting go can be even harder. There is only so much tension that can build up in someone before an unhealthy type of self-destruction, that lethal kind of implosion from within that crushes the spirit and breaks a person, happens: I prefer it not to come to that and have opted for an overwhelming catharsis instead. I want to release a great deal of what has been built up, to cleanse myself of past trauma, and to be able to walk on into the future with brighter, more open eyes — and a smile reflecting the happiness inside.

For over two decades of my life, I had aspired to be a successful composer of music, primarily electronic and TECHNOlogical in nature, hence my favorite term “techno music”. With that mechanical sensibility has always come a human responsibility, however, and it carried me far until all that ended for me in May of 2004 when I was struck down by hyperacusis and my ears no longer worked as they could or should or would. That career was left behind like a city in flames, with me taking on a new existence in the online world of Second Life as “Torley Torgeson”, and subsequently, as my daughter “Torley Jr.” from a future timeline. (To be continued…) But every so often, I was tempted to see if the figurative fires had actually incinerated everything permanently or if there was anything, anything left at all…I started blowing off the pixeldust and digging through the data, and came up with no less than 230 FULL tracks that I had mixed and mastered before my ears went bad, provided for you in the ever-popular MP3 format for your luxurious convenience. Download and play…

I read that, listened to a few of the tunes and I was hooked. As he mentions in the release notes for Final Selection, he has joined Second Life and is now living life as “a cyberpunk princess, picotech advocate, Technomusicologist-in-training, and much much more. Autistic. Mostly Asian-Avatarian, 2X, reasonably tall. A bit bratty and snarky, but ultimately a friendly explorer in search of new experiences. I like to do crazy stuff with my awesome friends on here! Specialties: making conversation, wearing neon clothes, fly real bad. An honorable partygirl, analytical yet casual….”

The material that he has posted to archive.org is a testament to the quality of the two decades he devoted to his music. I wish him well with the next stage of his life.

Torley Wong-Girlzilla (3:36)

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