Audiophiles/sound collagists/espionage fanatics, rejoice! The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations is being reissued by Irdial-Discs, this time expanded to five discs from four. It also comes with an 80-page booklet and four postcards.

A little refresher on what, exactly the Conet Project is all about:

For more than 45 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the world's intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of “Numbers Stations”. Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a "one time pad" is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is. One might think that these espionage activities should have wound down considerably since the official "end of the cold war", but nothing could be further from the truth. Numbers Stations (and by inference, spies) are as busy as ever.

Following its initial release in 1997, the Conet Project gained fame when a sample from it (a woman saying "yankee... hotel... foxtrot") appeared in the Wilco song "Poor Places", inspiring the name of the Wilco album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Irdial-Discs subsequently sued Wilco for copyright infringement, and won.

Irdial-Discs is seeking pledges to bring the reissue into completion, through Pledgemusic. The first 231 people to pledge money will have their names printed in a booklet that accompanies the reissue.