James Shain
Easily would fit into the late 80s, early 90s Minimal Ambient scene with slow melodies, and sparse sounds, but never feeling like it needs anything more than it gives.
Favorite track: Lover's Pond.
Packaged in a black or white windowed paperstock jacket, bearing custom text sticker work (in English) and a 4x5" hand-cut glossy photographic print insert, with an in-house duplicated/printed white 5" recordable disc, bearing text information (in Hylian).
Includes unlimited streaming of Improvisations For Hylian Piano & Woodwinds
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
I don't often mention how deeply my creative life is connected to video games, but every now and again it becomes a more relevant aspect of my recordings. Having recently finished the newest installment in the Zelda series - Breath Of The Wild - and logging around 300 hours in it, all told, I felt once again that I could actually stand in Hyrule Field and hear the birdsong, while rays of sunshine slowly dappled across the grass. The ages-old odyssey was beginning again...a hero, a villain, a princess, a castle and a sword...all existing in some imperceptible recursive loop. Breath Of The Wild is easily in the top ranks of my favorite Zelda games now, right next to Ocarina Of Time and Wind Waker. I've pulled influence from these games before, on the two guitar-centric splits I recorded with Millipede, but never until now have I addressed the shadow cast on my work as Milieu.
While I was playing Breath Of The Wild, I'd take breaks to build patches and write sequences on my recently acquired Korg Minilogue polyphonic analog synthesizer, and while the two never overlapped once, Hyrule and Link's adventures were constantly fresh in my mind as I tinkered away on this sweet voiced machine. If it sounds a bit ridiculous, my wife could tell you herself - for about 2 months, the Korg sat in our living room, occasionally propped on the sidearm of our sofa with my Zoom digital recorder and some headphones. So, that is what these pieces are, plus or minus some careful DAW editing and post-processing to fill them out, but no overdubs and no other instruments were used.
Arranging these recordings for this release now, a few other influences the material recalls are worth mentioning: Basil Pouledouris' landmark score for Conan The Barbarian, Roedelius' Selbstportrait albums, the ever-present SAW II, Johann Sebastian Bach (particularly his partitas) and probably also my Eufloria soundtracking from years back. I'm not certain how apparent any of these things are, but they are all very dear to me, and it's nice to occasionally notice them bubbling up to the surfaces of my improvisations.
I'm planning a second volume of Hylian Improvisations, just as soon as I get a Korg Monologue and start building my own microtonal scales. Those green fields, dusty deserts, wind-swept cliffs and molten mountains are never too far away, and now with this tableaux of pieces, I feel that they are even closer.
credits
released September 12, 2018
W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded using a Korg Minilogue polyphonic analog synthesizer, initially laid to digital tape via a Zoom H1 recorder, and arranged/post-processed via software in the White Pillar Workshop, Summer 2018. Photograph by J Adams, used with permission. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. This is Milieu Music number MMD044. Sarqso to Jason, Joseph and Jonathan.
Special thanks to all of the members of the Milieu Music Fan Club at Patreon (www.patreon.com/analogbotany). With their continued support, more music like this release can happen! At the present moment, the members of the Fan Club are: Alan A, Alex B, Andy B, Alex K, Benoit P, Brian C, Brian H, Burton T, Chris S, Daniel F, David T, Devin H, Gordon C, Francois H, Jim P, Joel B, Jonathan W, Jose S, Justin T, Levi G, Mathieu L, Matthew F, Peter T, Peter B, Pierre P, Rich A, Rik J, Sean W, Seth B, Tony S, Alex G
Many humble thanks to the subscribers of the Deep Earth series. Without them, this music might not exist, and if it did, you might not be able to hear it. Support deep electronic mining initiatives today: malfokusita.bandcamp.com