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Utaru Greenshine Caravan

by Milieu

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    Get all 242 Milieu releases available on Bandcamp and save 90%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Across the Surface of the Water, Mural Hex, Divergent Paths [Volume Five], Focussed Light, Aeolian Yellow, Snow Maps, Snow Maps, Winter Displacement, and 234 more. , and , .

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  • Limited Edition 3xCD-R Set
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Assembled one copy at a time at the White Pillar Workshop. Three 5" white inkjet printable recordable discs, duplicated via an Imation D20, packaged in a sturdy triple-disc jewel case, with a 4x4" glossy photographic print cover image affixed to a heavy-duty recycled cardstock insert, with a custom white text label on the back of the jewel case, and a printed poem on the inside cover.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Utaru Greenshine Caravan via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.

about

For Earth Day 2022, I wanted to put something special together that both reflected my nightly hash rituals (which were just celebrated in fuller form on the 20th) and focused more upon the natural world itself, with quiet (but not silent) outdoor spaces and organic sound-material that might not necessarily be musical or metered in any way, but remained pleasing to the ears all the same.

Many listeners already know how devoted I am to video games and their immersive (and sometimes, cathartic) experiences, as well as my lifelong love of science-fiction, and so it should come as no surprise that I have been unable to stay away from Horizon: Forbidden West as of late - an even more incredible sequel to one of my favorite games ever made. Like my fascination with Zelda (see: Hylian Improvisations) and space travel (see: The Traveler's Offworld Retreat), Horizon ticks off many different boxes in the list of my personal interests - ecology, historical fiction, post-apocalyptic landscapes, artificial intelligence and complex programming, philosophy, theology and astronomy - as well as being a superbly well-written story with memorable characters, a unique world landscape and many relevant points of modern progressivism.

Instead of simply gushing about this game for hours on end, I've preferred to illustrate my appreciation by doing what I always do: fashioning a sonic landscape that could exist somewhere in that fantasy world. As harsh and bleak as many of the locations in Horizon often are, there are also many moments of overwhelming beauty enmeshed within it, almost like a more traditionalist western tale, with dusty frontiers, treasure-filled ruins, tribal warriors, unrequited lovers and lone wanderers. For as alien as the landscape in Horizon has become, it never fails to remind me that it was once our where and when, a modern age of bustling civilization and omnipresent technology, now relegated to an eroded memory, a thousand years gone, as the Earth has reclaimed itself.

Within that world, there are a people that call themselves Utaru. They live in step with nature, building their villages in the remnants of great satellite dishes, covered in vines and greenery, high above the ground. They tend to the land and try to avoid conflicts, and their culture is centered around singing and music, which they believe connects them to their gods. I have no hesitation in saying that, were I to find myself in the where and when of Horizon's Earth, I would want to live with the Utaru. Perhaps I'd be a traveling bard, migrating from settlement to settlement, bringing news from other places, making my trade by selling salvage, crops or bright gemstones called Greenshine.

I'd lead a small caravan of friends and family who shared my outlook, and we'd enjoy a colorful and nomadic existence on the periphery of so much conflict and uncertainty. In times of the former, or the latter, we'd play and sing, just as I do today, and I would share this experience with as many as I could, hoping to bring even a brief respite from the harsh truths of the outside world. At the end of every sun-baked day, we'd retire around the dwindling purple campfire beneath a blanket of stars, with no electric lights to blot out all the millions of perfect pinholes, sharing a pipe of green grass and a quiet moment of communion with the Earth mother herself, warm and contented with the things we have, soon to be asleep in the certainty that life is forever changing, and better for it.

Happy Earth Day, today and every day.

credits

released April 22, 2022

W/P by Brian Grainger. Constructed at White Pillar, April 2022. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Text by ABM&D. Design by ABM&D based on a work by Edward John Davis, 1879. This is Milieu Music number MML159. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2022. All nights preserved.

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Milieu Dayton, Ohio

Psychedelic electronic music, sun-warmed analog ambient and sci-fi braindance, for cats, aliens and epicureans alike.

I also release music as Coppice Halifax: coppicehalifax.bandcamp.com

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