Wash the Hand, by Milieu

Wash the Hand

by Milieu

supported by

ollie fantastic companion to watch the head. love it love it love it Favorite track: His Master's VCO.

	/

Streaming + Download

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

Purchasable with gift card

$8.88 USD or more
Full Digital Discography

247

releases

Get all 247 Milieu releases available on Bandcamp and save 90%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of In the Shadow of a Weeping Willow, The Time Bell in the Empty Archipelago, Daytonian Argot, Across the Surface of the Water, Mural Hex, Divergent Paths [Volume Five], Focussed Light, Aeolian Yellow, and 239 more. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

$247.98 USD or more (90% OFF)
SUPPORT ME AT PATREON FOR MORE ANALOG BOTANY

	1.	Mint Collar 02:31
	2.	Cat Hath Hewed 04:26
	3.	Brannigan & Skeetch 02:44
	4.	His Master's VCO 03:10
	5.	Machen's Psychic Weald 03:49
	6.	Polly Metrix 02:14
	7.	Bacchus 3000 04:21
	8.	Milkmaiden 05:47
	9.	Callipygian Dub 08:03
	10.	Sad Mauve Liminoid 06:30

about

'Wash the Hand' is not *the* new Milieu album, but it is *a* new Milieu album, in the grand tradition of "music generated in a wild tangent during the frenzied creation of another entirely different work." It is a stopover, a rest stop with some well-stocked vending machines, a connecting flight en route to 'Watch the Head' and it was made, top to bottom, in under a week, in a self-imposed exercise of getting loose while the claws are still sharp, and following in the working template of earlier Milieu/CH contributions to the super fun Project 168 (wherein participants were given a start date and one week to create a brand new work - 'Simple Stations Repeat' and 'Giants in the Desert,' as well as the '1983' album from Coppice Halifax were recorded during such events).

Musically, it contains a lot of stimmy sensory-seeking ADHD constructions, which is to say in layman's terms, so many dense sound events that it is not really possible to perceive them all in one go - and this is by design, where I feel a bit of camaraderie with the inimitable RDJ who said somewhere in an interview that he writes his tracks in such a way that he is able to be surprised by them when he listens back. It was years ago, and I could be entirely off thinking about it now, but that's the gist of what I've been doing here. There's also a bit of ridiculous nostalgia happening here, as six of the ten tracks offered were created in deprecated music software, with deprecated softsynths and effects processors that have not been updated or meant to be used in a DAW since a decade ago. Why? Because it's science, that's why!

The process of doing this was also a lot like 'Shallow Earth' was following the completion of 'Sun Cast' - a month of less-than-serious musicmaking following eight years of brow-furrowing surgically precise madness - and the idea was more or less that 1) it would be good for my brain to do something free-for-all and a little unhinged following the completion of 'Watch the Head' and 2) if anything golden really happened in the sessions, well, it wouldn't be too late to sneak it into 'Watch the Head' too. The latter did not end up happening, but 'Wash the Hand' still gives me enough of a purposeful vantage point from which to view 'Watch the Head' in a more favorable light. 'Wash the Hand' is the scruffy and disheveled Maynard Krebs with the caffeine jitters while 'Watch the Head' is the clean-cut but hopelessly lovesick Dobie Gillis, forever longing for the world beyond his own. (Apologies to those of you reading who are not as into 1959 teen sitcoms as much as I, it's a decent analogy though)

The cover art here is a real prize piece to me as well, having been done in under a week by the local wunderkind Greg Lawhun, a titan of visual storytelling who you may recognize from his work on the 10th anniversary 'Tidewater Petrol' reissue/remaster last year. Greg has been commissioned to create the visual world for 'Watch the Head' and of course, when this tangent appeared, graciously offered to work on something for 'Wash the Hand' to keep the visuals "in universe" between the two releases. It's a joyous riff on Blue Note jazz LPs I love, Maynard and Dobie (the sitcom teens as well as my two catto brothers who are named after them) and the illustrative style Greg and I both love from a number of different comic books. Greg would be bashful about being praised so highly, but he shouldn't be - 'Wash the Head' is a synaesthetically perfect blend of ideas and I owe him much more for that than I could ever afford to pay him (so buy this record so that I can pay Greg more!).

So this isn't the new album, it isn't a single and it's too long to be an adjacent EP, but it hopefully draws a cogent and enjoyable line from the 'Zaftig Lime' single to 'Watch the Head' itself when it lands later this month. There's a lot of references here, see how many you can find! I really hope that 'Wash the Hand' is as fun for you to skate through as it was for me to build it, but as usual, there's no right or wrong answers here. Your mileage may vary, the Dude abides, et al. A quick one while he's away!

credits

released September 1, 2023

W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at White Pillar, August 25-31, 2023. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Illustration and coloring by Greg Lawhun. Title bar and text design by ABM&D, the laziest in jazz since 1983. This is Milieu Music number MML184. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2023. All nights preserved.

license

about

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

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Milieu

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Milieu recommends:

Pawleys Island
by Coppice Halifax

Memories of a sad teenager from a subtropical bedroom, etched into 20 psychedelic electronic songs. Milieu
go to album
Nine Billion Names
by Brian Grainger

Nine weathered histories, radiating from six strings and a black box, among other things. Milieu
go to album
Ecce Nihilo
by Limestone Ziggurat

Limestone Ziggurat is a set to contain all sets, but is itself not contained. All work is never finished. The statue remains inside the stone. Milieu
go to album

If you like Milieu, you may also like:

Sinking Magenta
by Coppice Halifax

supported by 30 fans who also own “Wash the Hand”

lovely little autechre ambient. dont see tech this good these days ollie
go to album
Tigress
by Coppice Halifax

supported by 29 fans who also own “Wash the Hand”

Tigress effortlessly gliding between the stoned, dusty grooves with that instantly identifiable "just behind the beat" bass line - one of my all time favourites amongst many from Brian's myriad milieu of mazey marvels. da5idh
go to album
In Good Hands
by Shawn Davis

Sleek, modern, and spacious lo-fi techno from futurist UK producer Shawn Davis. Bandcamp New & Notable May 3, 2022
go to album