Zephyrean, by Milieu

Zephyrean

by Milieu

supported by

Christopher Ellis An album which will take you to the outer galaxies and beyond 🙏

$T /-\ U thumbnail$

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

Purchasable with gift card

name your price
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Assembled by hand, one copy at a time, in the White Pillar Workshop! Three white recordable discs, printed and duplicated via an Imation D20, held inside a triple-jewel case with a hand-cut cardstock insert bearing custom text labels.

NOTE: This set contains 60-minute abridged versions of Zephyrean, Chiasmus and Relief Upon the Landscape, and has been produced to satisfy the numerous requests made for physical editions of the Sleepbuilding series. Purchase of this set will come with the full digital version of Zephyrean, and Bandcamp codes will be emailed for the second and third broadcasts as well. The digital releases themselves will remain free, as these sets are for collectors and/or people who prefer not to purchase digital music.

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

ships out within 10 days

edition of 6 2 remaining

Purchasable with gift card

$23.23 USD or more
Full Digital Discography

246

releases

Get all 246 Milieu releases available on Bandcamp and save 90%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of 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, Snow Maps, and 238 more. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

$247.34 USD or more (90% OFF)
SUPPORT ME AT PATREON FOR MORE ANALOG BOTANY

	1.	Zephyrean (Part 1) 02:53:28
	2.	Zephyrean (Part 2) 02:12:22
	3.	Zephyrean (Part 3 / Section 1) 02:30:51
	4.	Zephyrean (Part 3 / Section 2) 02:30:34
	5.	Zephyrean (Part 3 / Section 3) 02:29:46
	6.	Zephyrean (Part 3 / Section 4) 02:31:05

about

"But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away."

-Robert Frost, excerpt from "Wind and Window Flower"

Like 'Creation' and 'A Small Fire in the Snowy Woods' preceding it, 'Zephyrean' is a long-form generative ambient work totaling fifteen hours, which was broadcast live as it came into being from the evening of February 9th to the afternoon of February 10th, 2023. The weather throughout the day on the 9th consisted of heavy winds that bowed my house in different directions, animating the metal chimes in my kitchen window with a constant frenzy, and so this patch developed in unison with that atmosphere, although it has been presented only partially, with the sound of the wind, the feeling in the air and the glittering metal chimes not reproduced as part of the recording.

In the week leading up to this, I'd been exhausted by a heavy grief that hung over me like a shadow, which finally relented and resolved itself as the wind blew through the valley. It felt cathartic, to be able to really breathe freely again, and to have the world inhaling and exhaling along with me. As it usually tends to be, my modular system and the sound it unspools are particularly useful mechanisms for processing emotional and physical stress, and so 'Zephyrean' was both a reaction to the receding shadows and the colorful weather, as well as a presence all its own that filled in the empty spaces between these ideas and events.

I enjoy broadcasting these sessions as well, if only for the secondary effect they have on the voyeuristic participants who can look into my studio with curiosity, and hopefully then a sense of calm disconnection. Many such listeners have remarked to me during these broadcasts that they wish they'd go on forever, that they enjoy being able to drop in and out of them as if they were a radio station somewhere, and so it is all the more fruitful for me to polish them up afterward, and publish them here free of charge. It brings me so much joy to know that this system of machines that I've arranged in such an esoteric way can provide similar comforts to people I've never met, will never see or know, regardless of their geographical location, language or perspective.

I am continually in a state of two minds about creative acts such as these, however. In one sense, there is a duty to know yourself and have something cogent to say when you decide to express yourself, etched into the stone for all artists, baked into our minds as they are still forming their understanding of this work, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. While there is always room for "art for art's sake," the richer experiences are always going to be those that are designed with a sense of purpose or interactive usage. On the other hand, when I am dealing in such abstracts as these long-form broadcasts, with my machines operating on a deep well filled with my own decisions, using those to generate their musical shapes in real-time without any additional input from me, there is a very real sense that even I do not yet know what these things could mean - that for artistic purpose to be fulfilled, it must first be defined by a meaning of some kind - and if I do not yet understand that meaning, does this mean the music is without any purpose? Is it uncouth of me to release this ambiguity upon the rest of the world?

Or is this simply the nature of things, both human and artistic? That there is never a rigid relationship between the artist, the work and the world they inhabit - that these things are not plateaus but gradients, and understanding can only come where and when it is naturally in alignment between those three things. It begs the question: Is something more or less useful if its purpose is only revealed over an indeterminate amount of time? And with extended, and operatively endless, works like 'Zephyrean,' is the amount of time these things require to fully communicate their purpose relative to how much runtime they actually occupy?

I don't really have any answers to any of these questions, but in the end, I don't think I need to. The work can exist as a monument outside of me, outside of my understanding, even if I am the person who allowed it to exist in the first place. I relish this superposition, this state of ambivalence I am allowed to work within, where generative and procedural art are accommodating. It feels enthralling to be a passenger, like yourselves, rather than holding the reins of some wild horse that I pretend to hold dominion over. The truth is, I've never made anything - it's just happened.

---

Twelve hours of the original broadcast have been archived here on my YouTube channel. Please feel free to subscribe to me there to be notified of future broadcasts when and where they occur: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVvWsq-ztFE

For more generative ambient in the same vein as 'Zephyrean' please check out my ongoing Vibratelepathos monthly series: vibratelepathos.bandcamp.com

---

Patch notes:

Voice: Doepfer A-121-3 bandpass filter (self-oscillating)
Time: Missed Opportunities, CMOS Party (Boolean), Doepfer A-160-1 clock div
Sequencing: Ornament (Black/Hemispheres/Squanch, Lydian scale) sent into Ornament (Silver/Vanilla/Harrington 1200)
Modulation: Behringer 150/1004
EG: Ornament (Black/Hemispheres/ADSR), Doepfer A-135-2
Filters: Behringer 1047/1006, 2HP LPF, Disting Mk4 (D5 bandpass)
FX: Strymon Magneto, 2x Clouds (Vanilla & Miverb), Multi Versio (Micro Looper)

credits

released March 3, 2023

W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded live at White Pillar, February 9-10, 2023, with the R-EW Audioholistics modular system. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Design by ABM&D using visual sampling of Frantisek Kupka's 'Organization of Graphic Motifs II' ca. 1912-1913. This is Milieu Music number MMD074. (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:

tʌntrə XIV
by Various

supported by 46 fans who also own “Zephyrean”

Woah, what comp! Every track on here is deserving of attention. But this one track stood out to me the most. The Lying Children seem to have a unique sound, its very intriguing! It was also nice hearing vocals on a ambient track! Defiantly going to look more into these guys! I Walked Bob Dylan On Stage!
go to album
tʌntrə VI
by Neotantra

supported by 46 fans who also own “Zephyrean”

Soaring, beautiful track. krahling
go to album
sometime after two, somewhere else
by mHz

A longform drone piece from New Zealand sound sculptor Mo H. Zareel plays subtly with listeners' perceptions as its layers unfold. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 21, 2020
go to album

Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Beans joins the show to discuss his album release, "ZWAARD".

listen now

Zephyrean

by Milieu

Streaming + Download

name your price

Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

$23.23 USD or more

Full Digital Discography

$247.34 USD or more (90% OFF)

SUPPORT ME AT PATREON FOR MORE ANALOG BOTANY

about

credits

license

tags

Tags

about

discography

contact / help

Zephyrean

by Milieu

Digital Album Streaming + Download

Buy Digital Album name your price

Send as Gift

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

Buy Compact Disc $23.23 USD or more

Send as Gift

Full Digital Discography

Buy Digital Discography $247.34 USD or more (90% OFF)

Send as Gift

SUPPORT ME AT PATREON FOR MORE ANALOG BOTANY

Share / Embed

about

credits

license

tags

Tags

about

discography

contact / help

Streaming + Download

name your price

Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

$23.23 USD or more

$247.34 USD or more (90% OFF)