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New year, new color palette for twenty more strange ambient vessels. The fifth leg of Vibratelepathos happens to land alongside what is apparently the twentieth year of Milieu, as a project, and I find this an interesting consideration - having been at this for two decades now, and sort of stepping back to look at what I'm actually doing, as compared to how it was in 2004.
Back then, everything came with a lot of pushing and reaching and deliberating, erasing and starting over again were more common than a successful take for me then. I've always felt an odd camaraderie with Bob Ross, when I learned that he only came into the style of painting that he was known for many years into his life and painting career - the near-improvisational "alla prima" method of using wet paint on wet paint - and that all of his earlier paintings in Alaska were done painstakingly, much more laboriously, with Ross spending weeks or months on a single piece.
For both he, and I, at this stage of my creative development, having to invest that kind of time in the creation of just one piece feels redundant and almost satirical. I couldn't be happier that things have turned out in the way they have, as I am certainly able to find paths to many surreal and beautiful vistas quite quickly, and this has become a daily ritual now for the most part, to be able to disconnect for a while, and not have to push very hard for that to happen. I feel very lucky that this is the case.
I hope 'Fabled Key II' swims through its paraphonic wavetables (here, multiplied to the degree of being four different voices, recorded and overlaid/panned three different times) in a topical and pleasant way. This is a very physical piece for the Vibra sessions, so I would perhaps uncharacteristically ask you to play it much louder than you might think of playing one of these. It feels like relaxing inside a warm and cozy wooden pipe organ that the composer fell asleep on. And for my part in that analogy, I did fall asleep at my instruments for the last twenty years.
I apologize now, at the end of this unnecessarily lengthy missive, for the candor - you usually come here looking for patch notes, or some prosaic description of what the music might synaesthetically resemble or symbolize - but this year is going to just be a trip for both of us I think. The world feels like it's on fire, and at the same time, the utilities I have within my creative reach feel stronger and more direct than they may have ever been. I think about 2004 again, and realize that I can't really say what I would have expected to be doing (or how) in twenty years. I think, truly, I would only have wanted to be able to do it for that long, no matter what the capacity was.
So again, I feel very lucky to be able to sit down and turn on a few machines, and within only moments be able to hear the sound you're listening to here now. It feels too easy, sometimes - I feel like I may not deserve it - but perhaps that is what a close friend recently described as equilibrium? I always have a lot to think about, and the music I find in these machines only gives me even more to consider, and reconsider, so I am happy to have your company as I find my way.
credits
released January 30, 2024
W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at White Pillar, January 14th 2024, using the paraphonic wavetable oscillator in the Arturia Microfreak (with a custom wavetable derived from a vocal sample of Kate & Cindy harmonizing in "Roam"), in conjunction with the R-EW Audioholistics modular system. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Text by Brian. Design by ABM&D, using a palette of colors arranged by Greg Lawhun. This is Milieu Music number AVB81, 81st in the Vibratelepathos catalog. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2024. All nights preserved.
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