#1

Hi - I’m happy to release a new mudlogger album - West Of Shetland. Available now.

Order here - www.mudlogger.bandcamp.com

There are cassette tapes (available now), digital and also it will be available on all major streaming services. I made lots of videos using an LZX system, which I will upload over the next few weeks. The fun part are the videos, because I’m brand new to that, and I don’t quite know what I’m doing :slight_smile:

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Here’s some info :

I used to work 175km West of the Shetland Islands, offshore in the Schiehallion field, on a semi submersible drilling oil rig, anchored to the North Atlantic Ocean floor. My official position was “mudlogger” the lowest and crappiest paid job offshore, at that time.

In winter, before a storm approached, the helicopters are cancelled and all the containers are strapped to the deck. The sea is calm. Within 24 hours, wind speeds are 160 mph. The waves are 20m high. The emergency supply boat in the distance is barely visible, as it disappears behind each wave. The howling noise, is just like the movies. The rig rolls, as each wave hits. At night, it slowly rocks me to sleep from my cabin bunk. Sometimes the roll takes so long, I wonder if it will roll back or continue and roll over.

West Of Shetland was made with the same system I used to record my previous album Kubota. All tracks recorded live in 1 take to a stereo track. There is no multi tracking, overdubbing or post edits. Recorded during the monsoon in North East Thailand 2020.

Instruments - monome, isms, grid, arc, w/, crow
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Mastering
Artwork and Design by @Whinger Corey Holms www.coreyholms.com

Thank you : Scanner Darkly, Tyler Etters, Matt Daniel, rjonline00, Sam Boling, Trent Gill, Ezra Buchla, Dan Derks and Brian Crabtree. Pretty much every person here has some direct or indirect involvement in some way, to at least 1 track.

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Cassette releases
#2

“mudlogger”… Huh! for years now I have made up my own Story about you! :wink: collection of old soggy wood and selling at an insane price :wink:

So Fucking great to read this and get some added context amigo!

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#3

Tape going up for sale on the 4th? Sounds great.

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#4

really excited for this, big fan of your records, especially Kubota.

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#5

Thanks tape orders are open now - I just made it public

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#6

Ordered a couple! Stoked to hear it all.

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#7

listening now ; visionary ; :pray:

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#8

West End of Dundee lurker here :slight_smile:

Loving this and your words, intrigued to hear how you ended up in NE Thailand?

Part 2…

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#9

Sounds great. Inspiring. Congratulations on the release!

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#10

really excited for this one, preordered!

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#11

Really stoked, I mentioned it on IG but will echo it here. Really shows how much you put into this. Everything about it is gorgeous! Can’t wait for the cassette to drop!

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#12

You know my twitter handle? That name was given to me by an African-American roughneck on an oil rig in the North Sea. He was built like a linebacker. About 6’ 5" tall. He looked me up and down, took one look at my hands, and said - “yo - bitchhands!” :slight_smile:

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#13

@kburwash @fourhoarder @MaartenVos @lilskullymane @mwilliams -

thankyou so much for your support. It’s very humbling and I don’t take it lightly. Very much appreciated :slight_smile:

That is a very long story - here’s a very short version :slight_smile:
I lived out of a bag for the best part of 20 years and travelled and worked in a lot of different countries in SE Asia mainly. I also went to school in the Middle East In the 80’s, UAE, Bahrain, Oman which was pretty much desert at that time. I think from that experience I got the travel bug. I spent 10 years in mainland China and watched that country grow from run down cities to brand new mega cities - Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Shenzhen. I eventually settled down in NE Thailand which is my wife’s family home. It’s pretty remote countryside and quiet, which is exactly what I needed, after decades of travelling and living in cities. I am surrounded by farmland and paddy fields. There are no street lights. I’ve lived longer overseas than I have in my home country - the UK.

You might know my Ciat Lonbarde albums under “Hoan Kiem Chess Team” I used to live a few blocks from Hoan Kiem lake in the centre of Hanoi. I lived there for a couple of years and used to watch the old folk play chess in the square in the evenings. At that time I also received a 40h from the first run of a newly formed monome. I think that was around 2007.

@spqr6510 Ps - Dundee. I did my first offshore training course in Montrose in 1993. I got called up one day on Xmas Eve to go offshore on Xmas Day one time. I drove all night from Manchester to get to Aberdeen via Dundee in a snowstorm. A lot of guys I worked with lived there. I went offshore Xmas day. When I arrived on the rig, the boss told me I wasn’t really needed for another week.

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#14

Some more lofi videos I made - see more at the top thread

this video below was Ansible Earthsea, Just Friends and w/ live looping

this below is Arcologies, Crow, Just Friends and w/ live looping

This below I used Orca’s Heart, Just Friends and Mangroves

This below was Ansible Kria and Mangroves

this last video - Softcut - I will add as a bandcamp, download only, bonus track - not available on cassette or streaming. That was the 000000 script using 2 loops from a track on the album called How The West Lost.

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#15

Hi everyone, the album has now been released as part of bandcamp Friday.

Thanks to everyone who bought the album. I’ll be shipping cassettes early next week.

These are the last videos.

this track below called Rise was a Buchla Easel

this track Makeshift Camp was Meadowphysics and Mangroves

Btw - I also found this video of me rehearsing an early live take for a track that eventually ended up on the album called Circling - Ansible Earthsea, Just Friends and W/ live looping. So you can see the process for that particular track. I think the video was the very first take with a few mistakes. The second take went on the album.

10 Likes
#16

Picked this up and loving it. Makeshift Camp is probably my current favorite. The chilly Texas weather goes lovely with it all as well.

#17

excited to see if the bullfrogs made the record. must admit I’ve been playing around with them myself…

#18

Picked this up and loving it. Makeshift Camp is probably my current favorite

Hey thanks - it’s interesting you mention that particular track because a couple of people were asking about it when I first posted a video on Vimeo a while back. I think more than a year ago. I said it would be on the next album for sure. So here it is :slight_smile:

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#19

It sits nicely between the classic in-the-box sound of Laurie Spiegel and the classic out-the-box sound of Suzanne Ciani, which is my personal sensibility so you know…a lovely spot to strap a tarp between two trees and hunker down for a bit.

Thanks!

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#20

I’m afraid no bullfrogs on this album :slight_smile: I deliberately made this album to be as uniform, straight road and melancholic as possible. There are no major curveballs on this album. But there will be on future albums.

I kept the more esoteric sounding stuff, off this particular album. Just a bit wary of mixing that material up with the more traditional synth type stuff, on the same album. Sometimes it works, but a lot of time it doesn’t, and it ends up alienating the audience, who end up only liking certain tracks. The biggest issue for me when releasing albums is whether to put a big mix of genres on the same album, or keep it uniform.

I’m not someone who wants to release the same sounding genre of stuff, album after album for 7 albums. It’s too safe. I need to push myself and dip my toes where I can’t touch the floor. That’s what interests me most. I do like a challenge. So the bullfrogs will be back for sure. I want to do more improv, some electro acoustic drone and feedback stuff and Serge / Buchla bleeps and bloops to follow. I also want to do some heavy beat driven glitch coding stuff, but released on separate albums.

The next album will be a Serge 4u improv album.

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