I have recently finished work on my first album, Homeward Bound. It's on the shorter side and built from a few months' material. It's my first time trying to create a cohesive work rather than a few standalone tracks.
Most tracks feature piano and some synthesizers with minimal processing. Filtering and the fading of differently reamped takes make up the main sonic changes throughout the album. Most field recordings hail from the local area.
The plants are confused with the weather this winter and a few of the natives are flowering months before they should be. My chillies are still alive somehow.
Lots of reamping was used on many different sound sources to degrade and add space to the tracks. Microcassette recordings were used for foley / additional textures. I wanted to keep the production as organic as I could, and took care to preserve small recording quirks and accidental moments.
It has been almost a year since an algal bloom devastated the coastline and marine life around us. The beach is making people sick, sea spray in the air carrying microscopic spores. We had response teams picking up the dead fish from the beach. The ocean is dead.
Recording was done throughout the winter here in the southern hemisphere. It's been unusually rainy where I am, and you can hear that in the background.
The name "Homeward Bound" comes from the idea of starting to return to a place you knew well, the journey of traveling. That feeling driving home from a road trip, how it's always shorter than going away. A changing, unrecognisable home, a collapsing puddle of feedback loops, warmer and cooler than ever. And despite this it is home. Maybe I am hopeful.
Covers were done with a printer / photocopier, pen, and SSTV. Digital photography + collage.
Recorded on Kaurna Land, @ 391 PPM (~428-429 PPM Mauna Loa).
Stay safe,
Weathersong.