Assembled by hand, one copy at a time, in the White Pillar Workshop. A white 5" recordable disc, printed and duplicated via an Imation D20, held securely inside a white paperboard jacket bearing a custom printed multicolored text label on the front cover. Ships inside a clear cast-polypropylene sleeve with a flap, to keep your new sonic artifact dust and moisture free.
Includes unlimited streaming of Astral Salons [Phase 2]
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Another year, another series, another branch in the long path of exploring my creative continents. 2021 brings us to ASTRAL SALONS, a nine-section series of monthly EP installments that land somewhere between STATIC PHARMING and SILHOUETTES, bridging the corporeal and the cosmic in concise twenty-minute jaunts that are designed to groove and meander in equal measure, and hopefully do not overstay their welcome. The digital 4x12" FERINE ALEMBIX could be seen as a precursor for this series, as those sessions put me back in the mood to produce an EP series again, and further, ASTRAL SALONS are not just informed by their more "modest" runtimes, but also a very fresh and unique approach to modulation, stereo panning and sonic depth-of-field that I've played with in the past, but haven't yet focused so completely upon until now.
Paired with these sessions are nine Polaroids shot using expired film, on the day of the August 21st, 2017 total solar eclipse. I felt that these images were appropriate analogs for the concept of the series, being surrealist and psychedelic multi-layered pieces with deliberately lossy artifacting, overexposed processing and overlaps of FX processes in motion that leave "holes" in the sound field. The photographs are presented as they were developed, with only some contrasting and digital cleanup work done in post, again mirroring my studio process for the ASTRAL SALONS sessions.
credits
released February 5, 2021
W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at White Pillar, February 2021. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Text and photography by ABM&D. This is Milieu Music number PHASE 2, second in the ASTRAL SALONS subcatalog.
A spacious 2.5 hour soundtrack for Eufloria, an ambient strategy game currently available on Steam, Nintendo Switch and the Playstation Network. Coppice Halifax
A triple-album "beginner's guide" with 50 tracks selected from the first 10 years of Milieu releases. As apt a starting point as you're likely to find. Coppice Halifax
supported by 17 fans who also own “Astral Salons [Phase 2]”
As always, I am in utter awe at the vastness of our musical universe, comprised of beautiful stars for our ever-listening ears. Let the gorgeous waves of this incredible album wash over you, perhaps taking you to another realm, out of space & time. One of the most pleasurable experiences I have had in a long while. Pip From The Forge