Hello everyone, thanks for checking out my new album.
I feel it needs some introduction. I've been evolving, artistically speaking, over the last year or so and am increasingly fascinated by both modular synth experiments and beatless, ambient music. There is a degree of expression available that I don't find when writing music for dancing.
Remedies for Decay was probably more influenced by lockdown than even I realise, but I felt the need for something calming, contemplative and expressive. I began lockdown trying to continue writing 'bangers' but without human interaction and a sense that the world had changed, it felt totally alien.
This new album is a collection of 'live' recordings, mostly one-take improvisations created using modular and semi-modular synths, an assortment of guitar pedals and a multi-track tape recorder. The themes present are, I suppose, ruminations on decay and death, but also an attempt to find beauty in the stillness often associated with inertia.
It's Don Dayglow music, but it wouldn't sound like this if it weren't for my 'dead' band of analog synths,and modules, so Don Dayglow & The Electric Dead Band seems an apt monicker.
Press Release:
What happens when a pandemic hits and a prolific but ageing dance music DJ and producer suddenly finds himself unable to perform, and struggling to sell music to out-of-work DJs? What if this coincided with lockdown with a wife and toddler in a small apartment, working from home with only a prized collection of semi-modular synths and assorted guitar pedals to provide any solace?
In the case of Brighton-based artist Don Dayglow, it provoked a series of highly experimental live recordings created on legendary-modern Moog synths. With no need to appeal to now empty dance-floors, all pressure to conform evaporated.
These recordings are strikingly beautiful, wild and untamed. The crispness and precision of his previous productions give way to dense textures, subtle melodies and a beguiling sense of abandon. By allowing the synths to run free, constrained only by simple melodic parameters, and experimenting with complex patching, augmented field recordings and no shortage of imagination, Remedies for Decay makes for a compelling listening experience.
The recordings themselves are influenced by themes of newness; new fragility, new surroundings, new quietness and new fears. But, like all new things, decay and erosion turns them old. The processes of ageing will always apply.
Yet despite being a reflection of unique and new environmental forces, this is not academic music; this is electronic music that lives, breathes and feels its way into your heart.
About the process:
These recordings are centred around the Moog Subharmonicon: a fascinating and unique synth that subdivides by tone and rhythm to create generative, evolving polyrhythms and textures. The Subharmonicon then sends control voltage to a Moog DFAM and Crave to provoke improvised interplay, augmented by field recordings triggered by Roland's TR8S and additional modulation by an assortment of guitar pedals. Finally, the recordings were all multi-tracked to
a classic Tascam multi-track cassette recorder, adding yet more texture.
The field recordngs are generally real ambiences captured from usually busy places, or places with an altered activity due to lockdown restrictions. Other recordings are from campfires and trips to the countryside. Finally, on I Will Never, Ever Forgive You For Taking Me Away From My Friends, real transcripts from Brexit Facebook groups were fed into Text to Speech engines.
Early support from Bandcamp and Pitchfork recommended ambient artist KMRU!
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