Creation by Milieu

"What do you suppose creation is?
What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free
and own no superior?
What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways,
but that man or woman is as good as god?
And that there is no god any more divine than Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean?
And that you or any one must approach creations
through such laws?"

-Walt Whitman, excerpt from 'Laws for Creations'

Creation is a twelve-hour generative work, originally broadcast via YouTube on October 19th 2022, consisting of Karplus-Strong synthesizers, analog filtering, Euclidean sequencing, granular processing and a number of spatial and modulation effects. It has, by necessity, been presented here in separate sections, due to Bandcamp's file size restrictions for individual uploads.

As today is the midterm election day in the United States, I wanted to publish something lengthy, soothing and freely downloadable, in an attempt to thrust some good back into the world, which as of this writing, still feels quite certain about dragging us into the darkness. In many discussions with my wife, my daughter and my friends, I repeatedly voiced my discontent with the nature of these elections, how utterly ridiculous it is to be perpetually stuck in a situation that feels so totally out of our control, while also being doomed to bear the grief of the outcome ourselves. How I'm still longing for a world where we could go cast our votes, and not feel that so much sanity and balance in our day-to-day lives is held in the clutches of so many misinformed and self-righteous strangers.

I realize this is all "pie in the sky," that I'm showing my naivete as some kind of stoned idealist who just wants everyone to get along and be nice to each other - what an absurd notion - but as I said before on various copy texts, inaction and silence are guaranteed to result in things not only not changing, but actively getting worse. You cannot expect systems to improve by refusing to participate in them, but at the same time, you cannot feel as if you've accomplished any change at all by simply participating.

This is where I have decided, again, that what I *can* do is offer creative work to the world. Art for the sake of art. Addition instead of subtraction. The pursuit of life, love and happiness. And so Creation is exactly, and only, this - a refutation of the negative, with as much strength as I can muster from behind my studio desk, and I am just so tired. Tired of everything, ready for something easy, something soft and happy.

Let this be my contribution to that conversation.

N.B. The original broadcast can be listened to without breaks here: https://youtu.be/gTl1BrKM0ns

Tracklist

1.	Creation (00:00:00-01:57:27)	117:27

2.	Creation (01:57:28-03:55:00)	117:34

3.	Creation (03:56:01-05:53:43)	118:43

4.	Creation (05:53:44-07:52:10)	118:28

5.	Creation (07:52:11-09:49:32)	117:23

6.	Creation (09:49:33-11:54:56)	125:25

Credits

released November 9, 2022

W/P by Brian Grainger. Generated by the R-EW Audioholistics modular system and broadcast in real-time on October 19th 2022 from the White Pillar Workshop. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Text by Brian. Design by ABM&D, using visual sampling of 'Creation' by František Kupka, ca. 1920. This is Milieu Music Distributed 71. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2022. All nights preserved.

Patch notes : 2HP Pluck Karplus-Strong synthesizer sequenced by 2x Ornament & Crime (1. Quantermain mode, Turing machine CV source, triggers from Buchla 281t, Dorian scale / 2. Harrington 1200 mode, major chord), processed by 2xLPF (2HP and Doepfer), 2x Clouds (Parasites firmware, Miverb mode & Clouds mode), Strymon Magneto. Final mix stereo panned via Behringer 305, routed into Goldwave via a Zoom H1.

License