White Kingdoms [Expanded Reissue]

by Brian Grainger

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In Spe A most welcome reissue of a somewhat forgotten favorite. Hearing it in all its lossless glory for the first time about ten years after made my day and may well make yours too. Favorite track: Plateau Phase.

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Limited Edition 3xCD-R Expanded Reissue Set
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Assembled one copy at a time at the White Pillar Workshop. Three 5" white inkjet printable recordable discs, duplicated via an Imation D20, packaged in a sturdy triple-disc jewel case, with a 100% recycled kraft cardstock insert bearing a 4x4" glossy photographic print cover and custom sticker work on the inside cover and back of the case.

Includes unlimited streaming of White Kingdoms [Expanded Reissue] via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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	1.	Plateau Phase 18:48
	2.	White Kingdoms 08:12
	3.	Plateau II 07:10
	4.	Shimmering Skull Raga 18:23
	5.	Plateau Phase [First Tape Session] 35:42
	6.	Plateau Phase [Second Tape Session] 34:05
	7.	White Canyon Erosion 06:56
	8.	Perfumes Made From The Dusts Of Sunken Kingdoms 13:56
	9.	Shimmering Skull Raga [An Extract Of Keystone Flowers] 41:12

about

With the arrival of Autumn, and especially this Autumn, signaling the end of a long and arduous Summer, it has not yet felt more appropriate to reinstate the brother-sister albums Diamond Tears On Slate and White Kingdoms, two monoliths of opposing textures and tonalities, intended as gatekeepers flanking the left and right sides of some great abyssal threshold. White Kingdoms, recorded first, was the more open-air, harmonic of the pair, in direct and almost clean contrast to Diamond Tears On Slate's dusky menace. Where DTOS would be more "heavy metal" guitar (as much as a drone album could be) and high-gravity organ work, Kingdoms used cascading sheets of white noise, tape hiss, and resonant harmonic lines to invoke the same drifting feeling I'd get listening to sitar music or Eliane Radigue.

White Kingdoms was recorded in Summer of 2009, using only electric guitar, Lowrey organ and a Tascam four-track tape machine, in tandem with a lot of pedal FX and creative use of equalizers and compressors inside a Boss DR-880 drum machine, of all things. It was rehearsed for a bit more than the raw and noisier recordings that followed for Diamond Tears, perhaps illustrating that I wanted to draw a very careful and deliberate line around certain passages of white noise, low bass and harmonic drones. As such, the accompanying White Dust EP materialized from outtakes, and while preparing all of the masters for this reissue I even found two extended sessions, each filling the side of a tape, which offer more minimalistic and drawn out attempts at "Plateau Phase", albeit in more abstract and embryonic states. Additionally, I've chosen to include "Plateau II", which was recorded concurrently but left off of the album in order to preserve the then-ideal three track triptych. It was later released as a part of my twenty-four album Sun-Day series, on Sun-Day 3.

The album was offered to Sound & Fury in Australia, a small label that I'd admired for a number of their releases, and unfortunately, White Kingdoms became the final release at the imprint. It came and went, and now it's been 11 years since, and I feel these recordings are worth revisiting in a more formalized way again. Both Diamond Tears and White Kingdoms have always reminded me of Autumn, despite being recorded in the heat of Carolinian Summer - their crumbling towers of compression abuse and tape hiss always seem to anticipate and accentuate the browning and oranging of the leaves. In celebration of this re-assembled reissue, I've also drafted a deep somewhat Ocean Lion-resembling remix of "Shimmering Skull Raga", which closes out the three-disc set in a fitting White Pillar resolution.

NOTE: Those who would prefer to purchase only the CH excavation may do so digitally at the CH Bandcamp page: coppicehalifax.bandcamp.com/album/an-extract-of-keystone-flowers

credits

released November 6, 2020

W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at Rolling Knoll, Summer 2009, except "An Extract Of Keystone Flowers" remixed and produced at White Pillar, Summer 2020. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Photography by Brian, HCML 2010, using a modified Holga CFN120 camera with 35mm film. Text and design by ABM&D. Cover sticker printed by David Tagg in Atlanta, GA. Special thanks to Sound & Fury for issuing the first edition of White Kingdoms. This is Milieu Music number AD46, issue #46 in the Arboreal Digest reissue catalog. (c) + (p) Brian Grainger 2020. All lights observed. milieu-music.com analogbotany.com

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about

Brian Grainger Dayton, Ohio

Drone music, warm atmosphere and textural ephemera for the working man.

I also release music as Milieu milieumusic.bandcamp.com and Coppice Halifax coppicehalifax.bandcamp.com

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