Esem/Eesn

I'm quite happy and a bit proud to have mastered a rather special release - "So Verand Apart" by r84d, which is the joint name of Andrew Dobson of Digitonal and Richard Bailey a.k.a Proem - two people whose music I admire, and with whom I've secretly wanted to collaborate for a long time.

Initially when I got the pre-masters I made detailed notes about doing a restoration pass first, but the more I listened - the more I felt these recordings should just wear their scars. This kind of organic process (and boy am I familiar with it) - developing the compositions over a long period of time - means the recordings sustain damage from moving between DAWs, OS-es, sometimes computers, plugin updates changing them in imperceptible ways, like cosmic rays, all that "mechanical stuff" on top of the inherent recording issues unheard at the time, "last night" mixes, etc.

I feel honoured the two asked me to lend an ear for the masters, which ended up being an intense multi-band exercise, no trick in the book spared to make them sound coherent. But the real reward is in the music itself - rich, multilayered stuff, sonically exquisite and narratively satisfying.

And they describe it so well:

These two "underground electronica legends" wanted to get lost in new sounds and out of their workflows. Along the way, they threw the map in the river. They wandered in the forest for a few years. Then stumbled upon a clearing and here we are: where Richard makes things weird & Andrew makes them pretty

Good tunes.