Moonbuilding Summer 2024 - The Album I Would Have Released In An Alternate Universe
Good things come to those who wait, and boy have you been patient. We have taken our sweet time in bringing you the brand-new issue of Moonbuilding, but we’ve been busy. Moonbuilding Weekly busy. Not seen it? moonbuilding.substack.com - the pick of the week’s releases, interviews, round ups, reviews, Track and Album Of The Week selections… delivered straight to your inbox every single Friday.
Moonbuilding 5 might have taken its time, but it has been worth the wait. On the cover of our Summer 202…
Detached Arrangement
*2024 stock* Is there ever a final version of anything? By recombining the aliquot of an album does something new appear? Rather than simply asking questions The Mistys went in search of answers. Using only the master tapes of the ‘Detached Engagement’ album as source material The Mistys sliced, chopped, screwed, looped, effected and a whole host of other audio alchemy to create the ‘Detached Arrangement’ mixtape. The original album’s beats have been dropped allowing the hidden elements to rise …
The Endless Echo
The Endless Echo is the fifth album on Ghost Box for the highly prolific Martin Jenkins. Pye Corner Audio cinematic electronica shifts effortlessly between brooding ambience and menacing dance floor grooves. It evokes awe-inspiring vistas and moments of sublime spine-tingling wonder. This time around Jenkins draws inspiration from scientific and science-fictional notions about the nature of time and the idea that it may be entirely unreal.
Pye Corner Audio’s discography includes eleven full leng…
Moonbuilding - Back to School 2023
Cor. Issue Four. There’s some parenting wisdom that says after you’ve had three children you might as well have a few more as it makes no odds. Four to six is the sweet spot, apparently. Less stress they say. So here’s to our fourth. Check back in on those stress levels when we get to six. Mags, not kids. Do we need to remind you that Moonbuilding is brought to you by former Electronic Sound commissioning editor Neil Mason and published by Colin Morrison’s Castles In Space label? Or is that the…
Universal Synthesizer Interface Volume One
In 2019, Vancouver artist Kristen Roos came across a floppy disk for sale on eBay containing the Commodore Amiga version of Laurie Spiegel's 'Music Mouse'. This was one of the first intelligent instruments for personal computers, created by Spiegel in 1985 as an interactive and playable MIDI sequencer for the 68k era of Macintosh computers. Curious, he bid on the item and ended up winning it for a few dollars. Upon investigation, the simple and intuitive nature of its interface appealed to him, …
Universal Synthesizer Interface Volume Two
In 2019, Vancouver artist Kristen Roos came across a floppy disk for sale on eBay containing the Commodore Amiga version of Laurie Spiegel's 'Music Mouse'. This was one of the first intelligent instruments for personal computers, created by Spiegel in 1985 as an interactive and playable MIDI sequencer for the 68k era of Macintosh computers. Curious, he bid on the item and ended up winning it for a few dollars. Upon investigation, the simple and intuitive nature of its interface appealed to him, …
Synthetic - A Synth Odyssey: Season 2
On Synthetic: Season 2, Halifax pop artist and composer Rich Aucoin continues his journey through the history of synthesizers. The second entry in his quadruple LP series once again features an armada of the world’s most rare, historic, and highly sought after electronic instruments. Gaining access to the collections of Calgary’s National Music Centre and LA’s Vintage Synthesizer Museum, Aucoin ran amok on machines to create four albums of thrilling, transporting instrumental music. Each song on…
Moonbuilding Sprung 2023
Tip! Tip! Tip! Having successfully navigated the difficult second issue, Moonbuilding returns with a dazzling Issue 3. Edited by former Electronic Sound commissioning editor Neil Mason and published by Colin Morrison’s Castles In Space label the new (Spring Has) Sprung issue stars the unstoppable Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, who also provide an exclusive CD of previously unreleased tracks. As well as a truly bumper chat with Warrington-Runcorn big chief Gordon Chapman-Fox, we pr…
Frog Bones & Noodles
Frog Bones is the original Frogman music that Dean sent to his mate, Supreme Vagabond Craftsman, over which to write a story over in 2015. It was predominantly composed with an EMS Synthi AKS and an Oberheim Two Voice synthesizer, plus some crunky Watkins Copicat tape echo. Much of it didn't make the final album cut. This version has been slightly edited down to a reasonable length.
Noodles is a selection of short jams and demo ideas that were/are to be the basis of a new solo project. But Dean …
Moonbuilding Autumn Collection
The first issue of Moonbuilding, which touched down back in May, was one of those finger in the wind, run it up the flagpole and see who salutes sort of projects. The A5, 48-page full-colour title, put together by former Electronic Sound commissioning editor Neil Mason and published by Colin Morrison’s Castles In Space label, went down rather well. There seemed to be a fair bit of saluting and lots of kind words. In fact, the debut issue came within a whisker of selling out. So Neil and Colin th…
Frogman
Tip! "Bloody spooky though. I hope the place don't fill up with goggle eyed weirdos now, wandering around and muttering."In 2015 I edited various pieces of music I had written on an EMS Synthi and a tape echo, into one hour long piece. I didn't know what to do with it. I knew Will (Goddard) from his Supreme Vagabond Craftsman records. I liked his writing style, always a bit twisted. I also knew that he wouldn't be put off by my atonal discordant Synthi burblings. So I asked him to write a sci-fi…
Max Roguish: Lightbite
Following a nuclear catastrophe, the Earth has become an immense desert. Day time is short, and sunlight has red and purple glares. Living beings went through mutations due to the radiations, social order has come apart and humans live in what is left of a huge megalopolis, where neon palely lightens the never-ending nights. People have organized small anarchic-capitalist communities and they survive by selling stuff, spare parts and food. There is no official law but only the rules that each gr…
Synthetic - A Synth Odyssey: Season 1
Rich Aucoin is announcing his next album entitled Synthetic. The record is a rare Quadruple Album with its 4 seasons/LPs being staggered in 6 month intervals over the next 2 years. The album, which began at The National Music Centre in Calgary, Alberta in March 2020, houses one of the world’s most extensive collection of rare and historic synthesizers. There, Aucoin was doing the Artist In Residence program and recorded 51 synthesizers to begin the project. The project was paused with the start …
Moonbuilding Summer Special
Colin Morrison's Castles In Space label has launched a new publishing venture in the shape of Moonbuilding mag. The A5, 48-page full-colour title is fronted by former Electronic Sound commissioning editor Neil Mason and comes with a 13-track sampler CD featuring previews from forthcoming CiS releases and a number of exclusive tracks. While Moonbuilding is a Castles In Space publication, it also covers a raft of like-minded DIY labels and artists. The debut issue stars I Monster/The Sound Of Scie…
Head Coach
Edition of 250. CD in 4-panel digipak CD with 12-page booklet. ** Electronic musician Hawksmoor, aka James McKeown, releases ‘Head Coach’; a beautifully immersive instrumental album inspired by the druidic, Solstice referencing layout of Milton Keynes... It’s a lesser known fact that the layout of English new town Milton Keynes was shifted by a few degrees when its planners realised that, in doing so, its grid-like layout would come into alignment with the sunrise on the summer solstice. This ‘u…
Time Turns Into Space
Tip! Benjamin Ian Powell has been recording music since 1998. Influenced by nature and maths, his music is computer based combining field recordings with real and virtual instruments. As Llyn Y Cwn he has an extensive back catalogue of dark ambient/environmental soundscapes and atmospheres from above and below the ocean. His Deliquescent Crystals AKA was derived from Ballard's The Crystal World. "In my day job I am an instrumentation technician making oceanographic measurements onboard scientifi…
Dreamtides
Using analogue synths & field recordings, Field Lines Cartographer creates often dark, occasionally bucolic soundscapes, described in The Wire magazine as “shimmering and unsettling” and “The sound of big, strange worlds” - Electronic Sound magazine