I don’t know if it’s interesting or exasperating to my listeners that I have so many different projects, many of which blur into each other stylistically. Some artists prefer to use one primary project name and allow it to mutate into any style at all, from track to track, or album to album. Mostly I don’t do that, although Djinnestan and Tree Helicopter have changed over the years.
Ice Guild Kaiser is a new project I’ve started, which is mostly an alter ego (and anagram) of Saluki Regicide. It was spawned (sort of) from necessity. Both Saluki Regicide and Djinnestan each have their three Rain albums, which is the arbitrary limit I’ve set for any individual project to contribute to the series. Yet I have a new Rain recording which could fit into either of those projects, but not any of my others. So…
Here is “Rain 1″ from Ice Guild Kaiser, which is also the first release on Webbed Hand available in a lossless (.flac) option. The album description:
This recording is a product of Ice Guild Kaiser’s research into Webbed Hand’s venerable “Rain” series, and it bears structural similarities to the earliest releases, while showing the influence of later mutations. He acknowledges that, at heart, “Rain” is functional music, a remote descendent of so-called elevator music, easy listening, new age and other genres composed for relaxation and unfocused audition.
It’s too soon to say where I’ll go with this project. I’m planning to move Djinnestan further away from where it started, so Ice Guild Kaiser may be a good place to assign works that are in the style of earlier Djinnestan.
I recently decided to shelve Drone Wallah, as I feel it may be a wrong path for my musical experimentation. Art should be a means, not an end, and I’m starting to feel like Drone Wallah was making sounds an end in themselves, without expressing much. Listeners tend to agree, as the audience has dropped off considerably over the past few albums.
The next projects I will be giving my focus to will be Saluki Regicide and Djinnestan. Byproducts of these might become the basis of new releases by Ice Guild Kaiser and Tree Helicopter, if all goes well.