{"title":"400 Lonely Things","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"why-i-went-to-the-woods","title":"Why I Went To The Woods","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith \u003cem\u003eWhy I Went To The Woods\u003c\/em\u003e, I retreated once again into my hauntological dream worlds. With the woods being the place one traditionally goes to clear one's head, I went there with these recordings to fortify myself with a deliberate rejection of the Now. Inspired equally by both the fictional filmed landscapes of psychedelic folk - the bucolic British countryside of the 1960s and 1970s which, though I've never witnessed in real life, still fill me with an inexplicable melancholic yearning to return home - and the benignly sinister pagan nights of our young wild forests here in the States. Over this period, I was frequently visited by samples of wistful, psychedelic minor-key acoustic guitars and forlorn flutes, the occasional wordless vocal, sounds of nature being devoured by tape noise and the medicated, thick synthesizer sounds that often watched over the various media of this time period with loving grace. \u003cem\u003eWhy I Went To The Woods\u003c\/em\u003e began on April 19th and was finished on September 16th 2025. I've toyed with calling my music Dark New Age for the New Dark Age for a while now, and musically this album comes the closest to fleshing that concept out. The samples and arrangements here are made from rustic pieces of psychedelic folk, 70's analog synthscapes, schmaltzy vintage British TV music and rural ambience and they all reinforce that hauntological vision: melodic and droning fake pastoral memories shaped into tediously mystical elations both blissful and haunting. Music that would be suitable for all woodland creatures and ethereal beings of the melancholy forest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cold Spring","offers":[{"title":"2CD","offer_id":56021053473099,"sku":"R0513-0255","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/400lonelythings_whyiwenttothewoodscsr361cd.jpg?v=1764615289"},{"product_id":"creature-comforts","title":"Creature Comforts","description":"\u003cp\u003eI started recording \u003cem\u003eCreature Comforts\u003c\/em\u003e with 'Allegiance' on the night of November 4th, as the election results were coming in. I found myself craving lullabies, but ugly and reflective ones, that saw the world with an acute sense of horror and bewilderment and bereavement. Lullabies that didn't protect me from these feelings - or rather did protect me, but did so through immersion. I finished recording on March 10th of 2025. Visual inspiration came from a series of mixed-media works by my gifted friend, the lovely and talented painter David Irvine, whose homely, ruggedly fragile characters appear to be comforting each other on their way to their own personal exits. With the idea that this album would be lullabies for the end of a world, I started seeking out soothing vocal samples and hypnotic audio beds and simple melodies and set about roughing them up to form a soundtrack to my perceived isolated apocalypse. These songs would be ugly on the surface, sad and angry and defeated and more than a little unhinged but, like David's paintings, hopefully have a heart that would show through the scarring. There's a saying along the lines of \"show me a cynic and I'll show you a wounded idealist\" and I needed to record this music to combat that encroaching cynicism. The songs are long and beaten up and the music just kept coming and 2.5 hours worth of recordings later, I had pushed through.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cold Spring","offers":[{"title":"2CD","offer_id":56021141586251,"sku":"R3903-3580","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/400lonelythings_creatureconfortscsr360cd.jpg?v=1764615794"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/400-lonely-things.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}