Mystery Sea and Pregnancy: Part I

May I draw your attention to a really cool record label? It is called Mystery Sea. Music on this label is going to be the soundtrack to my baby's home birth.

Each release (of which there are close to 50) is limited to 100 copies and somehow fits into a focus on "Night-Ocean Drones". Every disc is impeccably designed and packaged, even though it's a CD-R label. Yes, CD-R labels; they exist. In fact, each album would run you around $18 to buy (and it's in England so you have to get them shipped across the Atlantic or get them from a savvy record store over here). CD-R's at $20 sounds pretty ludicrous, but the quality of the music on the label pretty much makes me forget money was involved.

The first album I got (through Aquarius Records, of course) was by a Russian sound duo called Exit In Grey. Russian drone guitarists. Yup. It makes sense, really: Night ocean drones coming from the colder parts of the world, like Russia. The music could easily act as a soundtrack to exploring a deep-sea shipwreck and hallucinating(?) a forest there within the cannonballed hull. Exit in Grey use guitars and field recordings, mostly, to get their sound. There's even a woodpecker sample buried deep in the mix at one point. Apparently beetles are also featured somewhere on the album, but I am not sure how to pick those out.

Julia and I sleep to this record. Sometimes the "Night" part of the Ocean Drone thing can be a bit too dark for her taste, and if it so happens that Julia protests the inklings of a couple of Russian nerds, I immediately go for our stand-by night-time lullaby composers Stars of the Lid. Julia thinks that while she gives birth in our home in a couple months she could listen to Stars of the Lid and ocean drones constantly. Given that we're going to do the birth submerged in water the Mystery Seas are a perfect match, theoretically. So I have ordered four more Mystery Seas along with a bunch of other delightful drone albums to sooth Momma as she shrugs and heaves with the Universe this July. Thanks, Russia et all.

Speaking of deep sea wreckage, have you heard the music of Light Of Shipwreck? Totally killer oceanic percussion-doused ambiance. Let it wash over you.