2019, the unexpected year

High Marks "Precipice" (Persistentmidnight)

MELOK TYR "When the Tale Collapses to Nothing" (Stormmask LTD)

Paralysis Image "Concrete Body" (self release)

High Marks "Sister Shadow" (Persistentmidnight)

Desolate Moon Phases "Heathenstones" (Stickfigure / Stormmask LTD)

Lake Lander "A Walk EP" (Persistentmidnight)

Warning Light "Shaking Through a Hillside Blue" (Persistentmidnight)

Past Dawn "Dreaming Ulterium" (Stormmask LTD)

High Marks "Four Takes... Fake Turns" (Persistentmidnight

A much busier year for High Marks than any of my other projects, 2019 surprised me on so many levels. But, a new drum machine and a couple changes to my recording setup have changed how I look at music. I can't help but think this year of recording was the perfect way to exorcise some of the ghosts from my Atlanta days. Being in Minneapolis has changed every aspect of my life, but it specifically has changed my old recording routines. Life is an evolution. 

Ambient Programme Vol I

There has been a bit of a hiatus on this project, but it has afforded me time to slowly archive and look back on the last 10 years of this project. It occurred to me that many of my favorite tracks might sound quite different without the percussion and the synths remixed with a spacious sheen. I changed the arrangements, resampled and dubbed some elements, and this Ambient Programme series idea came into being. 

This is the first in a series of works, four long playing ambient albums that are part of a whole. In some ways, a spiritual successor to the Heavens Above, Heavens Below and Cosmic Mediation projects, these albums are comprised of only long form deep listening tracks... Minimalist overtures dubbed into spacey infinity... sleep musik for aberrant daydreamers

I hope you enjoy it.

Shaking Through a Hillside Blue collection

A new collection of ephemera from the most recent era of this project... there's a little bit of everything on here. I'll be the first to admit, I have given this band a bit of a break in my mind. Putting the finishing touches on this collection put me in a pretty nostalgic mindset, it's hard not to when you're sifting through nine years of sessions. The material here existed in tandem to a lot of album work, but most of it was approached with a completely different mindset.

Especially, the Inland Empires Disregard the Sea promotional edits took a long time. Surviving the Buried Earth somehow survived several uninspired attempts! I never wanted to cut it down. The backwards-syncopated outro of Lumen Tracker is also one of my personal favorite post-production elements I've added into any track. And the new mix on "The Company Men" had me twiddling knobs for hours trying to get it right. Inland Empires is one of my favorite records I've ever worked on, I challenged myself 

There are a couple of stand alone cuts of soundtrack work I did for Silent Frame productions in the collection as well. Soundtrack material is always so different than album music, I always look at it from an angle of "what is going to serve the film here?" It takes you outside yourself and your own taste as an artist, in that sense it's probably beyond healthy as artistic exercise.

Shaking Through a Hillside Blue is a scrapbook, a slideshow, a mural of different moments. I'm glad it's complete and out there for all to hear.

early release

Something from the very distant (fifteen years ago!) past, this is one of my first DIY releases. At the time I didn't have project names in mind; I made some copies of this on cassette and just gave them out to friends at the time. I doubt any of those cassettes still exist in any playable form, but at least this can finally be heard on the internet. I did try to redux the last track for Eternity Drones a couple years later, but that version seems lost to infinity at this point. The photo was taken in Dawsonville GA the Fall this release was made. 

2018, a year's journey

So, 2018 manifested itself as a time of transformation and travel for me. I left my home studio of 10 years in Avondale Estates Bedsitter studios (RIP) to start something new in Minneapolis, MN. I'm lucky I got to make anything at all this year, let alone nine releases (and an appearance on the Knifeplay compilation). At the end of the summer, I made it out to Oregon for the first time, it was about as amazing as I had hoped it would be. 

Persistentmidnight compilation "My Sound as Sculpture"

Warning Light "Left Behind the Range"

Sareth Den "Follower Year"

Paralysis Image "False Pink"

RE-MAINDR "Chillsmoker Streetlamps" beat tape

Distant Hymns "Yama EP"

Lake Lander "Past Distant Horizons"

Desolate Moon Phases "As the Dark Empire Burns Around Them"

Stormmask LTD compilation "I am alone, but so are you."

Left Behind the Range collection

PM050: Warning Light "Left Behind the Range" I've put up this collection of Warning Light stuff from the 2014-2018 era, my favorite mixes/dubs/cuts that didn't end up on XXXI, Oftenchance, Inland Empires Disregard the Sea, and At the End of the Road. This era of experimenting with rhythm, repetition, sampling and different arrangements marked a time of a lot of change for me as a musician and a producer. These tracks were recorded at Bedsitter Studios in Avondale Estates, and with my current move it makes it the last WL release I recorded there. I'll always look back fondly at my studio time there, I made a LOT of records there. Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible, I won't soon forget any of it.

Summer MIX

Hot mixxx for summer 2018... "There's a heatwave in the hearts and minds of the kids everywhere, this is a soundtrack for a hot-oven season in which sometimes you've just gotta have fun."

new production! Lake Lander's LP

Unique for me in terms of process, Lake's first album feels like so much fusion to me. The earlier mini-album is a hazy lo-fi world of ambient sampler dabbling built around a 36 min sound collage; this album explores microtonality, layered field recordings, repetitive beat dubbing, and glowing synth textures. It's an ambient album, my last full production in Avondale estates at Bedsitter Studios, and it was a beautiful way to say goodbye to my home of ten years.

Persistentmidnight Productions 2017 mixtape

A mixtape of the recent year of PM productions for all to enjoy on youtube

26 Fascinating Records I Heard in 2017

Bvdub “Epilogues for the End of the Sky”

Xander Harris “Termination Dust”

Earthen Sea “An Act of Love”

Hiro Kone “Love is the Capital”

Patricia “Several Shades of the Same Color”

Gas “Narkopop”

Destroyer “Ken”

Phew “Light Sleep”

Moon Duo “Occult Architecture, Vol. 1”

Nite Jewel “Real High”

The War on Drugs “A Deeper Understanding”

Peaking Lights “The Fifth State of Consciousness”

Justin Walter “Unseen Forces”

TOPS “Sugar at the Gate”

Demen “Nektyr”

Pharaohs “In Oeland”

Kleistwahr “Music For the Zeitgeist Fighters”

Bvdub “Heartless”

William Basinski “A Shadow in Time”

Constantine “Hades”

Pharmakon “Contact”

The Caretaker “Everywhere at the End of Time”

Federico Durand “La Nina Junco”

Cafe Ale “Transformative Nature”

Chuck Johnson “Balsams”

Uniform “Wake in Fright”

Persistentmidnight 2017

My Persistentmidnight productions for the year. All music/production/art by me. A lot of people came to visit my corner of the multiverse this year. Hopefully next year they will return, and a lot more will come along too. Special thanks to Stickfigure, Wool-e-Tapes, Rachel, Curtis, John, Travis, Jaye, Lake, and Chris.

Warning Light "Cosmic Mediation EP"
High Marks "Steel Grieves" (Wool-e-Tapes)
Seeing the Sights "Mojave Sunsets LP"
Outer Gods "Severed Together"
Clone Operators "Melting Back the Foil EP"
Lake Lander "PRE EMBRYONIC SOUNDS"
Warning Light "At the End of the Road" (Stickfigure)
High Marks "Systems Emerge Obsolete. EP"
Warning Light "Luxury Through Repetition" / beat tape

Luxury Through Repetition LP mixes

PM040: Warning Light "Luxury Through Repetition" also up as individual mixes, a different listening experience from the beat tape. Pressed as a limited CD.

tracklist:

A 

The Mystery Letter Further Glance the Sphere Casting Tiny Sparks ParcParque B Airlock Island Placer Permanently Out to Sea She's Gone Liquid 

that beat tape can be viewed/heard here  youtu.be/iIDfy7jK2DE

Luxury Through Repetition beat tape

These past six months, I've been listening to a lot of beat tapes on YouTube, and tho I've cycled through several genres of tapes, I've never found one that really does anything quite like what I do. So after some experimenting and dubbing, I found myself with a raucous collection of things roughly approaching psychedelic motorik electro, which I then assembled into a full 34 min beat tape for YouTube. I may do LP mixes of these tracks at some point, but for now, here they are in one full tape.

At the End of the Road, out for all to hear/see/experience

At the End of the Road has seen it's physical debut in the past week, and I couldn't be prouder of it as an album. It's a long, lonely, wistful album, a double LP length meditation on how and why life changes the way it does, and how endings can lead to new things. I pushed myself hard to make an experimental and immersive ambient album, and with a little help from several compatriots it came together nicely. This project grew out of a very fertile period for me, but I'm lucky I even finished this album. In the three years it took to record, there were certainly several months in there where nothing was accomplished. For a few weeks this summer it felt like I may just need to drop the project, but somehow, I kept a clear head (*meditation*is*everything*) and finished everything. After some stops and starts in the mixdown process, I mastered the album on a hastily assembled mobile station in a rental condo over the course of just one particularly hot week in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Many thanks to Stickfigure for pressing the compact disc version, I spent a lot of time working on an art aesthetic that matched the sound so it was a real thrill to hold this album in my hands finally. And many thanks to the two best.

And now, as they say, on to the next adventure.

sincerely, DH

Gloworming Through the Southern Skies debut

The next song out for preview from At the End of the Road is "Gloworming Through the Southern Skies," and it features Rachel M from Snowbride on synths / electronics. The album doesn't come out until the end of October, but I'm excited to have a couple pieces of it up for people to hear. Enjoy.

Little Hearts, Big (Interludes) debut

hey All! The first song selection from At the End of the Road is up for your preview/enjoyment on Stickfigure's soundcloud; I'm very excited for this album to be out in the world soon.

This song specifically started as a live interlude I used between other pieces, but it eventually took on a life of it's own. The fifth song on At the End of the Road, it's not quite the halfway point of this sprawling hour and seventeen minute album.

KnifePlay mix!

Here is a mix I recently made for the LA site KnifePlay! It's got a pretty wide range of stuff, but it def illustrates where my head has been at this summer musically and was a ton of fun to put together. I also did an interview for the site, it should be up in the near future. Many thanks to KnifePlay for making all of this happen.

At the End of the Road announcement

My next album will be At the End of the Road,

coming out 8.27.17 on Stickfigure Recordings on CD and digital.

This was a pretty epic project by any standard (PM recorded/mastered/designed album art all in-house), but this album feels like a beautifully mad science experiment that is actually going to see the light of day... and not all the experiments do. This record is full of collaborators and a dense amount of field recordings/tape looping experiments, but still offers some techno-leaning beatwork and uptempo sample manipulation. At the End of the Road started as an attempt to look back on my ten years of DIY record making and to synthesize it all into one experience (that's probably an impossible task). It ended up with a beautiful inner life of its own... a reminder that at the end of every road, there is another path.

PM Production Lake Lander PRE EMBRYONIC SOUND

Lake Lander's PRE EMBRYONIC SOUND is a pretty classic case of me starting with the seed of an idea (an EP that flows continuously, woven together by a 36 minute sound collage) and finding someone else who put a totally new spin on it. Through months of emailing back and forth, together we deconstructed (in our respective Roland samplers), then rebuilt the individual tracks on PRE EMBRYONIC SOUND and mixed everything down to tape. This is a murky, hazy record with an odd flavor of its own in comparison with other PM productions. I ended up taking a very light hand with the production/mastering on my end; the material just had a life of its own that way. 

A shout out to Rachel M from Snowbride on the original cover photo, it ended up being the perfect expression of the music and concepts. 

PM production: Clone Operators "Melting Back the Foil"

PM037: an experimental release that uses raw analogue electronics to create a noisy amalgam of industrial techno sounds in a spare, post-punk influenced production