Ianthine Fruits by Coppice Halifax

It's been a very long time since I've fallen into a recording like this. I say 'fall' because there's really no other way to describe the notion of working toward entirely opposite creative goals, with entirely different methodologies, and following a tangent that didn't seem too far off the path, only to slip down the edge of the ravine and be forced to find a new way back.

This is, more or less, what happened with "Ianthine Fruits," a piece that began life as another Limestone Ziggurat modular patch, droning late into the evening, perhaps stoned, perhaps not. It was dated and labeled and put away when the machines were switched off, with the assumption it might end up being useful in the final crop of Deep Earth sessions later that month (see: Abyssal Geology, https://malfokusita.bandcamp.com/ ), and further the Venn narrowed when I revisited it a week ago, realizing that there were so many other melodies and shapes swirling around inside this one chordal structure - realizing that I was standing at the foot of a body of water instead of something made of stone.

And this was the first moment I became aware of "Ianthine Fruits" as it now sits before you, a Coppice Halifax recording that recalls the 'old style' of long runtimes, deep techno, textural mapping and hypnotic bass. It came together in the same way things like "River Mural" had, with me pulling all of the melodic and rhythmic elements out of the cloudy synthesizer, feeling as if they were already outlined within it, and only needed to be excavated to the surface. Musically, it resides somewhere between my "Verdant Acre" records and perhaps a very macro-lens close-up of the more recent "Transient Logics." Prosaically, "Ianthine" also resembles aspects of the "Astral Salons" series run and the modular deep techno meditation "By a River."

(I was also reminded of my perennial love for the first self-titled GAS album that Wolfgang Voigt made in 1996, which was folllowed by several incredible LPs, however different they were from that first album. My photography for the cover of "Ianthine" is in candid homage to those albums.)

So I sent the music to a couple friends, ears I could trust, and I found that what I considered to perhaps be a first draft was instead a final product that I was told not to touch. Even if there are moments of lull on this recording, I am willing to overlook them in favor of the bigger picture, which is the intent I had in wanting to make a Coppice Halifax album 'the way I used to' with a smaller number of elements, and a sense of restraint that allowed those elements to accumulate into something more interesting than the parts alone might convey.

It is my acknowledged desire that I treat "Ianthine" as the beginning of something new, rather than a curiosity I've stumbled upon on my way to somewhere else. I don't know how soon or how far away the next piece will be after this moment, but this moment has arrived, and I'm so happy that I can share it with you.

Tracklist

1.	Ianthine Fruits	66:32

Credits

released August 1, 2025

W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at White Pillar Workshop, Summer 2025. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Text by Brian. Photograph taken by Brian at White Pillar, July 2024. This is Milieu Music number ABX134. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2025. All nights preserved.

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