Grounded by Mika's Tapes
‘Grounded’ was written and recorded during the transition from winter to spring in 2022. The EP is inspired by many hikes that I went on during that time. The German forests had suffered immense dryness that lead to the death of so many trees giving the forest that is left a complete new appearance. Looking at so many fallen and dead trees, empty patches of what once was a green forest, grounded me. The climate change, people ignoring the importance of nature, pollution … all these sad things that put great challenges on us all come to mind.
But there’s also beauty: Although I’ve always considered myself an outdoor-person, I have never been out in the forest as often as in the recent two years during a world-wide pandemic. And seeing how fast and unstoppable nature is reclaiming what was taken from her grounded me even more.
Where giant patches of fallen trees painted dry, grey holes into the landscape, not even a year later these areas are reclaimed by all sorts of greenery! As a wise man once said: “Life, ehh … finds a way!”
The EP was recorded one song at a time. It is mostly performed live and recorded from a single stereo out to tape. I wanted the EP to be very noisy and grainy to give it an organic feel.
It features the Elektron Digitakt and Digitone, the Novation Peak and a little Eurorack Modular setup plus a Soft Piano that I had to record via Midi into the PC and straight back out to the tape machine (Akai GX-4000D). Except for slight EQ-ing (and mastering of course) there was no post-processing done.
I hope you enjoy listening!
Cheers
//mika
Credits
Recorded and mixed by Mikas.Tapes.
Mastered by Dan Fur.
