CDwn

CDwn was recorded live in a single session over the course of one evening, using a combination of hardware and software. Nothing was pre-programmed, and the release stays entirely with complete takes. Only one track had originally been planned, but the setup was already in place and the session kept going from there. By the end of the evening, seven tracks had been recorded in total. The final release was shaped by selecting the three that worked best on their own and also fit together most clearly as a group.

The EP is built around slow movement, heavy tone, and a dark, estranging atmosphere. Texture is central to the release. Overdrive, noise, and roughness all play an important role in the sound, but mainly as color and warmth rather than as interruption. At the center of it are somber drones and melancholic chords, with a raw surface that comes from the way the material was played and recorded rather than from heavy editing afterwards.

What made CDwn feel different, especially within the more noise-ambient side of the project, was that it moved away from some of the more collage-like, tape-shaped, or otherwise more overtly constructed ways of working that had often been present there before. It still belongs to that broader branch, but it presents it in a more direct and sustained form. It was not the beginning of that language, and it already had predecessors, but it was the first official release to show this particular variation of it so clearly.

The release takes its name from the track Cdwn, which began as a piece built around a counting-down sample that plays a central role in the track. The title originally came from “counting down,” then shifted to Cdwn because the shorter form looked better typographically. The release itself was meant to use that same title, but an accidental file spelling as CDwn ended up being kept.

Two other tracks from the same evening were later released elsewhere in the discography, under the titles move and channel. No later release ended up sounding exactly like CDwn, but some of the same approach still appears elsewhere in the project.

Text written in May 2026.