Climb the Mountain
Selected Events from a Typical Week
I got my domains moved and the geeky stuff completed. markrushton.com now redirects to the About page on my Substack. I edited the About page to include some links and contact details.
For a few years, I’ve known that I didn’t need a proper “web site”, just a landing page. I don’t want to “integrate a shopping cart” or deal with plug-ins or add-ons. No point in reinventing the wheel. Substack seems like a good home base for now.
This past week, I started scheduling music releases for April 1st, which is on a Monday. I like to schedule new releases once a month, and around the first seems to work for me. It makes the administrative things I have to do more efficient.
The first is “Climb the Mountain”, an 8+ minute beat-driven, live-created electronics recording that is reminiscent of Cabaret Voltaire. If you want to pre-save a notification of the release on Spotify, just click on this hyperfollow link.
“Climb the Mountain” was created in a video livestream broadcast called “Dropped Pulses” on YouTube, Twitch, and FB, on Monday, February 19th, and can be viewed here:
One thing I wanted to do in 2024 was “create live” and then edit the recording for distribution on streaming services.
I record the music before it enters the livestream, so the edited version is always going to sound better because it’s not compressed.
A lot of recording artists “master” their music, which is something I don’t specifically do. My first album, which was released almost 20 years ago, was mastered at a commercial recording studio. I paid $350 for the service. It sounds good, but it also completely altered what I had been hearing during the creation process, so I had to get over that, and it took me about a year. I suppose it’s like putting a glossy varnish on a painting.
While I don’t “master” my music, I normalize levels to a consistent loudness level that most of the industry thinks is acceptable. And that’s about it. No messing with the EQ. No “boosting”. No “AI mastering” via some DAW plug-in. No running it through some web site’s “mastering” process.
Is it any wonder why so many “musicians” never release anything? They’re too busy noodling around with this nonsense. I’m definitely a “first thought / best thought” kind of artist. If it sounds “good enough” to me, then it’s good enough for you.
Which leads me to talking about the second release I scheduled for April 1st, “Industrial Disaster” by my pseudonym, Samesed.
Samesed is the deep dive. While I delete a lot of bad material, sometimes I have recordings I deem “good” but “imperfect”. They’re like “outtakes” in film. Or maybe they don’t fit any of the other pseudonyms I publish under.
There’s a track on Industrial Disaster called “Suffocation Warnings” that sounds like a cloud of smoke almost obscuring an industrial beat in the distance. Same thing with the title track, which sounds like “electronic hardcore”. I don’t have another artist name to release that under, so it goes on here. I have a long ambient track called “Return from Mars” that didn’t fit in with Aleodeology or me or any other “band name” I publish under, so it goes to Samesed.
The artwork for Samesed releases is where I get to have fun and use the garish filters.
Like a lot of people, I have a day job and family commitments. My “creative time” is important. I think for 2024, I’d rather focus on the music and sound recordings, and keeping my “brutal release schedule”. The visual artwork is really a separate thing, but I enjoy integrating it with the cover art for the recordings, or in peripheral things like backing graphics.
I enjoy making the tote bags, and use them for shopping, so I’ll do more of that. And I get a lot of positive comments in public. People ask, “Where did you get this?” and I say I made it. Always the highlight of my day.
And on that note, thanks for reading this far and following along.
Mark Rushton is a recording artist and visual artist from Des Moines, Iowa, with over 3000 published musical and other recordings, available on all major streaming and digital download services around the world.
I work in the genres of ambient, electronic, beats, chillout, downtempo, drone, noise, nature, and found sound.
Live Streaming video and music is done often on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter (X), and occasionally heard on translator channels BitChute, Odysee, and Rumble.
Stock music licensing of Mark Rushton’s music and sound effects can be done via Pond5. For sync licensing, use the contact numbers below:
Contact:
email: markrushton@gmail.com
letters and packages: 430 Fifth St, Unit 65043, West Des Moines, Iowa, 50265
voicemail: 319-423-9003
Mark Rushton’s visual artworks can be seen at the Mark Rushton Gallery.
I write about playlists at the Playlisting Substack.
Here’s a Spotify playlist of some recent music I’ve released under my name and various pseudonyms: