Finally working the Volca Drum back into the mix after not having used it for a little while. I like the lofi effect it gives the drum beat. With this track I leaned a little heavier into the Vital VST I've been experimenting with, also used the old minilogue and microfreak. Thanks for listening!

Homeostatic Imbalance

Kind of a laidback synth jam, I worked in more of the Zeeon synth plugin that I've been finding really useful lately, it has really excellent analogue modeling. Also made good use of the trusty minilogue xd and microfreak of course. Cheers!

Path of Least Resistance

VHS Vision

The Smoking Trout continue our tale of the Quest for the Holy Dumpling. This time we're joined by our biggest crew yet! Stonerjazz (Jeff) got us started and somehow the whole process unfolded quite organically from there. TexMex Shaman (Stephen), Jo Richter, Tot (Masa), Jeff and Tea R Sea (Terry) are regularly recurring members of the band. We are happy to welcome Wivresse (Carine) and Neil Harding as new guest contributors. This was tons of fun as always, and a truly global collaboration spanning Japan, France, Germany, UK, and USA.

Stonerjazz (@user-911083679) --- Words, Vocals, Guitar (pt II)
TexMex Shaman (@texmex-shaman) --- Guitar (pt III)
Wivresse (@wivresse2) --- Xaphoon, Vocals, Water sounds & percussion
Tot (@tot-beat) --- Drums & main beat
Jo Richter (@sonic-textures) --- Thundersheet, Instrumental prelude & words (pt I) 
Neil Harding (@user-484622070) --- Spoken word vocals (pt I)
Tea R. Sea (@tea_are_sea) --- Production, Synths (pt II), Sound effects (pt I)

Catch up on the Quest for the Holy Dumpling: on.soundcloud.com/FR63a
Listen to the Land of Zed, Smoking Trout's debut album: on.soundcloud.com/WB34q

LYRICS

(Part I - Vocals by Neil Harding / Words by Jo Richter)

Those individuals on wheels had a hard time finding their feed. Hungry they were - for that special dumpling that connects you to anything pagans and believers alike deem holy. Although endowed with holgraphic properties, you can't walk on clouds unless they are numbered. They kept drifting upwards, therefore, slowly upwards until they hit the ceiling called Mars. Mars always happens to be where your head needs something to bump against. That's the nature of war.

(Part II - Words & Vocals by Stonerjazz)

It turned out
there was never any doubt
about
how it was gonna be

ya know it's hard sometimes
to get a grip
drifting in the corridors of time

everybody on the bus
runnin hard and hot
some of us holograms
except for Gus
he's an Alien from outer space
waiting for the rendezvous
at the window of the launch
in Oaxaca down in Mexico
Where the magic mushrooms grow

And his bus
a shuttle from the mother ship
disguised as a 1983 GMC
infinity
He's from another Galaxy
searching for the holy dumpling
just like you and me.

Hope we find that dumpling soon
maybe it's on the moon
traveling at the speed of light
we could get there sometime later on tonight

(Part III - Vocals by Wivresse)

Except for Gus (Smoking Trout's HOLY DUMPLING #9)

Psychic Resonance

I've had this one in progress for a long time, kept thinking it might make a good collab since there are some open spaces in here. If anyone is interested in remixing I can send you the stems!

Fermentation

This is another one that's been under development for a while. Kind of a weird fun vibe to it I thought.

Melancholy Mollusk

This is my first time collaborating with DJTJ a.k.a. Tim @https://soundcloud.com/user-201274463, I produced this track built around the backbone of two rhythmic stems that he sent my way. Always fun to connect with a new artist. Check out Tim's page to hear more cool experimental electro sounds!

Flood waters - w/ DJTJ West End Chops

It's been a few months since @texmex-shaman and I have released a new 'Texas Tea' production. This one has a bit of a wacky weird vibe to it. My working title was 'rusty' so that evolved into this reference to a certain 90s/00s cartoon character's alter ego.

Check out our full playlist of Texas Tea tracks here:
https://soundcloud.com/texmex-shaman/sets/texas-tea-sea

Credit for the artwork goes to CannabisDuck (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
www.deviantart.com/cannabisduck/art/Dale-307783593

Rusty Shackleford Rides Again - w/ TexMex Shaman

My friend David Z (a.k.a. @blackmarketbrains) posted this incredibly awesome drum beat as an open collab. It was made using the korg Volca Drum which we both are fans of. I had this on deck to work with for months. When I finally plugged it into the DAW I was immediately inspired and this came together right away. Best played at high volume, hope you'll enjoy!

Check out the original 'BioSpawner' open collab beat here: 
https://soundcloud.com/blackmarketbrains/biospawner-free-dl-open-collab-volca-drum-beats

Infinite Ardor - w/ Black Market Brains

Discoloration

Life Cycles

Here is the next song in The Smoking Trout's epic series, The Quest for the Holy Dumpling! After featuring 7 musicians on our last track this one feels pretty stripped down to the core elements of me, Jeff and Stephen. Came together rather spontaneously 

Stonerjazz (@user-911083679) --- Words, Vocals
TexMex Shaman (@texmex-shaman) --- Guitar 
Tea R. Sea (@tea_are_sea) --- Beat, Synths, Production

Catch up on the Quest for the Holy Dumpling: on.soundcloud.com/FR63a
Listen to the Land of Zed, Smoking Trout's debut album: on.soundcloud.com/WB34q


LYRICS:
Took some money from a monkey
looking for some information
he got funky at a party on a planet
where we landed after launching
from Oaxaca
on a Monday in December
I remember needing fuel for the fission
in the belly of the bus
The monkey wanted Mushrooms
and we had a Kilo
and the recipe for the holy dumpling

Now Stu he started singing
a country song that he'd been working on
That went like This--

i'm pretty sure she loved me for a minute
so delicious in the moment we were in it
when she left me, I was so broken
by the cruelty of the loss
I sought solace in the bottom of a bottle
but I guess i'm better for it
and mostly now, the pain, I ignore it
anymore there's nothin left to do for it
but forget it--

The Monkey

The Monkey (Smoking Trout's HOLY DUMPLING #10) w/ Stonerjazz & TexMex Shaman

This is a simple quirky little beat that I really liked the sound of, so decided to post it as an open collab after I'd already connected with both Enigma Curry and Stonerjazz to make a couple alternate mixes -- you can check them out here...

PLAYLIST: https://soundcloud.com/tea_are_sea/sets/windswept-collabs

If you'd like to adapt the stems for yourself, you can download them all here. Just let me know if you make something with them and I'll add them to the running playlist. Cheers!

STEMS: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ArXRfRVPHxiqQ6E48mHVr9CUPX9_a5YA?usp=sharing

Windswept - OPEN COLLAB!

Feeling kind of in the zone on this one, one of my favorite solo pieces in a little while.

Weightless

A new collaboration from me and the great @enigmacurry!

Cover image by Nova Dawn Astrophotography
CC-BY-SA-4.0

Emergence - w/ Enigma Curry

Wilderness

I'm very happy to be releasing a new track with my friend Jerome Hearn from Germany. We've had a few things in the works for a long time but it has been a while since we've posted something. 

Check out his great solo music here:
@user-275778339
@jerome-hearn-994307260
https://www.instagram.com/tru.un.art/

And here is a playlist including the earlier tracks we've produced together:
https://soundcloud.com/tea_are_sea/sets/jerome-hearn-tea-r-sea

Kette - w/ Jerome Hearn

This is the second Windswept mix I've released. This one is in collaboration with STONERJAZZ @user-911083679 

Check out the other mixes here, including the original stripped down version which I'm posting as an open collab. It is a simple quirky little beat that I really liked the sound of. 

PLAYLIST: https://soundcloud.com/tea_are_sea/sets/windswept-collabs

If you'd like to adapt the stems for yourself, you can download them all here. Just let me know if you make something with them and I'll add them to the running playlist. Cheers!

STEMS: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ArXRfRVPHxiqQ6E48mHVr9CUPX9_a5YA?usp=sharing

Windswept - Stoner Tea Mix

My second recent collaboration with @enigmacurry, this will be one of a pair of tracks that evolved in different directions after I came up with the initial idea. 

Check out the other mixes here, including the original stripped down version which I'm posting as an open collab. It is a simple quirky little beat that I really liked the sound of.

PLAYLIST: soundcloud.com/tea_are_sea/sets/windswept-collabs

If you'd like to adapt the stems for yourself, you can download them all here. Just let me know if you make something with them and I'll add them to the running playlist. Cheers!

STEMS:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ArXRfRVPHxiqQ6E48mHVr9CUPX9_a5YA?usp=sharing

Photo by Alistair Nicol (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Windswept - Enigma Curry Mix

@enigma-curry and I are on a bit of a roll with collabs. Here is another ambient exploration from the two of us.

Space Station (Incoming Ship) - w/ Enigma Curry

The Texas Tea duo is back for another genre bending collaboration!

@texmex-shaman and I have been making tunes together for going on a couple of years now - check out our full playlist to date: https://soundcloud.com/texmex-shaman/sets/texas-tea-sea

On this one, I made the electro beat and sent to Stephen. He added all the guitar parts as well as some really cool sound effects during the outro. Always a blast to put these together.

Overflow (a Texas Tea production) - w/ TexMex Shaman

* Stonerjazz @user-911083679 -- Vocals, Lyrics, Original Idea, Acoustic Guitar, and Artwork

* Uziel @user-455619833 -- Vocals 

* TexMex Shaman @texmex-shaman -- Electric Guitar & Bridge

* Tot - @tot-beat -- Beat & Drums

* Tea R. Sea - @tea_are_sea -- Synths & Production

-------------
Catch up with the first 10 tracks of our work-in-progress concept album, Quest for the Holy Dumpling: on.soundcloud.com/FR63a

Listen to the Smoking Trout's first album, The Land of Zed (2021-2022): on.soundcloud.com/WB34q
-------------

Lyrics (by Stonerjazz):

We all chose it, we arrived here at this self-same place
he liked to think that he had earned it
but that simply not the case.
He just dreamed it up one sunday afternoon
while drowsing and lounging in the Ether
where the US resides
while living on a Proton Banished
to the outskirts of a single Atom
In a single Universe-
It was a wicked Curse, specifically designed for him
A scorcerer, Albert Rufus Smith
Stole a Rocket ship and he took it to Uriah
He was a rascal and scoundrel and a liar and a thief
But he had a magic knife that he had won in a game of dice
on a stormy night in a corner of some ruins
in the desert in december by the fire light with some other witches from Oaxaca
where he'd Spied Roberta picking magic mushrooms naked in the moonlight
with her brothers and her sisters and some others from the Bus-
It seems that Albert Rufus Smith Was Smitten

The eternal now is Wow
When we wonder why we wander
where we will
while walking walking walking to fulfill
the contemplated vacancy
Beyond the vast Horizen

Alberts knife was sliver with a handle made of Amber
when he held it high above his head
it gave off a blinding light
and on that night on the planet of Uriah
when Gus and all his jolly happy hopeful holograms arrived
on that Beat-up Bus
That formulated plan in Alberts wicked head
appeared to be on Track
had he not been messmerized by Roberta's perfect presence and physic
he might have pulled it off, that dirty rotten little sneak--

Sid and Larry caught him and his Cronies
trying to steal the bus and Abduct
Sally and Roberta too, Who
were sleeping on the bus in the back together as they always do,
And Gus was not Amused-
Albert seemed to be confused until he held his Magic knife up high
and blinded ever bodies eye
and in a frantic flight he escaped into the distant night--

Albert Rufus Smith (Smoking Trout's HOLY DUMPLING #11)

Me and @enigmacurry worked on this a few weeks back. He pulled some really interesting open source samples from Citizen DJ https://citizen.dj.labs.loc.gov/ to accompany the beat that I sent him. I was very impressed with his resulting production!

Swash - w/ Enigma Curry

Shattered Concentration

Another super fun collab with my good friend @texmex-shaman !!

Hope you enjoy it, has a bit more of a major key mood going on this time.

And check out the Texas Tea playlist here: soundcloud.com/texmex-shaman/sets/texas-tea-sea

Static Glow (a Texas Tea production) - w/ TexMex Shaman

This is my first ever collaboration with @AWITW (A Walk in the Woods) a.k.a. Nico from France. He has been kind enough to feature a couple of my songs on his record label @goldenforestrecords, but we never worked together until now.

I sent him a very chilled out hip hoppy kind of beat and he evolved it into this awesome IDM jam. Thanks for checking it out!

Two Brains - w/ AWITW

Harsh Landscape

Another really fun collab with the legendary @TexMex-Shaman!

I'll often sketch out music ideas and compose midi melodies on the ipad as a first step, but took a different approach and constructed this one entirely in Ableton Live which I have been transitioning more of my process to increasingly.

After building the foundation I sent it to Stephen and he added some suuuper creative guitar parts that really build the atmosphere and take it to a whole other level. Very happy how this came out, hope you'll enjoy it!

Primeval (a Texas Tea production) - w/ TexMex Shaman

The Vivid West

On this page you'll find music from me as well as the collaborative SoundCloud band, The Smoking Trout.

Genre influences include electronic, downtempo, lofi, experimental, rock, blues, indie, prog, post rock, ambient, synthwave, trip hop, and hip hop. I make tracks primarily with Cubasis and Korg Gadget (iOS); Ableton Live; Korg and Moog softsynths, Volca Drum, Minilogue XD, Arturia Microfreak, Arturia Pigments, and the FabFilter Pro suite of effects and production tools.

My sound has been inspired by Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, DJ Shadow, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, the Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, M83, Godspeed you Black Emperor!, Mogwai, Pink Floyd, Animal Collective, Nicolas Jaar, Dirty Projectors, Massive Attack, Björk, Dan the Automator, Del, the Gorillaz, Reggie Watts, Ween, Neon Indian, Tycho, Ott, Shpongle, Danger Mouse, Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo, Velvet Underground, My Bloody Valentine, Modest Mouse, Tool, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix, the Books, and too many others to list here.

Hope you will check out some of my collaborators:

@user-911083679 - STONERJAZZ
@user-455619833 - Uziel
@texmex-shaman
@sonic-textures
@grevusanjl
@enigmacurry
@mralchemy
@blackmarketbrains
@dough-factory
@winkandwoo
@jerome-hearn-994307260
@dubman-9
@archmageband2
@tot-beat
@ipg1
@zed4209819
@lala-land-361191160 - E.P. Beats
@llanpsych
@ruizzoidman21centurions
@Ladyofire
@josh-clary-1 Entheogenic Psychonaught
@themysteriousdecibel 
@k2andthe3
@cerulean_ascent
@nic_nic_nic
@nadiaselvaggi
@chefboyextreme
@scilentsymphony
@azealotrous
@noxpox13 
@pablomoretti
@prof-oddfellow - Neons Gone a Mad
GMO / Green Mercurial Owl 

Thanks so much for stopping by and listening!

Tea R. Sea

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