Grazers and Dawn Rider are the first two singles from Mild Maynyrd’s new album, HILLS RUN RED, out on Black Lantern on August 20th. ”The idea for the album came about through the last record I did, The Parallel,” says MM. “I wanted to tell a story with that album, a kind-of Depression-era trek through my homeland, eventually ending in St. Paul along the Mississippi River.  

“I wrote a piece of flash-fiction for the release, embedding the song titles into it, as a companion piece to the album.  The idea was you would listen and casually read along to get this imagery in your head so the album told somewhat of a story.  I don’t know if I succeeded.  Ha.  

“When I started thinking about my next record I wanted to take that idea to its furthest possible limits: to make a record with a narrative arc and a story itself, without the supplementation of written word.  I started looking into storytelling.  At some point I stumbled upon a page about dramatic structure on some college’s website.  

“And it clicked: three-part dramatic structure adapted to musical form.  Adapted to the album.  While brainstorming how to do that I figured I needed something with A) a whole ton of material to get the exact quotes I want, and B) something that has enough of a percentage of public-domain material.  The Western thing seemed to fit perfectly (although I toyed with the idea of a Noir).  

“Not only that, but it would be very surreal to make a Western themed Electronic album, and unique.  So I went with it.  I drafted a rough outline of a story while starting on the music itself.  I cherry picked any movies I thought I could use based on their plot synopses.  Then I dubbed and dubbed and dubbed.  I had a file in my production program littered with quotes.  When the music was all done (I tried to make it clear to myself the music was still the most important part) I went through and put them into the tracks.  I’m not sure the narrative turned out to be as clear as I’d thought in my head.  But it’s certainly there.”

A unique, immersive narrative journey through the Old West, HILLS RUN RED will be the 59th release on Black Lantern, Scotland’s premier alternative netlabel.

Check out more releases from Mild Maynyrd over at his Bandcamp.