On The Other Hand

My new album entitled On The Other Hand is available for pre-order on Bandcamp and will be released officially this Friday August 23. It will also soon be available on all the usual streaming services such as iTunes and Spotify.

This is an album of primarily rhythmic, electronic music.  It was composed, sequenced, performed using the Digitakt a sample based drum machine made by Elektron.  The sounds, or samples (short, 1 to 3 second snippets) used are exclusively from recordings of the 0-Coast analog synth made by Make Noise.  I began creating the first of these compositions while in the hospital after an accident that severely damaged my right shoulder. During my stay there I had the Digitakt with me to pass some time during those strange wakeful hours late at night or when no one was visiting, during which I was essentially glued to the hospital bed.  
When I first began working on these grooves I had no real plans in mind. It was in fact after seeing a video on the Make Noise YouTube channel featuring Black Box Theory that I was inspired to continue creating new compositions. I had already been using 0-Coast samples but after seeing this video I decided to take it further and create an entirely new set samples for the Digitakt based on additional recordings of the the 0-Coast that I had made previously.

Most of the music was created after I had returned home after the second surgery while I was in various states of discomfort, experiencing limited mobility (zero use of my right arm and hand) as well as being dazed from pain medication and erratic sleep.  In this state simply sitting with the Digitakt creating music served as an ideal distraction from the moment to moment discomfort. 
More importantly having a creative exercise from the early days after the accident and surgeries and up to now has been vital to my sense of wellbeing and purpose during this rather difficult period.
I have listened to and been influenced by quite a bit of this sort of music yet I have created very little of it and released even less. If in making this record I succeeded In creating something that could be considered worthy by those artists whom I respect it is they who deserve the credit.  If, on the other hand this music falls short in any way the responsibility is entirely mine.

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/pancycle/on-the-other-hand

Darren Dyke
Porcheresse, Belgium
August 17, 2019