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Midnight Over Michindoh

by Tim Kays

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1.
K Khorus 04:55
2.
3.
Deep Woods 28:33

about

As the glaciers of the last Ice Age retreated to the north, they scoured the landscape, leaving behind several clues of their existence. One of those clues is the subterranean Michindoh Glacial Outwash Aquifer. The Michindoh encompasses portions of seven counties in three states...Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Although small in geographic size, the Michindoh is one of the most productive aquifers in the region, and is the sole source of life sustaining fresh water to nearly two dozen communities. In areas where the Michindoh bubbles to the surface, it does so in freely flowing artesian springs, which in turn feeds local waterways and marsh areas. Life can be found in abundance in these areas. On warm summer nights across the Michindoh, that animal and insect life tunes up and sings an overnight serenade. Those serenades, recorded over several different locations across the surface of the Michindoh in 2017, form the basis of the music contained in this album.

K Khorus - The rural roads in my county are laid out in grids, with the numbered roads going north and south, and the lettered roads going east and west. For about one week every spring, there is a loud nighttime chorus of thousands of very vocal amphibians in the swampy land at the corner of County Roads 15 and K. On this evening, I caught them as the midnight hour approached on the clock, and a thunderstorm approached from the west.

A Day By La Su An - Situated about 1,000 feet to the west of the intersection of County Roads R and 7 in the northwest part of the county, the Lake La Su An Wildlife Area is not just Amphibian Alley. The roads are cut through heavily forested wetlands that in spots are practically unchanged from the days when members of the Potawatomi Nation roamed freely through the area. The traveling through the area is best kept at a slow pace because the white tail deer and other animals outnumber humans exponentially. This recording catches the southern tip of Lake La Su An in the morning, the afternoon, the evening and the nighttime. As you can hear, the denizens of La Su An are well versed in the ancient tongues of their respective species.

Deep Woods - With Beaver Creek just to the south, and a heavily wooded ravine cutting through the wetlands just to the north, this is the sound from just outside my bedroom window that sings me to sleep on a warm summer night.

We've got it pretty good here on the Michindoh...but I might be a tad on the biased side.

credits

released November 19, 2018

All tracks composed, produced and engineered by Tim Kays in the Studio in the Clouds in Bryan, Ohio, in 2017

Naturescapes recorded during the Summer of 2017 in locations across Williams and Fulton Counties of Ohio

Tim Kays uses Gibson, Fender, Steinberger and Washburn guitars, Line-6 and Fender amplification, and Moog, Roland, Korg, Arturia, Plasma and Planet-H synthesizers, pedals and modules

Cover art by Tim Kays

Photos shot at the Retention Pond near Bryan, Ohio

About Tim Kays

Playing in a high school garage band and working part-time at the local radio station as a Midwestern teenager in the 1970s, Tim cut his teeth on the riffs of Tony Iommi, Robin Trower and Jimmy Page. One evening at the radio station, he fumbled through a box of newly arrived promotional albums that were deemed unworthy of airplay by the program manager. One of those albums caught his eye, so he pulled it out and played it in the studio. Five minutes into that album, 'Stratosfear' by Tangerine Dream, Tim discovered that his views of music to that point were, at best, myopic.

Through the garage band days, up through the ranks of semi-pro and professional musician, he tinkered with Moog and Arp synthesizers, but always just as a fill or lead instrument behind the guitars. In 1998, he began using Roland guitar synthesizers to expand his sound, and a decade later, he began recording using the Rolands, along with a Moog and Yamaha to take his first awkward foray into the genre that had stunned him over two decades earlier…electronic music.

A musician writes from the emotion of experience, and after a decade-long relationship crashed and burned in 2009, Tim had plenty of inspiration from which to draw. Putting the guitar down and relying almost entirely on synthesizers and sampled sounds, he found a new voice. In his newfound 'self-medication' for an aching heart, Tim began to draw upon the old influences of Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre, Michael Hoenig, Vangelis, Michel Huygen, Hans Joachim Rodelius and Brian Eno…and the compositions began to flow.

Discovering a Facebook community of like-minded musicians, Tim discovered new, but equally profound influences. Musicians like Gert Emmens, Jack Hertz, Mike Carss (Altus), Daniel Robert Lahey, Cousin Silas, Wendy Waters (Magnetic Wind), Phillip Wilkerson, Bing Satellites and many others occupied huge chunks of his computer hard drive. With the addition of their influences, the compositions became albums…and more and more albums.

Being solely the product of self-medication, Tim determined that the albums were to remain private. After giving a listen to a special friend, she convinced him that more needed to hear his music. Easier said than done, though. Who? How?

The answer came after the Sandy Hook tragedy, when Magnetic Wind decided to release a compilation benefit album on Jack Hertz' Sounds 4 Good label. Tim submitted an old track, entitled "Footdancin'". When it was included on the 2013 benefit release entitled, "For Our Children," Tim was now a published solo electronic music artist.

Since that time, he has had releases on the BFW, HAZE and Petroglyph labels, as well as Jack Hertz' Aural Films label. His music has been played on several stations, such as StillStream and Radio Sunrise. Still though, although he has over 30 albums of material recorded, most have never been heard outside of a few close friends.

As Orson Welles once said of Paul Masson, "We will sell no wine, before it's time." The same can be said of the music of Tim Kays.

More info: www.facebook.com/tim.kays.5

About Aural Films

Aural Films is an online record label (netlabel) that releases high-quality soundtrack albums for movies that do not exist. We cover a wide range of music styles ranging from ambient to experimental to popular to soundtrack musics. Often on the same albums. You can find our complete catalog of releases online at auralfilms.com

Aural Films Catalog No. AF0229

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Aural Films presents soundtracks for movies that do not exist. Immerse yourself in our library of 100s of high definition cinematic music titles.

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