Back To The Moon was my second release on Eclectic Sound Machine and the sequel to Back From Earth. A concept noise album, BTTM tells the story of a group of humans traveling, led by a “Jon Madden”, to the Moon and in the process becoming a target of the Goddess of Chaos, Eris.
I had discovered Eris in the lobby restroom at college. HAIL ERIS was etched into the bathroom stall door. I initially thought this was some nonsense, until I saw the phrase ALL HAIL DISCORIDA scralled on restroom stall wall, in the restroom nearby the classroom of my Game Design class. I was worried this was some kind of bigot’s creed, so, I took to the internet and learned about Discordianism. Of course, I was converted.
The album is very tounge in cheek, utillizing the same Text to Speech technology that was utilized in the NASA-approved video game Moonbase Alpha (2010) that became a internet meme. The album uses quite a bit of audio I recorded while at my job at a retail establishment, and various samples recorded from my then new vinyl record collection.
The production methods were quite crude but very effective. There is a lot of stitching samples together in Audacity, but I also used Virtual DJ and a Numark Mixtrack to create many of the noise elements and effects. Also, the “RAW Audio” import feature on Adacity is the most common source of harsh noise elements in the album.
I quite like this album. I just love vibing in this album’s textures. I kind of wish I didn’t include Spacemen Drink Caffeine Free Products So Their Minds Don’t Get Clouded (a.k.a. Caffeine Free Product) in the album as it was clearly not made with the rest of the album in mind, as it was not. There has been a third “Back” album in the works for ages now and I hope to make it sooner than later. We’ll see. I plan to definetly revist some of the production methods of this album again!