The Green Kingdom

Mike Cottone is a graphic designer and musician based in Detroit Michigan. Under the Green Kingdom moniker, he produces minimal ambient music using a variety of digitally manipulated sounds sourced from a variety of acoustic and electronic instruments. With The Green Kingdom LP, compositions blur the lines between soundscape and structure while keeping a sharp focus on melody with the guitar playing a central role, the album manipulated acoustic and electronic sources, sampled textures, noise and field recordings. Imbued with a sense of "optimistic nostalgia", Mike Cottone soundworlds encourage introspective explorations and provide an escape from our sometimes hectic lives. The Green Kingdom LP is the natural continuity of the highly acclaimed EP "Lucky Bamboo" released for free on EKONETLABEL in June 2006. This debut release from Sem is a delicious charmer of an album from Michael Cottone (previously to be found on the Post Piano Remix Project on 12k's Term offshoot - one of the highlights, in fact). Sounding something like a cross between 12k's more organic releases and a label like Plop, for example, the sound is delicate, yet robust, beautiful and atmospheric and packed full of lovely textural sounds. Elements of folkiness creep into the gentle guitar plucking, but it remains resolutely an electronic based work throughout and the way it builds on sounds and themes is warm, friendly and very, very listenable indeed. Scratchy background samples and layers of static, click and really interesting samples combine with the more musical aspects to give it a dense, yet still spacious feel. Fans of the aforementioned labels will find a huge amount to enjoy with this album and it comes highly recommended.