Hello. Just wanted to let you know about my new 8 minute piece in 10 movements, Woods.

A few weeks ago I released a similar instrumental work entitled Coots, mentioning it was the first in a series released under the pseudonym “Crou”. It immediately felt like a mistake.

Not the music. (For someone who has never felt particularly self-confident as a musician, that was not the problem. I felt good about the music.) The problem was there was another artist going by Crou already, and though I professed the ambiguity of pronunciation appealed to me, I soon reasoned how it would not appeal to the likes of Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant in voice commands. Abort, abort, I thought on release day.

So goodby Crou, we hardly knew ya. Hello Sleeping Animal.

I like the new name. It’s been switched for the Coots release for over a week now, and it’s felt steady as she goes. It is one of ten releases I’ve served up to my distributor with release dates fanning out to September, so the name is pretty much set now. There’s plenty more Sleeping Animal to come!

Why Sleeping Animal? To me, the name has a warm, tender, and vulnerable connotation. It also doesn’t hurt that, as an artist who has to devoted himself to environmental and wildlife recording for the past five year, the name functionally alludes to not containing wildlife sounds. That appeals to me.

Starting from square one is always a hand-wringing affair, so if you enjoy it, do me a favor and tell one person about it. In an implacable algorithmic world, word-of-mouth is real.

Woods follows in the footsteps of Coots. Not having an environmental sound bed opens up space for a sonic nuance that I’ve been enjoying experimenting with.

And spoiler alert: The die is cast on monochrome cover art. I have another fun project to announce shortly that this aesthetic plays a big role in. Anyway, I’d be delighted if you gave Woods a listen.

The sophomore release Woods by Sleeping Animal is available on all music streaming sites (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal, Qobuz etc.) today, Friday, March 28th.