purple decades journey test

• listening party
• existing artist
• See all results

No matching results

Try a different filter or a new search keyword.

Search all Bandcamp artists, tracks, and albums

• artists PRO view site
• edit profile
• subscription subscription
• view collection
• showLinkedBands(!showLinkedBands())" data-test="linked-accounts-header">

Journey Test

By purple decades.

Black Vinyl LP Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

Buy Vinyl   $20 USD or more  

Send as gift  , digital album streaming + download, buy digital album   $8 usd  or more, share / embed, shopping cart.

Beacon Sound Portland, Oregon

Upholding the power of culture over the culture of power since 2011.

• beaconsound.com

discography

contact / help

Contact Beacon Sound

Streaming and Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Journey Test, you may also like:

Healing Together: A Compilation For Mental Health Recovery by Various Artists

supported by 28 fans who also own “Journey Test”

So many unique voices and sounds, beautiful! Rebecca (Trees Can Talk)

Everywhere at the end of time by The Caretaker

supported by 25 fans who also own “Journey Test”

An absolutely amazing use of emotion in this album. Pictured everything how I would've expected. Absolutely terrifying. Catijuana

I'll Look For You In Others by Patricia Wolf

supported by 18 fans who also own “Journey Test”

Something so raw and vulnerable about this album connects with me on a visceral level. There’s deep beauty within the sadness. Thank you. Lydia

Through the Nightfall Grandeur by Dahlia's Tear

Moody dark ambient from Dahlia’s Tear, the expansive sounds on “Through the Nightfall Grandeur” are as melancholy as they are unsettling. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 16, 2018

Kontratape 06 by Laura Trance, All True

With the A-Side handled by Laura Trance and the B-Side by All True, “Kontratape 06” offers two different spins on glitchy electronic music. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 17, 2021

Miniaturen by arovane

These delicate little pieces from throughout Arovane's career bring a sense of tenderness to the idea of transitory space. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 25, 2023

Graffiti In Space by Strategy

after I heard day dream space graffiti in the first listen, it was a instant love so I bought it on cassette on a impulse. I loved the look of the blue cassette and design. The tracks really build slowly up nicely. they are independent tracks but flow together nicely. great ambient listen with some fun fuzzy spacey synth sounds. Upon a second listen, especially on cassette I realized it was a rather lonely and melancholy sound. a sorrowful addictive sound you won't regret shantikeet

Bandcamp Daily    your guide to the world of Bandcamp

The Best Ambient on Bandcamp: February 2023

How ‘Morá Tugá’ Helped Rumtum Escape Planet Earth

Talking Time and Space With Steve Roach

On Bandcamp Radio

New music from Brazil to the South China Sea, plus guests Photay and Dave Guy.

Purple Decades

Journey test, release notes.

Label: Beacon Sound Release: Journey Test Date: January 27th, 2023 Mastered By: Jason Powers Video Directed By: Laura Castelo

beaconsound.com

Today I am excited to premiere a video for you by Cincinnati-based pianist and composer Tristan Eckerson , who released his full-length album under the new ambient project Journey Test  in late January titled Purple Decades via  Beacon Sound . For the eight pieces on the album, Eckerson stripped down the compositional approach of his solo piano works, bringing the background closer into the focus of each track, bathed in lush-resounding reverb of organic and electronic sounds. The result is a serene, texture-rich, cinematic voyage through mesmerising sonic environments, “ conjuring the horizon line of landscapes both distant and internal, a wordless dialectic between contentment and nostalgia. ” As is the case with all of my video premieres, I try to focus on the visuals that truly complement each musical piece, adding their own unique dimension to the already rich storyline. These are not simply optical accompaniments but entirely distinct miniature films, where the sound is just as crucial as the visuals. For the title track, “Journey Test”, director Laura Castelo captured a charming little moment, which I hope will resonate with you through all of its enchanting waveforms. And if you simply let it all go, this beautiful, fragile package will succeed in guiding you through a journey without any effort on your part. I hope you will enjoy!

The first time I heard Journey Test, I closed my eyes and I felt like a leaf carried by the wind, going across the world and seeing amazing landscapes. Tristan’s music instills peace and fluidity, that’s just what I wanted to show directing Journey Test’s music video. It was very fulfilling working with Tristan, who gave me absolute freedom to run and create the story for the video – so we both put together in harmony the visual pieces of a creative puzzle. — Laura Castelo

Once again, the full album Journey Test is already out via Portland-based Beacon Sound, and you can pick up your limited edition vinyl copy directly from Bandcamp or stream it on your favourite digital platform. It’s still pretty dark outside on this early Thursday morning in London (at 6 am!), and I love how these blissful frequencies are filling up the space of my slowly awakening mind.

Related Content

Alder & Ash

Clutched in the maw of the world.

Perpetual Journey

Martin Kohlstedt

Olga Wojciechowska

Images imprisoned within you.

Carters Final Transmission

Patrick Jonsson

Bruno Bavota

Olivia Belli

Fox y Digitalis T-Shirts, hoodies, totes, & mugs NOW AVAILABLE!

• Track-by-Track

Track-by-Track: Purple Decades’ “Journey Test”

As  an album title,  Journey Test  sends my thoughts skittering in multiple directions, but as an actual album, I find calm and focus within its gentle movements and warm glow. Cincinnati-based composer Tristan Eckerson has released countless albums of modern classical music, but with Purple Decades, he reveals something cocoon-like and introspective. Using a minimal palette but moving into more electronic corridors than his usual solo work,  Journey Test  becomes an ever-growing dot on the horizon. This music manages to be close and expansive simultaneously, wrapping us in its beauty while pulling us further into the open. Through repeating passages and emotive arrangements,  Journey Test  stands out as an album worth spending considerable time with.

For me,  Journey Test  was originally about making an album that really felt like a creation of art, with no actual goals or expectations beyond that. That might sound strange, but I had kind of backed myself into a corner at the time, making contemporary classical music with the mindset of needing to make money from my releases, as any artist does. And it was starting to become kind of a drag because the desire to make money from my art was kind of driving me to make music that I wasn’t really passionate about. And so I felt that I needed to make something that really just felt good to make and that I would be proud of when it was finished. So I set out to make  Journey Test , really thinking about creating something euphoric, immersive, and cathartic- both for the listener and for myself. I took my time in producing this music and paying attention to details of sound design, atmosphere, and textures, in addition to my usual compositional process. I wanted to make something that felt like you were inside of it, really immersed in it, and the process of which would be enjoyable, warm, and effortless.

Throughout the process of creating another piece of music a few years ago, I developed a sort of palette of sounds that I really got attached to. And so I used these sounds, and even the harmonic progression of the piece I had been working on, to develop forest. I really like the idea of tape delay, foley, and ambience creating an immersive and organic sound- something that wasn’t really predictable in musical terms but rather felt like it was emanating from somewhere far away. And then, putting the chords and melody over that in a very washed-out way, I created the sound of Forest, which to me is very deep and ethereal, and really sets the tone of what I wanted to accomplish with Journey Test as a whole.

Journey Test

Most of my music outside of Purple Decades is piano based, and I knew I wanted to have a few tracks on this album that were still piano-centric. Journey Test is the title track of this album because I think this track really sums up the ideas I wanted to convey. This song is a journey, but not necessarily a confident one. It’s kind of that feeling of when you know you need to get out and explore and make a change, but you’re not sure what is going to happen. You just need to test it out. That was really the idea that I had going on in my head at the time I was writing this piece. So, of course, it starts out at a plodding type of pace, super minimal and mostly piano based. And that as it goes on, it kind of splits open and expands into something unknown and keeps reaching until it just eventually melts away, back to where it started. I used a lot of layers and sounds on this track to propel it forward, and I’m really happy with the way it all came together.

Sort of Like Breathing 

This track just sort of happened on its own, which is my favorite type of song. I was definitely going slightly more in the direction of psychedelia on this one, trying to make something really deep and chilled out, almost like the harmony was coming at you in waves. I also felt a little bit of Flaming Lips influence when I was making this one. I just wanted it to have a positive feeling, something really comforting and cathartic to listen to. This might be one of the most synth-based tracks on the album as well, as I used a lot of different tracks to create a thick and warm sound, with a lot of gentle distortion and space added around the melody and bass line.

This was the other piano-led track and one of my personal favorites from the album. I was definitely taking some influence from Jon Hopkins and Ryuichi Sakamoto on this one. The piano part is really minimal, so the whole idea was just to create a sonic world for it to live within. The approach was similar to the creation of the other tracks, but for  Kagami , I didn’t need it to travel anywhere. It’s not so much a journey as it is a space in time. It’s just kind of floating there and slowly developing, ending in the same way that it began. I really like the interplay between tension and release on this track and how the simple piano part is propelled forward by all of the ambient sound behind it.

Shinseki Main

This is one of the album’s most drone-esque tracks, where I stripped down everything and just focused on sound design and space. There really is no melody or forward harmonic progression. I guess you could say this is one of the album’s most genuinely “ambient” tracks. I was really just looking to create a large open space for all of these sounds to live within, with shimmering and undulating sounds happening throughout. I think this track also takes you on a journey, but a different type of one. My goal was for you to close your eyes and lean back into this song, and let it take you to some sort of meditative space.

Everthus the Ether

This track was basically a significant rework of a previous piano track that I had released under my own name. It’s probably one of the most melodic tracks on the album. Still, I wanted to take it in a completely different direction than solo piano, really working with synthesizers and ambient to create an alternate world for the composition to live within. The melody and harmonic changes are really minimalistic, but I tried to add a lot of orchestration to the piece to fill out the sound and add more depth. I approached it like I was writing string and woodwind arrangements to the original parts, but then made those parts sound more like organic electronic sounds, where you weren’t sure if it was an instrument or a synth doing the work.

Pathway  is what it sounds like- a very drone-oriented pathway that unfolds over seven minutes. The approach here was much like Shinseki Main, but I wanted to take it a step further and really delve into sound design. This is also the only track on the album that really introduces a little distortion. I actually really like dark and intense music, but most of the music I produce these days is really the opposite of that. So I wanted to introduce a little tension and darkness into the end of this track, even though overall, it is still very relaxed and ambient in nature.

Strange Dream  

This is the last track on the album and was also the last track I wrote and produced for the album. So it really was like the closer for the session. I envisioned this just wrapping everything up on the album. Like everything had already been said that I wanted to say, and now you just had to sit with this track for a few minutes and just kind of exist. The idea of sounds coming in waves, almost like breathing, is central to the structure of this song, with many of the others on this album. I didn’t want you to make any effort to listen or understand it, just sit and experience the song, winding down the journey.

Foxy Digitalis  depends on our awesome readers  to keep things rolling. Pledge your support today via  our Patreon  or subscribe to  The Jewel Garden .

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Discover more from foxy digitalis.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Access denied for user 'wordpress-313936f830'@'10.3.11.6' (using password: YES)

Error establishing a database connection

This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or that contact with the database server at shareddb-g.hosting.stackcp.net could not be established. This could mean your host’s database server is down.

• Are you sure you have the correct username and password?
• Are you sure you have typed the correct hostname?
• Are you sure the database server is running?

If you are unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host. If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress support forums .

Purple Decades - Journey Test

Choose your preferred music service

Journey Test

Purple decades.

STREAM OR BUY:

Release Date

Discography timeline, user reviews, track listing, similar albums.

• New Arrivals
• Last 2 Week
• Last 4 Weeks
• Free Improvisation
• Library / Cinematic
• Experimental
• Psychedelia
• Folk / Ethnic

Purple Decades

Journey test (lp).

Label: Beacon Sound

Genre: Electronic

' Journey Test ' is composer and pianist Tristan Eckerson 's first album under the moniker of Purple Decades , his new ambient project. While his past work has focused largely on solo piano, Purple Decades is an exploration into soundscapes, electronic textures, and hypnotic musical environments. While many tracks on the album still feature piano or keyboards in some form, the compositional approach is accompanied by extensive work with reverb, foley, and orchestral electronic arrangements, and some tracks have eschewed the piano completely, opting instead for immersive and texturally rich auditory journeys. Each of the 8 songs on 'Journey Test' convey a sense of serene movement and cinematic scale, conjuring the horizon line of landscapes both distant and internal, a wordless dialectic between contentment and nostalgia. Tracks like the piano-driven 'Kagami' and the slow-building title track (whose crescendo brings to mind Sigur Ros ) emphasize beguiling and cyclical melodies while 'Pathway' leavens the mood with a glacial sweep, all the while drinking from the same sense of wonder and openness that pervades the whole album. In the artist's own words: "After many years of writing nothing but music for solo piano, I was ready for something new when I began the process of creating Journey Test. I wanted to take the same vibe and overall aesthetic that I had created with my solo piano work, but really strip down the compositional approach into something that focused on the sound itself. Basically bringing the background to the forefront. And instead of traditional instruments, I wanted to use electronic sounds, but still in a way that it sounded very organic, almost to the point where you didn't know if you were listening to an orchestra or a bunch of synthesizers. I didn't use a lot of different electronic instruments for the album, but rather I focused on what each instrument could bring to the table in terms of texture, noise, organic sounds, and subtle details that could all be combined into something that was an experience. Something that took the listener on an auditory journey without them having to make an effort to get there."  

Related products

More from Beacon Sound

Become a member

Join us by becoming a Soundohm member. Members receive a 10% discount and Free Shipping Worldwide, periodic special promotions and free items.

Do you have any special request? Send us a message below

Stay in touch

Sign up for savings, news, and updates.

Soundohm is an international online mailorder that maintains a large inventory of several thousands of titles, specialized in Electronic/Avantgarde music and Sound Art. In our easy-to-navigate website it is possible to find the latest editions and the reissues, highly collectible original items, and in addition rare, out-of-print and sometime impossible-to-find artists’ records, multiples and limited gallery editions. The website is designed to offer cross references and additional information on each title, as well as sound clips to appreciate the music before buying it.

Soundohm 2024. All rights reserved. See our privacy and copyright statement for more information.

Stationary Travels

Journeys in Sound & Music

Album Premiere: Journey Test by Purple Decades

Purple Decades is an alias for Cincinnati-based pianist, composer, & producer Tristan Eckerson that offers a low-key departure from the solo piano work he releases under his own name, affording him a wider canvas upon which to explore a broad spectrum of electronic textures and subtly cinematic soundscapes. First introduced with the 2020 EP Thought Forms , the ambient project sees its first full-length album release today with Journey Test in a limited vinyl LP edition on the Beacon Sound imprint.

The slow gestation of the project seems in some ways a reflection of the music and the method Eckerson chose for Purple Decades . Journey Test unfolds like a sonic origami with elegant melodic shapes and tidy minimalist design. As Eckerson tells it, the idea is to use electronic sound sources in a way that feels organic, essentially “bringing the background to the forefront”. While the piano still features on tracks like the wistful “Kagami” or the waltzing “Everthus the Ether”, Eckerson introduces reverb, foley, and orchestral electronic arrangements to create lush, emotive textures which reach their pinnacle with the penultimate “Pathway”, a track which bears comparisons to a subdued Sigur Rós .

So, pull up a chair, get comfortable, and have a listen for yourself courtesy of this full album streaming premiere:

I didn’t use a lot of different electronic instruments for the album, but rather I focused on what each instrument could bring to the table in terms of texture, noise, organic sounds, and subtle details that could all be combined into something that was an experience. Something that took the listener on an auditory journey without them having to make an effort to get there. Tristan Eckerson

Links : Bandcamp (LP/digital) | Tristan Eckerso n | Beacon Sound

Journey Test is available in a limited-edition black vinyl LP with design by Studio Benhardt as well as digital download and streaming. In addition to Purple Decades and his solo albums, you can hear Eckerson’s work behind a number of award-winning commercials, short films, and web series.

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

1 reply to Album Premiere: Journey Test by Purple Decades

• Pingback: Premiere: Kumo by Purple Decades – Stationary Travels

Leave a comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Subscribe today and get this album using your free $ 50 sign up bonus!**

Journey Test

• Label: Beacon Sound
• Date Released: Jan 27, 2022
• Total Tracks: 8 Tracks
• Total Length: 32:55
• EMBN: 25390629

More by Purple Decades

Rating & Reviews

Add your rating & review.

Journey Test

Purple Decades

Beacon sound, get new release alerts, help & information, departments, 100% secure shopping, dj mag best of british.

Best Music Store: 5 time winners

© 2006 - 2024 Juno Download

All image and audio content is used by permission of the copyright holders or their agents, and/or according to fair dealing as per the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cart subtotal:

This website uses cookies.

ADD DISCOUNT

Music and tech news, interviews, features, reviews and more.

Visit Juno Daily

Studio equipment

Our full range of studio equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.

Visit Juno Studio

DJ equipment

Our full range of DJ equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.  Visit Juno DJ

Journey Test vinyl

PURPLE DECADES

Journey test, beacon sound us, next day delivery, £17.99.

Promote this release!

Add a buy button to your tracks and playlists by clicking the pencil icon below the waveform. In the edit page, go to the 'Metadata' tab and add your Juno artist, label or release page for listeners to purchase your release / releases.

If you are a Pro user, you can also customise the text used for the 'Buy button' on the edit page in the 'Buy link title' section, to read 'Buy at Juno'.

Add a link to your release at the top of the description section to maximise visibility and sales.

We've found a clear 'Buy at Juno: [insert URL]' works best.

Create a chart to increase sales of your releases and to boost your profile.

If you decide an product is not suitable within 14 days of delivery, you can return it to us for a replacement or refund. Returns must be unused and in their original, undamaged packaging.

Some items are excluded from our money back guarantee: - Computer software that has been unsealed or registered - Any item that comes directly into contact with the nose, ears or mouth

To arrange a return, just contact our customer service department on 020 7424 2800 or via our customer support form .

Share this image

Create a banner for this release, share this product, help & information, departments, 100% secure shopping, dj mag best of british.

Best Music Store: 5 time winners

© 1996 - 2024 Juno Records

All image and audio content is used by permission of the copyright holders or their agents, and/or according to fair dealing as per the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Finance provided by PayPal Credit. Terms and conditions apply. Credit subject to status, UK residents only, Juno Media Limited acts as a broker and offers finance from PayPal credit. PayPal Credit is a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH

This website uses cookies

Cart subtotal:.