Weeks Island by Droste

Weeks Island by Droste

Nouveau Electric Records is proud and excited to be releasing Droste, the first EP of ambient steel by Weeks Island, a project masterminded by Jonny Campos, lead guitarist with Grammy winning Cajun band, Lost Bayou Ramblers. The EP was mixed by Turk Deitrich (Belong and Second Woman). Droste is being released as a digital download and via streaming services April 4.

Weeks Island takes its name from one of the salt domes of South Louisiana that poke up out of the surrounding flat brackish marsh, whose peak offers the widest perspective of the environment possible; that’s what this music does for the listener.

The EP’s title, Droste, refers to the effect of an image that appears recursively within itself. It’s a nod to the fact that two mirrors facing each other create an image that multiplies infinitely. The music explores this concept of infinite reflection and the possibility of creating a separate reality.

The songs of this lush soundscape are titled after places in Louisiana which no longer exist and whose names have been erased from maps. They are gone and scarcely remembered due to ongoing coastal land loss and rising sea levels. “Point Fortuna,” “Raccoon Island,” “Fleur Pond,” “Bayou La Chute,” and “Cyprien Bay” were geological features that are all now sunken into the depths of the Gulf of Mexico.

Jonny Campos began Weeks Island during the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ 6 months hiatus of 2018. With no work with the Ramblers on the horizon, the urge to create new music came on fast and strong. One afternoon, Jonny got together with engineer (and Ramblers’ drummer) Kirkland Middleton at the latter’s studio apartment in New Orleans’s Pigeon Town neighborhood and produced this ambient minor masterpiece.

As guitarist for Lost Bayou Ramblers, Jonny’s ambient guitar and steel sounds play a prominent role on the soundtracks for award winning documentary Rodents of Unusual Size, and the feature film Lost Bayou, as well as the Grammy award winning Kalenda album.

Jonny Campos - Pedal Steel Guitar

Mixed by Turk Deitrich
Recorded and Mastered by Kirkland Middleton

Cover Photo by Will Lefevre