MINING – The Monday Is OK “Atmospheres Force 0 – 12” Mixtape

Please introduce yourself…

Who are you:

MINING comprises Craig Kirkpatrick-Whitby, PJ Davy and Matthew Bourne.

Where are you:

Chichester Harbour, Ilkley Moor and London Docklands.

What are you:

Three slightly nerdy and infinitely curious ambient, electronic music, music and ideas obsessives.

Tell us about the Monday mixtape you’ve put together for us.

A 60-minute edit of a longer MINING Chimet Album “Atmospheres Force 0 – 12” Mix we created to highlight music that influenced the sound and atmospheres palette for our “Chimet” Meteorological and Sea State Algorithmic Sonification album / Qobuz

If it were to be drawn what would it look like?

A large aerogel cube containing multiple time series ordered data holograms.

If it were a food what would it be?

Japanese : Sashimi and Sushi

What would be the ideal setting to listen to the mix?

Sitting on the stones / sand on the harbour entrance of Chichester Harbour on Hayling Island or at the highest point on Ilkley Moor.

What should we be wearing

Waterproofs, Norwegian jumpers, tweed or moleskin breeks, walking boots and factor 50 suncream.

Where was it recorded?

A small pale house, a moment’s march from the beach. A small motor yacht, a moment’s Thames swim from London Docklands.

Do you actually like Mondays?

All days and nights are good.

Who got you hooked on electronic music?

A rather avant garde visiting German vicar/cathedral organist from our local church.

Who would you say are your biggest influences and what are you hoping to achieve with your music?

MJB : Olivier Messiaen, Gerald Finzi, Terry Riley, Napalm Death, Scott Walker. To continue making/sharing music as a place of ultimate truth, trust, and refuge.

PJD : Holst, Trent Reznor, Michel Chion, George Martin, Boards of Canada, Edgard Varèse, Jerry Goldsmith, Chris Clark. Hoping to satisfy my own curiosity about sound.

CKW : Tangerine Dream, ECM Records, Edgar Froese, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Philip Glass, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, Ravi Shankar, Susumu Yokota. Hoping to leave something musically and/or artistically innovative, significant and rather unusual before my untimely death in a 2 stroke petrol lawn mower accident.

What were your original aspirations as musicians and how do you think you’re shaping up?

MJB : I wanted to play piano exactly like Bill Evans when I began my studies, and to emigrate to Canada and get a simple job as a background pianist. Instead, I discovered the avant-garde, and have been self-unemployed ever since.

PJD : No aspirations. Ever since experimenting with sound, as a child, misusing tape decks, I’ve always been persuing sounds that fascinate me. I feel like it’s coming full-circle in recent years, thinking back to my first, naive experiments.

CKW : To strive to be original and completely authentic. A work in progress.

Am I excited to dive into the challenges that i have lined up for the week?

Yes, working on this and scoping and planning ideas for next phases of the MINING Collective Studio Work and Live Productions.

Am I looking forward to engaging with the people I am meeting or working with?

Yes I always do. But as we all know life has been primarily very singular “isolated” and only very occasionally socially “nomadic” for most of us during the last couple of years.

Am I going to my dream job?

No, I currently don’t have a job.

Do I feel energised, rested, and confident?

Everything is satisfactory!

If you were trapped on a desert island with one other person, who would you choose? How long would it be before you eat them?

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) an American astronomer and science communicator. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He was always a tad on the skinny side so we would have to actively commence fishing to stay alive. See

Your doctor says you need more exercise….what do you take up for exercise?

Taking vintage synthesisers in cases for long walks.

If you could travel in time… where in time would you go? Why?

To go back to meet Abbess Hildegard of Bingen (also known as Hildegarde von Bingen, l. 1098-1179) who was a Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, and polymath proficient in philosophy, musical composition, herbology, medieval literature, cosmology, medicine, biology, theology, and natural history. She was an astonishing intellectual and undoubtedly changed the course of music along with her contributions to theology, philosophy, and medicine, She would have been “talking in maths, buzzing like a fridge, like a detuned radio.” See

What was the first electronic record you heard and how did it make you feel?

White Noise – An Electric Storm (Island, 1969). White Noise were BBC Radiophonic Workshop icon Delia Derbyshire and classical bass player (and Derbyshire’s romantic partner) David Vorhaus, with added input from Derbyshire’s Unit Delta Plus associate Brian Hodgson. A playful blend of psych/folk/pop/white noise and industrial sound effects that displayed the infinite possibilities of the instruments and the intelligence and creativity of its creators.

How does your brain work when making music? How does it work when you aren’t?

MJB : Spontaneous in both.

PJD : I’m constantly making connections between, space, time and textures. When I’m not making music, I’m collecting ideas from the environments around me.

CKW : Hyper curious most of the time but currently lacking in my own technical execution ability (Ableton Live Suite 11 DAW/synthesisers).

What were the first and last records you bought?

MJB : First: Sarah Vaughan – After Hours. Last: Blaster Bates – TNT for Two.

PJD : First (sadly): Bombalurina – Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yello Polka Dot Bikini. Last: Yaeji – With a Hammer.

CKW : First : Ravi Shankar & Ali Akbar Khan in concert 1972. Last : The Annual Bleep 100 Tracks from 2023.

What are you obsessed with at the moment?

MJB : The films of Werner Herzog.

PJD : Creating processes for composing my music and ways to express them visually.

CKW : Music theory. Minimalism. Atonality and microtonal music. Mathematical conjectures. Staying alive.

What’s your answer to everything?

Usually just… “Excellent!” but in reality lately, “Don’t say anything just yet. Have a quiet think about it all first.”

Anything else we need to discuss.

Ambient music is certainly not dead. Advances in brain neuron connectomics and network neuroscience have opened new avenues for investigating polysynaptic communication in complex brain networks. With advancing brain network communication: concepts and models the musical applications and opportunities of sourced/derived data and complex analytics have really only just started. We will soon all be able to record our own dreams and thoughts and create our own brain derived ambient soundtracks.

Please see the MINING website for current and future developments.

Chimet is out now digitally via The Leaf Label and in the UK on vinyl 17th May and US/ROW 14th June. Buy and Stream here

Tracklisting as follows:

1) Floating/Sinking – Peter Broderick
2) Tear Strips Off – Tipper
3) Pfane Pt1 – Bola
4) State Of Contraction – Barry Adamson
5) The Sea’s Son – Jherek Bischoff
6) Frosti – Björk
7) Calene – Process
8) First Wave – Soma Sonic
9) Spontaneous Combustion – Immense
10) Promenade Sentimentale – Vladimir Cosma
11) Reverse Proceed – Slam
12) Elgar: Sea Pictures, Op. 37 – 4. Where Corals Lie – Janet Baker; John Barbirolli: Hallé Orchestra
13) Fear Of Corners – Dntel
14) Hungry Face – Mogwai
15) RGB – Ólafur Arnalds