Robin Van Maarth www.hollowrocket.net

Unexpected and/or unlikely places are where important things emerge. You were looking for some cure-all online, but it's growing in the shade of a log in the lower 40 of your friend's uncle's undeveloped, primeval forested property. The squirrels have been eating little bits of it for centuries to keep their coats shiny. But, Squirrels - how would they know the benefit of the unobvious? Living as part of their environment - they don't need to go outside of their environment. They are their environment. They find what they need and they make what's needed. They don't impose or admire artifice. They are squirrels. And you wonder why -you wonder, "why can't I be like that? Only finding what I need and making what's needed? Living part and parcel of the world I inhabit?"

Radon Projects is two people who have been making music - together and separately - for a long time. This among the many other things they do. Recently, they have been making music together - and finding others to make it with them. They find another musician, get them in the studio and make a song. The studio isn't fancy. It's a usual box inside a box. There are instruments and wires and cables and mics and amps and computers. Standard issue small studio. They don't necessarily know what that song is beforehand. They might have a slight idea - a set of lyrics, a line or two of melody or a bass line - but they're happy to have the song become what it becomes with the introduction of the new person. It might become something completely different than their slight idea beforehand. That's fine. It apparently needed to become THIS song instead. And they might not know the other musician beforehand. That person was asked - or asked to be - part of Radon Projects for the next song. This variable person knows just as much as the two fixed Radon Projectors about what is going to happen in the studio. Which is: not much. Only that it's going to happen. They are going to make a song together. And then the songs become available around holidays**.

They do these things they can't help but do. They live in their city and they make music. It happens when it happens - with the holidays keeping things moving through the seasons. And you found it online - even though the website isn't brightly colored or flashy. And it comes in little pieces at a time - a song or two per cd. You might be surprised to find you know the other musicians. You might (probably) know Radon Projects. It's sort of a revelation to understand that they are integral elements of where we live, creating music in a very inconspicuous way. And now, here, you might wonder "why didn't I know about this before?" and then, more importantly - "why didn't I think of that?" Certainly because you were looking for it in the wrong place - but you aren't now, are you?

** An artificial deadline of sorts, because the songs
aren't usually about holidays.