Hydropark's route from the moment of inspiration to a publicly shared finished product is always indirect. After our first album crawled into existence in 2016, having it out in the world unexpectedly led to touring opportunities, positive feedback and a weird new feeling that people were listening. We started getting together more often and slowly assembled a small studio to capture new ideas, recording every practice or jam and sometimes returning to the best moments for overdubs. Songs came and went, tested in performance or recorded in different versions. With no hourly rates to keep track of we could try every approach. In the process, we ended up with dozens of tracks and fragments. Some were fully architected songs, some were ideas for samples that outgrew themselves, some were raw, aimless riffs.. the "has potential" file had grown full and random. Inspired by the quickly shifting aesthetic of beat tapes, Circuit 2 is an edit of the best results of hours and hours of experiments, songs switching at the first sign of waning interest. The full chemistry of Hydropark is on display, with various combos of band members, solo pieces, instrument switching and a fully collaborative mixing and editing process. Gears change recklessly, with 18 tracks quickly jumping from ambient glimmering to dazed disco sludge, manic horror movie soundtrack vibes to 2009-approved chillwave. The songs move in hyper nonlinear motion but gel into a strangely cohesive chronicle of ever-shifting evolution, like watching the weather change from the passenger seat on a cross country road trip.

Our friends at 25 Diamonds are pressing up a one-time edition of 200 LPs of Circuit 2, with hand silkscreened covers.

https://25diamondslabel.bandcamp.com/album/circuit-2-2