Dear diary,

Last Monday, we traveled, a group of six musicians, to the beautiful Vlieland to create music together at the Fortuna brewery. After a few minor setbacks (one of us boards the wrong train, another just misses the boat due to delays), we settle in at the brewery. There, with a view of the dunes, we create small production stations where synthesizers, pianos, tape loops, field recorders, and guitars are ready for use. 

It’s always a bit thrilling: making music for the first time with people you hardly know. But soon the first ideas start to take shape. There is a shared love for fiddling with knobs and effects, and our ears are open to the sounds around us. What if you hide a microphone in the sand? Shall we get up before sunrise to record that one bird? Oh, we still need to capture the boat's horn! 

On Tuesday, we get a tour from ranger Anke. She has prepared for our arrival with a story about the sounds of Vlieland. About how every wind direction sounds different, how the birds chirp, how the moss crunches when you walk on it. Everything is recorded, transformed, and processed through effects. 

At the end of Tuesday, we take stock: what have we already created? How can we bring the musical worlds together? After a good listening session, it’s time for some entertainment. We drink beers from the brewery and sing karaoke. Guus Meeuwis, Jason Derulo, Robbie Williams. What is ambient, actually?

On Wednesday, we bike to the brewery with a clear goal: to bridge the musical worlds. We seek even more collaboration. Everyone gets into a working atmosphere, and it seems that everyone asks each other to play parts. I ask Yannick to play some synths, Daanie to lay down guitar drones over a track. And there is a lot of singing. That might seem strange for an ambient camp, but we collectively discover (partly due to the karaoke from the night before) that everyone enjoys singing out loud without reservation. Choral parts come back in the music and field recordings in various ways. 

A so-called foley studio is set up. Traditionally used to create sound effects for film music, but now for the sounds of Vlieland. We tap on wood, scrape shells over stones, and make sounds with the beer bottles and glasses from the brewery. We come up with the idea that alongside the release of the album, we can also release a sample pack with all the collected sounds so that others can work with them too. 

The next day, Job, Laura, and Yannick start an excursion: they are enchanted by the Vliehors Expres, a bus that takes you to a stretch of dunes you cannot otherwise access. Recordings are again made of the adventure that you will hear on the album. Then we get back to work. It dawns on us that our time is almost up, and we push ourselves to create as much music as possible. We have become such a nice and close group, and you can hear that in the tracks. It becomes clear that this album is a diary of people who are gradually getting to know each other and the island better. This day also ends with karaoke. 

On Friday, we have to go home. Actually, the plan was not to make any more music, but inspiration strikes again. We lay down a few guitar parts and then bike to the harbor. One last time to capture the boat's horn, and then it's homeward bound. And immediately excited to return to the festival.