Moolakii Club Audio Interface - print magazine episode MCPM018
A magazine and handbook for all things DIY experimental electronica
Coming February - mcpm.bandcamp.com/mcpm018
Moolakii Club Audio Interface – MCPM018
Magazine & handbook for DIY experimental electronica
Pre-order now: mcpm.bandcamp.com/mcpm018
If you care about DIY process, sustainable underground culture, or experimental music that values time over attention, this is an essential issue.
MCPM018 documents a way of working that has endured for decades: experimental electronica shaped by the Wirral and wider Merseyside — not as a scene, but as a set of overlapping, persistent practices.
This issue explores how geography is intertwined with creative process and inspiration. The Wirral appears not as a mere location, but as a place and opportunity. Where sounds are made: spare rooms, borrowed spaces, improvised studios, low-risk venues, and informal infrastructures that allow ideas to develop slowly and without pressure. Close enough to Liverpool to stay connected, far enough away to remain unexamined, this off-centre position becomes a strength rather than a limitation.
Wirral has a strong history - from prehistoric settlements and magical coastal forests to Viking hoardes, historic battles and industrial power along with people and places of social importance. Within this there is also a strong musical heritage that spills into the history and progress of experimental electronica.
Across long-form essays, interviews and reflections, MCPM018 traces how experimental electronica here has rarely declared itself loudly. Synthesisers, samplers, tape machines and software have historically sat alongside punk, noise, folk and DIY culture without rigid genre boundaries. Tools are treated as materials to be misused, stacked, resampled, eroded and rebuilt. Imperfection as integral to the exploration of sound.
The writing foregrounds infrastructure over hype: the record shops, rehearsal rooms, temporary venues and grassroots organisers that made continuity possible without demanding growth or visibility. It’s a portrait of sustainability at human scale — where breaking even is success, and where risk is possible precisely because expectations remain modest.
At the centre of the issue are deeply candid conversations with artists, promoters and organisers working across ambient, noise, melodic experimentalism and hybrid forms. These include reflections on:
Making music in isolation — and why that can be productive
Performing live as an extension of experimentation, not presentation
Building community through low-pressure events
The emotional and financial realities of DIY promotion
Embracing imperfection, dissonance and not knowing how the tools really work
There’s practical insight too: gear breakdowns, working methods, live-first approaches, sampling workflows, and the value of keeping processes playful and unfinished. MCPM018 functions as both documentation and handbook — something to read, return to, and work alongside.
Crucially, this is not nostalgia. The issue shows how work made quietly on the Wirral continues to travel — across Europe and beyond — without abandoning its local grounding. The local and international are in dialogue, not opposition. Some work returns altered; some doesn’t return at all. Both are valid outcomes.
MCPM018 isn’t trying to define experimental electronica on Merseyside. It explores how it has survived: through habit, geography, modest infrastructure, and a shared tolerance for uncertainty. It’s about hovering rather than peaking. Persistence rather than progress narratives. A culture that keeps happening just off-centre — and keeps producing remarkable sound because of it.
If you care about DIY process, sustainable underground culture, or experimental music that values time over attention, this is an essential issue.
Pre-order now: mcpm.bandcamp.com/mcpm018