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Weeks Island is a new ambient steel project spearheaded by Jonny Campos, lead guitarist of the Grammy-winning Cajun band, Lost Bayou Ramblers. Weeks Island takes its name from the salt domes of South Louisiana, which rise amidst flat marshes to create a stark, expansive landscape. The first EP, Droste, is rooted in geographical setting, too, borrowing its track titles from the names of places in Louisiana that have vanished from the map.

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For his Algorhythm, Jonny relayed a recent memory when a newly discovered piece of music gave rise to hope for his own:

Running might be my only good habit. The list of bad habits is too long to say here plus my mom might be reading this. Love you mom. Maybe one other good habit is I try and listen to one record I’ve never heard before while I’m running. It helps me discover new music and hell maybe the endorphins keep my mind open to something new. A friend of mine named Ryan Gannon knew I liked Chuck Johnson’s Balsams and suggested I listen to his new project, Saariselka.

I guess I like ambient music when I run because it feels cinematic, or maybe more purposeful. If you can time it right, Michael Rother’s Flammende Herzen makes you feel heroic. I don’t know if it was my muscles loosening up, or that the church bells I ran by were in the same key of the song I was listening to, or if I just burned off my hangover, but for a moment while running and listening to The Ground Our Sky by Saariselka I thought, maybe Weeks Island could actually be something. I had recorded the tracks months before and listened to them from time to time. I shared them with friends and they seemed to like them so why not give it a real go. Once I made the Instagram account, let’s just say the rest was history.

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Droste arrived on April 4 via Nouveau Electric Records. Our full Algorhythms playlist is here.

Interested in discovering running music that makes you feel heroic? Check out the Grey Matter beta.