Death of the Artist Ego is the third full length album from Mosaic Runes and their second release with Weisskalt.

Mosaic Runes is the independent electronic music project of Shane McCarthy. The album was written and recorded in McCarthy’s home studio north of Baltimore MD.

Recorded over a period of 4 months between June to September 2023 during a time of introspection, the sessions became a form of therapy through the continued exploration of an eclectic array of electronic instruments, their curious and infinitesimal potential, and the way they function as an extension of the artist's inner world.

Rather than adhering to specific rules like creating a track to a certain tempo based on pre-existing conceptions of certain music genre traditions, McCarthy acquiesced himself to the dissolution of perception, opening the psyche to free-time and free form experimentation. This included but was not limited to intentionally using certain pieces of gear the wrong way or pushing it outside of its original purpose. Or judging how something should be heard or not using particular effects in a track because it was felt to be out of place. Sound was fed through a prehistoric computer sighing from its fading lifespan.

The result is the emergence of 6 electronic experimental ambient tracks, the binding theme being an expression of internal chaos, the call of the wild, echoes of sorrow woven into glimpses of ephemeral elation, ancient scents and soft sounds quieting the final wisp of light emitting from a candle against cold walls.

The album is an invitation from the artist to listener to contemplate the variations in his previous and current music. To experience the alterations in sensation and aesthetic which are demonstrative of his interpretation of what it means to enter the endless night of ego death.

Mosaic Runes: “I treated each song/session as a way to help overcome some sort of mental barrier within the Mosaic Runes world. I wanted to make songs that were open to any instrument or sound I had. With the songs on My Mother Was Science Fiction, I treated each track as a canvas and had a set pallet of machines and sounds I worked within. The songs on Death of the Artist Ego were built with no plan or design. I started with a sound that made me feel good and let that sound and song tell me where to go instead of me telling it where to go. At the end of the sessions the studio was a mess, wires and gear everywhere. It was beautiful. It was freedom. The items/instruments I used is a little bit of everything. Analogue, digital, drum machines, synths, an old computer, samples of my kids talking, chimes, drums and for the first time I sing on multiple tracks, I processed my voice through a vocoder which I never thought I would do. I always had an ego thing where I didn’t want to sound like I was in Tron or at an overpriced music festival so I never used the vocoder. I guess that’s really what the whole thing is about, eliminating the ego, the barriers and judgments on my own sound so it can grow into a bigger world.”