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I come from a family of very talented musicians. My father was a brilliant pianist and singer, my mother a pianist and the most hauntingly wonderful saw player, and my sister a top of class violinist. I however, was born with hearing impediments that meant hearing aids and lip-reading from a very young age. Needless to say, my father pushed me to play the piano despite this and it caused a great deal of trauma as I tried to memorise hand movements from my teacher as I just couldn't read music no matter what, nor often easily hear what I was doing. In fact the playing would often trigger severe ringing in my ears that I would be told to ignore. This included performing memorised piano pieces at events, and when I finally was allowed to stop playing music by aged 10 after regaining my hearing, I couldn't be in the same room as my family played music and sang Christian worship songs most evenings after dinner.
Yet despite this, music found me again when I was sixteen and wanted to be a punk bassist. Two years later on my gap year, I met my dear friend Corey who later on would introduce me to Brian Eno and ambient music in general, and which changed my life really.
'This Gentle Abandon' is an EP of tracks made for a few different albums but all with a similar set-up, made around the same time, and with a post-classical hue shall we say. Each was an attempt to create pretty dirty sounding classical music, despite not being trained in any way really. I was visiting on one of my breaks from Japan (where I lived) and just found myself using some old equipment I came across.
Each piece was recorded at the family home using the old family piano and whatever instruments were laying around including a violin, clarinet, and other bits and bobs we always had laying around. As an untrained musician more or less, I used an old Akai S20 sampler (with floppy disks!) to sample my violin and clarinet tones to create drone beds of samples I could easily play with around piano loops on a Fostex X-18 tape multitrack recorder.
It wasn't meant to be anything other than a noisy attempt to show my family what I could do with these tools in my own way, but whilst there I had a request from 12rec for a compilation album 'So Much Achieved. So Much Left To Do' (submitting 'The Subterranean of Me and You'), and had already decided to add a violin / clarinet crescendo piece I made using the S20 to Moteer/Mobeer on a split release (and as part of 'Phonetics and Fiction').
'Feeling My Way Blindly Back' was part of the 'Evidence of Intense Beauty' compilation on Audiobulb but also featured on my Resting Bell EP 'Spiral Into Somewhere', whilst 'This Gentle Abandon' was just sat there needing a home really all these years.
I came across the old floppy disks with the samples I recorded and even found the old tapes a couple of years ago. I became aware that they were all made around 2008 on one trip I think, and had a similar sound and background to them. However, after making a noisy version of each I decided to retransfer the pieces from the tapes (and even rerecord from the sampler elements) to be more dialed back and connected tonally.
The end result is an EP of experimental post-classical that I am very proud of, some 15 years after originally recording the pieces. It is a reminder of how important it is to be challenged to create. These aren't computer generated or easily made at all - but recording tones when you can't really play violin for example, into an old sampler and then creating a slightly off-kilter orchestra as in 'Map Rusu' really is satisfying.
I've added the 'tape dedication' to each with Sven and Simon running the excellent 12rec back in the day, and Craig being the legened behind Moteer/Mobeer. The only exception is that 'Feeling My Way Blindly Back Home' was very much made as a love letter to my family while I lived for many years abroad. If it weren't for this, the dedication would be to the wonderful Christian Roth of Resting Bell and David Newman at Audiobulb.
A rather lovely little note to add is that Christian was the original Home Normal web and package designer and we're still dear friends to this day. Craig and I work as 'observatories' together, help each other with technical elements of our solo work, and have appeared on each other's labels. And David is a super talented collaborator with our Monogoto project alongside Porya Hatami on 12k (ok so not 12rec but a close connection at least). :)
Things fuse together when moulded in the right way I guess.
My project with James Murray as Slow Reels is back after a three year hiatus following our debut on Morr Music. Huge decayed tape reel drones, starting a series of works due out over the next year. folk reels
supported by 84 fans who also own “This Gentle Abandon”
A wonderful musical collection that shows the unity of the whole world and the support of Ukraine during the long war, which will undoubtedly end with the victory of Ukraine. And now the terrible numbers... Only according to official data as of today #russiaisaterroriststate killed 510 children in Ukraine, injured another 1141 children, kidnapped 19546 children. There are many more unofficial victims. And russia remains a member of the UN... desynkro303
Designed to mirror the reverence of meditative spaces, the gentle ambient tracks on the new LP from Alejandro Morse envelop you. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 8, 2022
