This simple piece was made during late yesterday evening and finished in the small hours of this morning.

On a personal level, I have been trying to reach the light at the end of what has felt like a never ending tunnel of darkness, hence the lack of output for many months. Thankfully, the thoughts and sounds in my head are getting brighter and more uplifting as the days move on.

September, usually a month I dread for a few reasons, has unusually been a month of reawakening.

Using Ableton Live and a few home-made Absynth patches, this is how it all sounds to me.

stream 320kbps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

stream 96kbps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

or download
Reawaken.mp3
Reawaken 96kbps.mp3

This piece is my initial attempt to play with decaying and distortion effects to create a delicate dirty brittle and melancholic sound. I’ve taken a small loop of a monophonic brass instrument recording and created several loops with slightly different start and end points. I’ve then layered them adding decay and distortion of varying amounts to each single layer and groups of layers. It’s a shift away from my lusher soundscapes.

It almost sounds like it’s from analogue tape. Tape is a medium I’d like to experiment with. I think this would be a richer piece for it.

It’s something that suits my mood right now.

stream 320kbps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

stream 96kbps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

or download
Brittle.mp3
Brittle 96kbps.mp3

I think the spoken words in this piece, from a BBC documentary, a quotation from the artist Mark Rothko, sums up how I feel about life and the importance to me of the creative process. I’d be lost without it.

Sorry, it’s been a while. I’ll try not to leave it so long next time.

stream 320kbps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

stream 96kbps

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

or download
Golden Age.mp3
Golden Age 96kbps.mp3