18 posts tagged “mulberry harbour”

"Whats, what's your, er, plan?"
"My plan? I haven't got one"

Title track of my latest EP, this is an overtly symphonic piece in which I had a lot of fun working with the Miroslav orchestra brass and choir samples, and slipped in a snippet of dialogue recorded on a mobile phone while out and about.

A couple of people have commented that this track reminds them of Phillip Glass's soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi, which wasn't the original intent but I'm not complaining about the comparison. It's got some of that rousing feeling and was in fact party inspired by a film in the first place, though primarily for the piano playing - The Beat That My Heart Skipped / De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté

You can download this track for free here, along with the rest of The Drift EP

The wheel spins, the blade sharpens and the suspense grows...

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Photo by danielycp
 

I found myself playing the guitar part of this piece a lot during a time of personal loss and grief. That may be enough to put you off right away - and if you're enjoying the brightness of spring then it's probably best to move on now - but if you're heavyhearted and want something to reflect on, then this is for you.

Sometimes you just need to languish in it a bit, going round and round, until gradually you find some sense of comfort.

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Photo by haikus59

This one's a short and restrained nocturnal instrumental with classical guitar, piano and oboe.

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Photo by crystalflickr

One of the most haunting and arresting books I've read in a long while was Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a novel punctuated with the recurring phrase "he glassed the blacktop", as the Father and boy undertake their tense journey of survival. The blacktop is their only means to escape, holds the hope of delivering them to safety, while also harbouring threats which demand constant vigilance and mistrust. And so they persevere day after day, pushing on into the unknown, the Father striving to remain optimistic and maintain his son's belief and security.

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Photo by marktaylor7 

This is a folky, pastoral instrumental inspired by the recent return to Anglesey - and memories of Welsh collie Bryn - mentioned in my post about Red Wharf Bay.

As a child going to Anglesey to see my grandparents each summer, the car journey from Liverpool always seemed impossibly long until we crossed the Menai bridge, connecting Anglesey with North Wales, and I knew that we had nearly arrived - and my excitement and anticipation could finally bubble over. My grandparents' old sheepdog Bryn evidently experienced similar emotions regarding the bridge - whenever he was in the car with us, he would acknowledge it with a celebratory bark - and so we came to refer to it as "Bryn's bridge".

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Photo by benlove79

Last summer I visited Benllech in Anglesey for the first time in many years. I used to go there as a kid to visit my grandparents, who retired there, and going down to the beach brought back lots of happy memories. We walked along Benllech beach to Red Wharf Bay, which as a child seemed an enormous distance away, but now is just a pleasant ten minute stroll to a wide inlet with sandbanks, beached fishing boats, and a decent pub overlooking the bay. I always liked the name, and associate it closely with my grandparents' Welsh collie Bryn, who when he wasn't trying to round up gulls used to slip off out of sight, and would invariably be tracked down hours later somewhere in the bay. It's a beautiful spot that inspired something uplifting and celebratory.

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Photo by icyblue

 Sometimes phrases that are very familiar to others manage to bi-pass your radar for years and years, slipping by unheard, unread or never spoken in your presence or direction. I only recently heard the phrase "In a brown study",  which is odd as I'm sure there have been plenty of opportunities for someone to use it around me, as I slip off into another introspective daydream - and as always happens with a new word or phrase, once it's out the bag you can't stop coming across it in the following weeks, jumping out at you left, right and centre, making you wonder how you ever avoided exposure to it in the first place.

So when this short track was in progress, there was no question of what it should end up being called.

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photo by TheeErin

Here's a new track which grew out of tinkering with a repeated guitar figure - double-tracked, harmonised and looped to within an inch of its life...

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Photo by botheredbybees

This instrumental was written for a recent soundtrack project, and features violins and cellos at the heart of the track - something I hadn't done for a while, spurred on in part by getting hold of the the Miroslav Philharmonik library for Reason. I expect there'll be more on the way soon as I explore it. So far I've been mostly impressed, apart from the over-elaborate vibrato on some parts.

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Photo by Pandiyan