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Chaos and Stillness

by MikeKSmith

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1.
Close 04:20
2.
3.
Waves 04:37
4.
Guitar 09:51
5.
Piano Chords 05:30
6.
Oboe 06:00
7.
Piano Arps 10:48
8.
Winds 05:32
9.
Bells 11:22
10.
(Re)openings 05:02
11.
12.

about

Music in this release was produced over a two year period, but coalesced during the UK lockdown in 2020 following the global coronavirus pandemic. Immediately prior to that lockdown, my family and I moved 500 miles to be nearer parents and family members. Packing up and moving house quickly, then not having the ability to tidy up, clear out, renovate and make the new home our own contributed to the chaos and the lockdown lead to enforced stillness. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling both tension and stasis during this period.

Musically, I particularly like creating ambient, textural music, often incorporating probability, randomness or generative ideas. I hope you’ll hear that while the music is generally still with elements that change slowly there are some chaotic and random elements; uncomfortable frequencies and chord choices that add to the tension and sometimes delay the release in the music. This is intentional.

During 2020 and into 2021 I have had the very good fortune to make and release music with collaborators such as Frazer Brown (as The Loop Union) and Alasdair O’May (as Tayus). However, this is my first solo album.

I’d like to thank my family for allowing me time to make weird noises, often late into the night. Thanks to my wife, Catherine, for putting up with me generally, and for providing oboe on Track 6. Thank you to Andrew Howie and Steve Lawson for allowing me to share my remix of their tracks on this album. Thanks to sound designers, programmers and creatives at Slate + Ash (slateandash.com) and Spitfire Audio, particularly the creators of their Labs software instruments (labs.spitfireaudio.com) for producing audio plugins that provided huge inspiration and many of the sounds of this album.

Dedicated to my mum and my dad.

credits

released December 3, 2021

Mastered by Ian Hawgood at Home Normal.

Oboe on Track 6 by Catherine Smith
Track 11 was originally written and performed by Andrew Howie / slow_the_tape (slowthetape.bandcamp.com/album/threadbare)
Track 12 was originally written and performed by Steve Lawson (stevelawson.bandcamp.com)

license

Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

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about

MikeKSmith Glasgow, UK

Statistician and data scientist who occasionally makes ambient, probabilistic and generative music. Glasgow area.

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