2020 | Meditations
This album represents what is, to me, anyway, my sixth ‘proper’ release, the other seven being released either on other third party labels, or my own imprint.
June 2022
In 2020, I had quite a serious pushbike accident, which rendered me er, fucked, not to put to fine a point on it. I damaged myseld to an extent where I had to be signed off work – being a designer, working on a computer, I’m reliant on my hands, and one of them was pretty badly compromised.
The accident happened a few days before Sir BoJo announced to a shocked and already beleagured country that we were closing our doors and had to self-isolate… and all that cobblers – as I write this in late 2022, it seems almost unfathomable that the governments around the world took this kind of draconian stance, but hey – they did… and they also managed to coherse an already scared population into receiving vaccines that hadn’t been tried and tested sufficiently.. but that’s another story. It’s all about the fucking money at the end of the day.
Anyway… sorry – I digress as usual. I entered hospital and undertook a number of procedures to attempt to rectify the damage I’d endured as a result of my accident. Hospital was quite possibly the worst place to be at that particular time, what with people coughing and sputtering , worried that they’d contracted Covid.But it is what it is, and after a few days I left hospital and started on my recovery at home.
Work got in touch to let me know that I’d been furloughed, which worked out well for both parties. As soon as I could manage to, I was exercising my damaged digits and playing some piano, as well as formulating an idea to totally revamp my website, which was now outdated and needed some long overdue TLC.
Looking back, I got an awful lot done in the time between my release from hospital and when I finally went back to work, which ended up being at the start of July. I sorted out the new site, a total re-design from the ground up, using WP and DIVI to pull everything together, then had the idea to release an album of ‘slow music’ to celebrate the site launch.
And this album was the result; four long form, lower-case ambient slow burners that really caught the public mood. Actually, the focus ended up being on Meditations as opposed to the new website, which at the time I was disappointed about.. but some of the messages and mails I received, telling me what help these pieces had been to them during this country’s long periods of lockdown and incarceration made the process of writing and recording this album more than worthy.
Recorded and produced in less than three or four days, this LP was designed to be initially a purely BandCamp exclusive release on my own label, but then I had the idea of releasing a very limited edition CD – say around 50 copies – which would be released and deleted on the same day. The CD would also contain an extra track which would take the running time to 70 minutes.
Anyway, I followed this idea through – it sold out within hours. One copy has been sold on Discogs for silly money.. perhaps I should think about a re-issue at some point..
I guess that ‘Meditations’ ploughed a similar furrow to an earlier album ‘Sound to Sleep to‘ inasmuch as it contains purely ambient and drone, designed with meditation, yoga and other peaceful pursuits in mind. I’d like to also say that it aids sleep and relaxation, but I can’t quantify this… sorry.
Anyway, enough waffle. The digital version of ‘Meditations’ is a four part study and ideally should be listened to as a whole. It’s about 47 minutes long.
The digital album is available on BandCamp by clicking here.
Incredibly, I also found some time to work on some visual accompaniment to the album.
View Phase I [Ocean Floor] here.
View Phase II [Deep Dive] here.
