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Track list and notes
The empty room
In C minor, this piece leverages some of the lighter textures of Frank Elting and The Solo’s granular synthesis design. With the organic textures of the human voice, blown instruments and piano the evocation is a return to a place once full of life and (mostly) happy memories. But this place, and everything else, has moved on and, while the sunlight still filters through, it is filled with silence, dust and fading memories.
Clouds across the moon
The achingly beautiful Baltic Voice of the Tallnin chamber choir recorded in the 13 Century Niguliste Kirk provides the sonic canvas for this piece. In part Gothic, in part modern and slightly grainy – oscillating between Cm and Bb it glides without resolving like the soft clouds drifting across the face of an icy moon.
Feather in the rain
Beautiful, delicate and capable of sustaining flight but grounded and spattered as the screw is turned. ‘Like tears in the rain’ – all that has gone before to be lost and forgotten. A very minimalist piece that builds through repetition, like a heart beat and the ephemeral hopes of the dreamer.
Another day without you
Strings and an intimate piano paint a bittersweet picture of longing, love and hope. Compassion and passion, a fit, like a hand in a glove. There is nothing like absence to realise what you have. Never, ever take it for granted.
Unfulfilled hope
There is a bitterness about the world when a hope is unfulfilled. But you deserved it! You were owed it! You are entitled! But hope was never a strategy. Did you really earn it? Are you going to let it eat you up or are you going to get back up and get on with the blessings you have.
Lost monuments
You can never step into the same river twice – as too, the ideas of our roots and forefathers. An idea is enshrined that slowly becomes stone and even more slowly, returns to the earth.
Marsh land sunrise
At times mysterious, at times remote, at times impenetrable – but always teeming with life and giving back to gaia. The mists swirl slowly over the shallow waters and muddy flats, droplets refracting the sun’s golden rays at sunrise
The Stoic
Piano and hybrid orchestra paints an heroic portrait of resigned determination and sacrifice for a higher purpose.
Crossing Orion
Staring up at the sky in the night, what child has not dreamed of the stars – an individual so small but a destiny so great. Some of us (fortunately) never grow up.
Autum leaves
The harvest is in, life slows and now is the time for rest and reflection. Cycles are present in all of life and to flourish we need to follow, as the earth thaws, to emerge recharged and bursting with life.
Emerald Sea
On a calm summer’s day the Emerald Sea looks benign and enticing – who doesn’t dream beyond the horizon! But what is lost if you answer the call? And the Emerald Sea has many faces.
Concentus voces
There may be many voices but when in harmony it can be serene. Bringing the many together with a consonant purpose is a true life goal.
All images copyright Simon Carlile (2023) except The Stoic (adapted from Paolo Monti and licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0), Empty Room (adapted from iStock under standard liscenses), Clouds across the moon (adapted from Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 3.0 EE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ee/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons), and Crossing orion (By NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team)
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