the skies, they shift like chords
Roger Eno to Release Second Solo Album for Deutsche Grammophon on October 13
the skies, they shift like chords features piano solo tracks performed by Roger Eno as well as multi-instrumental pieces, some with electronics
It also includes “Strangely, I Dreamt”, a song co-written and performed by Cecily Eno
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(Artwork)
“I think of music in visual terms. Perhaps here the chords could be the earth,
the melody the trees rising above ground, and the atmosphere of floating guitar could be the sky. These three elements are different but interconnected.” — Roger Eno Aug. 25, 2023 — “Most of my pieces are snapshots of things that were experienced in the moment,” says Roger Eno.
“How do you describe the world, unless it’s in an instant? You can’t
fix anything because everything is in flux, it’s changing and mutable.”
On the skies, they shift like chords, his second solo album for Deutsche Grammophon,
Eno describes the world in a dozen musical watercolors based on
spontaneous sketches, tracing an evocative and thought-provoking path
through sound and silence.
Following on from the critically acclaimed DG solo debut, The Turning Year
(2022) and follow up tracks such as “Above and Below”, which has
streamed over 19 million times, the new album will be issued digitally
worldwide, and in physical formats (except in the US), on October 13. Four of its tracks will be made available on DSPs over the next few weeks: “Strangely, I Dreamt”, with vocals by Cecily Eno, today, August 25, “Tidescape” on September 8, “Chordal Drift” on September 22 and “Arms Open Wide” on October 13. The album comes out on vinyl in the US on 17 November, with a two-track single (featuring the full instrumental and a solo piano version of “Strangely, I Dreamt”) released internationally on the same date.
the skies, they shift like chords builds on the soundworld of piano and strings heard on Roger Eno’s DG debut solo album, The Turning Year,
expanding it with lines for electric guitar, clarinet, bass clarinet,
vibraphone, flute organ and subtle electronic sounds. Most of the tracks
grew out of improvisations – musical snapshots. “Often, the best way to
cement these is by hardly using any detail,” explains the composer and
multi-instrumentalist. “The first track on the skies,
‘Chordal Drift’, is a series of quite thick string chords with no
intimation of melody. If you listen to it more closely, though, you’ll
start to link things together.”
The
lone vocal piece on the album, “Strangely, I Dreamt”, is co-written and
sung by Roger Eno’s eldest daughter, vocalist and visual artist Cecily
Eno. Its lyrics began life as part of a poem by one of her father’s
friends, but Cecily adapted them to include “The skies, they shift like
chords”, a line that invites us to contemplate the nature of
impermanence.
That
same idea lies behind “Tidescape”. “It owes its name to a poem by Mary
Markwell written in 1976,” notes Roger Eno. “I happened upon it in a
Suffolk Poetry Society anthology, one of my favourite poetry
collections. I loved the name, implying, as it does, how the
tide creates a changing landscape unique to that environment.”
As
“Tidescape” began taking shape for the album, Eno invited his guitarist
friend, Jon Goddard to fashion a high guitar drone above the existing
music for flute organ. “Jon’s additions allowed me to hear two other
elements in the piece, my beloved clarinet and bass clarinet, which
sound like aural velvet. The resulting openness perhaps prompted my
producer at DG, Christian Badzura, to have the courageous idea of adding
reversed distorted guitar. I thoroughly enjoyed watching how the piece
developed as though on its own, like a river finding its own path to the
sea.”
By
contrast, “Arms Open Wide” returns to the simplicity of Roger Eno’s
solo piano, although despite the track’s gentle, intimate feel, it is
underpinned by a sense of strength. “There always has to be something
strong or utterly beautiful, otherwise there’s the danger that it
becomes like lift music…”
The
album’s other expressive titles include “Japanese Rain Garden”, “That
Which Is Hidden”, “Mind the Gap”, “Illusion”, “Above And Below
(Crepuscular)” and “Through The Blue (Crepuscular)”. “I always name
pieces after I’ve composed them,” says Roger Eno. “I try to match them
to poetic titles, to trigger feelings, emotions and thoughts as the
music plays.”
One of the emotional threads running throughout the skies, they shift like chords is
Eno’s relationship with his native region of East Anglia. The tracks
are inspired by its landscape – a mix of small market towns, medieval
churches, wheatfields, meadows, rivers and open skies – as well as by
the work of local poets and the Norwich School of artists, active in the
early 1800s. The album’s melancholy tone has much to do with the threat
now posed to the region’s biodiversity by intensive farming and climate
change.
“The
overall mood is one of transience,” says Eno of his new recording,
whose moments of stillness are vital, allowing the music to breathe and
listeners to explore their own emotional and imaginative response to it.
“There are lots of gaps, silent pauses, throughout the album, which are
a really important part of it. When a track finishes, you’re still
‘there’ in the music, and unless the next one comes in at just the right
moment, something’s going to jangle with either or both of them. The
composing part is only one part of the process – these other,
constructive details are very important.
Praise for The Turning Year & Rarities
“… a keen sense for delicate, unornamented melodies that serve as vehicles for reflection” – Pitchfork
“A sequence of masterpieces in miniature” Prog
“The Turning Year is calming and often very beautiful” The Wire
“Sweet music for very strange times” Record Collector
“Eno has a distinctive style and picks just the right chord change or string colouration” Mojo
“A deeply nourishing record” Uncut (Rarities)
“Beautiful and emotionally devastating” Electronic Sound (Rarities)
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Photo/ Credit: Cecily Eno
Missing Piece Group
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