New EP - Til We Feel That Hope Again

[chrisother]

This past winter I composed six pieces that've become "Til We Feel That Hope Again," a record about the physical sensations of isolation, intimacy, sadness, and optimism. Many of these pieces are inspired and encapsulated by the physical sensations, spaces, field recordings, and textures of New York itself - waking up in Brooklyn, driving along the Hudson River, and hiking through forests and meadows upstate. It's been said every album is basically an audio snapshot of a musician's life at that point in time, and that definitely rings true here given what winter 2020-into-2021 felt like for me. The EP was mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at BlackKnoll studios. Welcome any thoughts or feedback.

Bandcamp: https://chrisother.bandcamp.com/albu...hat-hope-again

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/chrisother/se...hat-hope-again

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7tRdQ...QFmaVJV7I6T6WA

[Sonic Bodhi]

I love the opening track to this. It definitely inspires a feeling a hope. However, in your description you don’t talk much about your process or the equipment you use to make your recordings, other than the fact that you added field recordings, which is great. It sounds as if you live-mic’d a real piano, as I can hear the foot-pedal noises in it. I don’t own a real piano (don’t have the room for one where I live!) but I have a Korg Kronos, which affords me some great sampled simulations.

Really love ‘Warmth That Melts the Snow’- it is at once a piece that builds tension, an expectation of something greater to come, and a calm, pacific piece. This might be my favorite track on the album. My second fiavorite would be ‘Garden Full of Treasures’. The title alone is worth investigating the song.

I feel like putting out an album is not only a ‘snap-shot’ of the artist’s life at the time of the recording, but an intimate glimpse into their inner world. You put so much of yourself into a composition, that one cannot help but absorb that communicated feeling or energy. The purer the expression, the more powerful it is.

Every piece in this collection has its own unique voice, but they are unified by the communicated light of hope. Well done! Congratulations on a fine emotive album!

[chrisother]

thanks Sonic Bodhi, appreciate the thoughtful input + kind words. process-wise it depended a lot on the track but there were some consistent themes and instruments. pretty much every piece used some field recording (some multiple).

my two consistent instruments were a piano (mic'd Schimmel upright) and a pretty cheap Telecaster guitar I got a while back. "Warmth that Melts the Snow" has multiple tele loops running through a DD-20 that were layered up and slowed down, and then I brought in the choir bit and a few other elements. You can also hear the guitar on "New Morning" here and there.

The 'lead' on "Garden Full of Treasures" was mainly a Juno synth patch I did a lot of processing to, guitar again, and then layering other pads around that and the main field recording.

So yeah, it's usually analog start, then arrange, fine-tune, and mix in Ableton, and then Raf took it from there and did the final shaping + depth refinement.