One of my primary means for getting through the monotony of 2020 & 2021 was to embed my practice even more into daily life. I always have instruments around me - a few guitars, an upright piano and my modular synth, etc. - and these gave me the kinds of tools I know many other creatives also placed focus on throughout the pandemic. One of the struggles however was the lack of output or feedback. The Sombre Warm is about just this - finding yourself in the process of creating and feeling constantly on the verge of something, this kind of kinetic warmth, and never being able to take a step back to get a sense of progress, or being able to realise it to completion. Of course, this is a common enough challenge in normal times however for me, the past few years saw it go into hyperdrive. This building of energy and the ever-present dissatisfaction is what inspired me to both write and perform The Sombre Warm which was the first piece I wrote for Slow Friction and set the tone of the entire record.

The Sombre Warm and much of the record was created with electronic instruments - a eurorack synthesiser, the parts of which I’ve been curating and learning to tame over the past few years, along with a few semi-modular MOOG synths - guitar pedals, a few tape machines, and sliced up recordings of my piano and guitars. I placed a big emphasis on recording authentic and unique performances through long single takes as opposed to multi-tracking and precise organising of parts, which is how the form of The Sombre Warm came about. The tension and dynamics of the piece were realised through very slowly opening up filters and adding layers of ambience with pedals like the electro-harmonix POG2, ChaseBliss MOOD and Strymon BlueSky, while the music itself is a very simple descending minor key harmony peppered with borrowed chords from parallel modes, like the IV major and the bII minor chords, the prevalence of which increases throughout as the intensity builds. The percussive rhythm that emerges underneath is created with a very saturated room recording of a floor tom hit, stored and reproduced in the modular synth from the MakeNoise Morphagene and punctuated with a Noise Engineering Basimilus Iteritas Alter drum voice. This process of tempered, brooding composition founded on repetition and slowly evolving simple aspects of the music is something I use throughout and is becoming a primary theme within my own style, one which I drew great influence from artists like Lawrence English, Rafael Anton Irissari, Kali Malone & Tim Hecker.