Steve Adey
November 26th welcomes the release of Steve Adey’s brand new album 'The Tower of Silence', the follow-up to 2006's critically acclaimed 'All Things Real' (The Sunday Times - CD of the week).
Adey’s latest record finds him doing what he does best - creating emotionally charged songs and moulding a soundtrack, unlike any other record you will hear this year. The album encompasses a myriad of emotions. Adey carves out a filmic wall of sound, offsetting his baritone vocal and piano led songs.
‘The Tower of Silence’ is comprised of ten striking and evocative songs, lyrically and sonically, including a cover of Scottish singer-songwriter Alasdair Roberts’ ‘Farewell Sorrow’ and a response to Jean Vigo’s 1934 film L’atalante in the form of track ‘Dita Parlo’.
For his latest album, Adey was not one to take a conventional approach, recording it in a 19th century church in Edinburgh, where he now resides. Backed by the musicians that he had assembled to accompany him on his 2007 debut headline tour, Adey created the raw band performances that largely make up ‘The Tower of Silence’.
Of the recording process Adey relates, "Sonically, I wanted to emphasise the room in the church where we recorded. And from there it was all about how the musicians interacted. I think we got some good takes. We were thinking on a folk level more and more, but we used vintage synthesizers and older studio equipment, so we were calling it electronic folk or future folk."
Why such a gap between albums? "I recorded a lot of variations and numerous versions of the songs. I was going for takes, moments that work, often with little idiosyncrasies. I knew I wanted to experiment with cutting and pasting and using my studio/mixing desk as an instrument. Having said that, I never used computers during the recording and mixing, so the approach was old school.
"I did further tracking and instrumentation in isolation, recording musicians individually, and simply got immersed in the studio. Hopefully the record benefits from the process. I was careful not to make something that was ornamental or over produced. I wanted it to sound like it was done quickly, but thoroughly considered and fully realised".
"I've observed that many of my songs are about polarity: plus - minus, male - female. Much of this album was inspired by and contrasting both 'the monumental' and 'the fragile'.
"I did some travelling, I saw some incredible things and met interesting people, but I had some near misses and was seriously ill along the way. I contracted Dengue fever and had Polycythemia, which resulted in extreme blood cell levels and caused my liver to inflate. AND I was involved in car crash!
"It was a horror show, really horrible, but at the same time, the stuff that I remember most was the wonderful things I saw".
"The title came from of a place in India where the dead are laid to rest on a hill tower and gifted to the birds. But on a musical level it pertains to the value of silence - making sure nothing is overplayed is an important factor".
Track listing:
1. A Few Seconds Have Passed
2. Laughing
3. Just Wait Till I Get You Home
4. Army Of One
5. With Tongues
6. Secret Place
7. Farewell Sorrow
8. The Field
9. Dita Parlo
10. Tomorrow