Skyactivity: Blog

Never content to rest on his laurels, we have here a new stellar release from Boston based composer/sound artist Brendan Murray, the followup to the acclaimed 23five release “Commonwealth.” Murray’s compositions tend to hinge upon drones and this eponymous record is no exception. That being said, this is a work which differs considerably from “Commonwealth” or “Wonders Never Cease”(Murray’s Intransitive release from 2007).

In Brendan’s own words: “This record was recorded after a 6 month break from making solo music. Commonwealth was a pretty big undertaking over a few years, and I wanted to see if I could take some of the long range deliberation out of my process and trust decisions that I normally rethink over and over. I also worked under a deadline for the first time.

The six tracks represent the first real overhaul of my approach since I started. I found myself breaking a lot of self-imposed rules and working very quickly. I decided to incorporate recognizable instrumentation, mainly piano and guitar.
I made some shorter pieces and use lots of differentrecording techniques to give each track it’s own character while making it sound like a record. It definitely sounds like my music, but it’s a more delicate in some places than anything I’ve ever released. I regard the ideas as refined and realized, but each track inhabits its own space, almost like chapters in a book.

It’s self-titled or untitled, depending on how you care to think of it. The images in the artwork could also work as symbolic titles. I have left that very open, because the titles of the pieces are purposely evocative. They are also rather personal and refer to specific moments in my life, whether real or imagined. I plan on making a couple of more records like this, as well as continuing to make large, complex pieces. I don’t regard this as a detour. Some people have told me that this music sounds dark, others have told me it sounds really paranoid. I think it’s a weirdly optimistic record.”