***Important note - If you download the zip of this album, and get an error message noting that the file names are too long when you try to extract, then please do the following; on the zipped file, left click (instead of right click) to go into the folder, highlight all of the files, and then just drag them onto your desktop. This will bypass the file name length issue, and they can then just be put into an album folder. The only other option is to change my album/song titles, which I do not wish to do. Thank you***

This is my first full length album as Wilderness of Mirrors. It was inspired by my mental health breakdown on 10th November 2021.

The title track is a little over 44 minutes long. It goes through a number of different sections that form the whole piece. Each section represents a period of how I was feeling in the days after my breakdown. The opening drone section was improvised, building on it layer after layer. There are no second takes etc in this section. It is only when the first loud section starts around the 13 minute mark that the song becomes "formally structured".

Most of the sections are gloomy (apt, given the inspiration), but there are fleeting moments of light and hope scattered throughout. As I said, the sections were inspired by how I was feeling each day.

As musical inspirations go, I went back to my first release and took a diagonal step forward from there. I was inspired by a lot of drone-based music such as Wrekmeister Harmonies, Bismuth, Wolvserpent, Nadja, Year of No Light, The Owl, Boris, Catafalque, Earth etc, which I then tried to merge with influences such as the soundtrack work of Bobby Krlic, & the "orchestral loop pieces" of Jo Quail.

I accept that the run time of the track will put some people off, but I set out to try and get people to experience my headspace at the time of creation; that feeling of being suffocated, & of things feeling drawn-out and completely inescapable. The track length is to represent this feeling of being trapped, per se.

The second track was recorded on the first day that I felt like I could pass as human. I still felt awful, but I felt like I wanted to see daylight. I felt like I wanted to get up. I felt like I wanted to try.

Self recorded at home.
Intentionally lo-fi.
As ever, I left in all of the little imperfections, like string scrapes and chokes etc

I recommend a good set of bass heavy speakers to listen to this.

The sounds on this recording were created using cello, violin, viola, double bass, felt piano, grand piano, analogue synths, digital synths, space echo, pedal steel, wind chimes, music box, mellotron, organ, wordless vocals, drums, bass, guitars, and effects pedals.

The drone sounds were made by feeding samples of wind chimes, Seán's voice, and my voice, through a Boss space echo pedal, then through a Mooer ocean machine pedal. I killed the dry signal of the sounds, set them to keep oscillating, and then warped them in live time using the controls on the 2 pedals.