'Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired' - Boethius, 'Fundamentals of Music' (in Storr, 1992)
'Music is a memory bank for finding one's way about the world' - Australian aborigine to B. Chatwin, in 'The Songlines', 1988
London-born to German and English parents both of whom had a great love of music, I grew up with classical, the musicals, big band and jazz a constant soundtrack to home life; along with the aromas of baking bread, open fires and rural mustiness.
My parents attended concerts and theater when they could afford it and generously took us children with them when they could.
My mother’s love of classical music in particular took root in me with a predilection towards the ‘pastoral’ composers including Vaughan Williams, Finzi and Elgar. Gerald Finzi remains my favourite of the pre-mid 20th century composers. My father’s jazz records, together with my own attraction towards softer, more pastoral rock sounds (mellotron-era Barclay James Harvest; TOTT- and W&W-era Genesis; early ELO; Moody Blues; Sandy Denny/Fotheringay; etc.) were influences on my developing guitar style.
This found expression in various bands – to varying degrees of seriousness and all very naive – then to solo songwriting, and periods of regular busking. Experimentation with song and compositional form became experimentation with sound. My first recorded piece in my current, settled-upon ‘voice’ ( a s y l u m p e a c e project) was built around an ‘accident’, delayed and caught on a loop. A story oft repeated by so many artists no doubt, but true nonetheless.
For me, as for many I am sure, the relation between music, landscape, and the environment in all its aspects is inextricable. The boundaries between myriad influences are permeable and transparent. The notion of music as the aforementioned ‘soundtrack to life’ is a super-cliche, but an ever appealing and true one all the same. I think it is because, as Colum McCann describes in his genius novel ‘Transatlantic’, our memories are formed, not so much from language – of names and places and things said – as from light, colour; yes, and music, along with all the other manifold triggers of the sensorium.
My memory returns me constantly and vividly to a particular locus of light, colour, sound and smell. I am in a rear sitting room of the small 19th century lodge house I lived in from ages 9 to 21: Avenue Lodge, Braxted Park Estate, Essex, England. Winter night-time. Open fire crackling and simmering; waft of a down-draught. Barclay James Harvest’s ‘Time Honoured Ghosts’ on the turntable – though could have been Denny/Fairport’s ‘Rising For The Moon’ or Moody Blues' 'To Our Childrens Childrens Children' . Lost in the music and in my gaze across a broad semi-wild garden that opened into arable fields sloping towards a horizon-wide band of woodland. All adorned in ethereal moonlit snow. Oh, and the heat in my throat from the occasional quarter bottle of whiskey I daringly and underage-edly savoured.
My search to produce sounds that are part of my personal emotional loop, and the hope that they may touch or tap into that of a listener, has led me to piece together these modest, essentially lo-fi recordings. I lay them before anyone who is so very kind-enough to listen as my rendition of landscape, environment and relationships.
With grateful thanks, Christopher Andreas
'I am sure that one of the reasons why music affects us deeply is its power to structure our auditory experience and thus to make sense out of it...there is no doubt that music provides one path from the hurly-burly of the external world. When we take part in music, or listen to an absorbing performance, we are temporarily protected from the input of other external stimuli. We enter a special, secluded world in which order prevails and from which the incongruous is excluded. It is not a regressive manoeuvre, but RECULER POUR MIEUX SAUTER; a temporary retreat which promotes a re-ordering process within the mind, and thus aids our adaptation to the external world rather than providing an escape from it.'
Anthony Storr, 'Music and the Mind' – 1992
Here is a montage of tracks from 3 albums:
Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep (2011)
All The Ends of All The Roads (2015)
Gone to Earth (2020)
plus the track Perceptible Light (leaks into dark corridors)
I have been saying this for a long time, but work really is now underway on recording and production of a new album, to be titled 'The Wayfarer and The Son'; a collection of recent recording work (that is, over the past three years and more), reworking of some older ideas, as well as ideas yet to be 'distilled'. The release of this was planned for Summer 2018, but was postponed for an array of reasons. All being well, a concentrated recording session will take place during winter 2020/21; and from this the new collection and release will, hopefully, be realised.
'Perceptible Light...' (now on Bandcamp) is from the new album. The new album will carry on the existing aesthetic but also bring in some new elements and influences, of the sea, rural and coastal landscapes; and some vocal settings.
OLDER NEWS:
The plan for a simultaneous release of both Some Must Watch... and All The Ends... on a hard format (CD/vinyl/compact cassette) remains in place. Concept and production preparations continue, at - as I always say - my usual ponderous, intermittent at times, but dogged pace.
The following I do retain, very sincerely, from my previous website version:
I remain ever grateful for and humbled by the interest and support shown in my, until now, download-only releases. I acknowledge this especially in view of my 'unknown' status in the wider context of the multitudinous number of amazing, creative and successful artists out there (however you measure that on the relative spectrum of 'success': I heard a wonderful phrase recently - in a film titled 'Papadopolous and Sons' ; simply: 'success is the joy you feel'. I thought that was rather lovely, and profound in the most understated of ways) .
To stream, purchase or find out more about the music, please follow the Bandcamp link or MUSIC on Home page. Or to inquire, you can contact me (I'd love to hear from you) at: asylumpeace@europe.com
a s y l u m p e a c e music on Soundcloud: