Hello everybody,
I'm happy to announce a new album by my ambient side-project riverrun called A Secret Cove. This album closes the Somerset Trilogy, which began with the albums Avalon Marsh and Crow Covert.
With this release, I’m revisiting an experiment I first undertook with the album Lilliput in 2018. Technically, the full version of A Secret Cove is a 60-hour generative composition. Each of the fifty CDs contains a different 72-minute “slice” of this larger piece.
Each disc is, in effect, a highly limited art object, since no two copies will contain exactly the same music. And not only will no one else’s version sound exactly like yours, but given the composition’s length, it’s unlikely even I will have heard your particular excerpt in full!
The CD version is presented in a digipack with artwork echoing the first two parts of the Somerset Trilogy, and a liner note essay that reflects on the landscape that inspired the album and the wider trilogy
If this sounds like it could be up your strasse, the album is available on CD from my Bandcamp page. Purchases come with a download of the “Standard” 58-minute version which is also available separately as a download.
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BACKGROUND TO A SECRET COVE
A Secret Cove, like most riverrun works, is a patchwork of sonic elements. I create most riverrun pieces by letting these elements loop on various cycles (often alongside long stretches of silence). What ends up on the final release is usually just a segment of a much longer whole. Because the loops are unrhythmic and of irregular lengths, it’s entirely possible the full composition could continue generating for years before repeating itself exactly.
Whereas Lilliput was a darker work, built largely around the Dorian mode (close in feel to a minor key), A Secret Cove is constructed in the Lydian mode—similar to a major key, but richer, sweeter, and slightly more unsettled (this mode is often associated with the piano works of Harold Budd, for example). Perhaps because of that tonal palette, I think this is one of the more moving riverrun pieces. There are passages that feel genuinely touching—which isn’t usually the intention with these works.
As with Lilliput, the piece weaves in material from earlier works; compositional elements from across the Somerset Trilogy are recontextualised here, alongside many additional drones, instrumental takes, and field recordings, some of which were made specifically for this release, others being repurposed “cutting room floor” material originally intended for my song albums. The core element is a background drone, also heard in "Swill Point" (the second side of Avalon Marsh), which is an edited and heavily-treated segment of a keyboard pad buried in the background of my song "Summerhome by the Sea" from Out of Season. All told, there are perhaps a hundred distinct layers of sound, looping and combining endlessly.
There’s little in the way of traditional ‘development’, but the piece evolves slowly and organically. Even when the surface textures seem static, the underlying combinations are always shifting—each moment formed of a unique blend of elements, like uncertain light moving across a landscape.
I apologise for the slightly higher-than-usual cost of the CD, but as you can imagine, rendering and editing 60 hours of material—and burning each copy individually—is going to be a labour-intensive process. This is also why the pre-order period is a little longer than normal. I do aim to get the CDs to you well before the official release date. And in the meantime, each purchase also includes a downloadable version of the piece: a separate, “standard” 58-minute edition that’s the same for everyone. (I expect to release seasonal updates and new iterations of the composition later this year.)
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SOUTHERNMOST LIMITED CD RE-PRESS
Completists may also be interested to know that I have also put up for pre-order a limited edition CD re-press of the collaborative album Southernmost, which I made with William Delano in 2019. That is also available from my Bandcamp page.
Thanks for reading, and all the best
Daniel
