Celebrated and incredibly talented pianist and composer Neil Cowley is a true visionary. After dazzling us for more than a decade with his trio, Neil Cowley Trio, in 2019 he embarked on a solo career. Following a few EP releases, an album and a collaboration with Jacana People, he has announced the release of a new full-length album entitled Battery Life. Speaking about it, Cowley offered some insight:

“It is a record of abstract memories and stolen excerpts.
It is my perception of the past before the detail is filled in.
Blurred pictures, strange details, a feeling, a smell and above all the freedom to redefine the past at my whim. In an age where we are able to archive virtually any amount of life experience at the press of a button, it calls into question the value of a memory, both undetailed and detailed.”

Lucky for us, Cowley has let loose a sublime and striking new single called ‘Ticker Tape’. The track takes its title from the earliest electrical communications medium used for financial purposes. He explains:

“During the making of my album ‘Battery Life’ I mused on the various types of communication we use as modern day human beings and how quite often they lead to miscommunication, or at least serve as a poor second to traditional human contact.
Inevitably I cast my mind back to the medium of ticker tape, and how it operated as one of the earliest forms of passing on numerical information worldwide. I found myself asking myself whether there was any tangible difference in efficacy between that and what we use today.
This piece, with its 16th note rhythms and its random repetition of melody aims to communicate in a similar fashion, like a numerical tarantella to skip across the continents.”

Listen to ‘Ticker Tape’ now and keep an eye out for the release of Battery Life.