Last month Neil Cowley enticed us with the sublime and striking single called ‘Ticker Tape’, taken from his new full-length album Battery Life. Ahead of its release on March 24th, Cowley is teasing the album again with a gorgeous and poignant new single called ‘Arkansas’. In a statement, he shared some thoughts:

“Much of source material for my new album was centred around my mothers diaries, my reluctance to read them and their potential for changing my recollection of key moments in my early life. I then pondered on the fragility of an archive and our current obsession in recording absolutely everything. I try to enjoy every moment as it happens wherever possible rather than worrying about perpetuity. Archiving everything is a sure way of missing the magic of the moment. This piece is centred around the fragile nature of memory.”

Wrap your ears around ‘Arkansas’ now.

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.

Celebrated and talented pianist and composer Neil Cowley embraced a solo career last year, after more than a decade with his trio, Neil Cowley Trio. Following a period of self-discovery and reinvention as an artist, he is delving further into his solo career with a trilogy of new EP’s. Entitled Building Blocks, his new work weaves a mosaic of sounds and influences, skillfully merging elements of ambient, electronic, improvisational and contemporary classical music. As the press release describes, the new compositions “chronicl[e] Neil Cowley’s reconnection with his principal instrument and old friend, the piano.”

The first EP, Building Blocks, Pt. 1, will see the light of day this Friday and Cowley is offering ‘Eureka Pulse’ as the first utterly sublime and delicate taste from it.

In other good news, Neil Cowley has also announced a debut solo album will arrive in 2021, following the EP’s release.

After more than a decade with his trio, Neil Cowley Trio, Neil Cowley has embarked on a solo career. In the works for a while, the fruit of his solo endeavour comes out next week in the shape of an EP called Beat Infinitum. The EP saw the incredibly talented pianist and composer embrace new technology while keeping his music heartfelt and human. He explains:

“What happens when you look for heart and humanity from within the clutches of technology?

In essence a snapshot of my studio would tell you all you need to know about my journey. Boxes, machines, synths, compressors, faders and switches. I have surrounded myself with these things and endeavoured to learn all of their workings over a long period of time. I have learnt a lot. But when the learning was over, it was time to create something human; and I then almost had to re-teach myself how to feel and make music about feeling. So I reintroduced my piano and I reintroduced harmony and melody and tried to create emotion from within the deep recesses of the machines at my disposal.

Using raw emotional inspiration such as Renee Jeanne Falconetti’s agonising facial expressions from the 1928 film ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’, a mild obsession with walled gardens far and wide in an effort to understand what happens to the mind in these fabricated but solitary places and a general internal battle with the daily pressures and addictions of technology, I feel I have finally carved out something that has taken a step back in the direction of human feeling but is both of the heart and of the machine.”

‘Involution’ serves as the first taste from Beat Infinitum EP ahead of its release on July 5th. Take a listen now.