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Night Angels

Written: Late 2017

Recorded: May 2020

Credits: Liam Johnson (guitar)

Black Sky

Night Angels was written deep into the night as you might expect. In my parents' house, there's a small conservatory with a windowed roof. One night, I was practicing inside it looking up at the starry sky. Particularly late at night, I often find myself having musical ideas in place of regular thoughts. Contemplating on these, I started to hear a melody coming through. I played it on the guitar and added a simple bass note underneath, setting the premise for the composition that was yet to come.

Instead of hearing a chordal accompaniment though, I instead started hearing a counter melody in my head. Playing it on the guitar proved to be difficult but with some experimentation, I found a tuning on the guitar that made the melody possible. It was certainly no easy task but I managed to make it work and started working on further ideas. Exploring different time signatures and tempi, the piece eventually developed into what you hear on the album. The title "Night Angels" characterises those musical ideas that swirl through my mind late at night.

After recording a video of it for YouTube, I felt like the floaty, dreamy element of those 'night angels' weren't properly realised in the performance of the piece. For the album, I decided to play around a lot more with the tempo and dynamics in places that were originally rigid and regimented. The final product is something that ultimately has more space to breathe and more room for imagination as a casual listener.

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