NICK SCHOFIELD is a Montréalais composer in love with modular synths, and who has a new album, Glass Gallery, coming out early next month, composed entirely on the legendary Prophet 600. And it’s very beautiful; uplifting, even, music for a bright future we’ve yet to realise.
By day he’s a member of singer-songwriter Devon Welsh‘s band, rather a lovely thing in itself, but very much the acoustic flipside of where he’s at when flying solo.
The album is inspired by the architecture of Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada, which informs, surely, the name of today’s single drop, “Ambient Architect” which, as you can hear, is itself full of air and inspiration; of possibility, and is accompanied by lovely, abstracted visuals. The gallery has a renowned glass atrium, the light from which you can hear glimmering through this track.
The album, we’re told, “visits several soundworlds couched under the ever-expanding canopy of ambient: Tokyo’s first decade of environmental music, the algorithmic compositions of Laurie Spiegel and the new age of California’s digital deserts, among other rigorously elegant subgenres.”
Need further convincing? Try November’s equally arresting “Mirror Image”, an exercise in minimalist japonaiserie, of which Nick comments: “During a blizzard in Ottawa, I layered arpeggiations while watching the snow outside streaking downwards, millions of diagonal dots gravitating in a single direction, somehow unified in a flurry of descent.
“These days, I see this piece as abstract geometry – the rhythms are patterns and can combine to create shapes, but the definition is in flux. My only metaphor is how nature has always entranced our eyes and imagination – like rippling water, dancing shadows, sun through trees and falling snow.”
Nick Schofield’s Glass Gallery will be released in digital format by Backwards Music on February 5th; pre-order your copy here.
Connect with Nick on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and at his website.
