Keaton Henson - Somnambulant Cycles (2024) [Hi-Res]

“Somnambulant cycles is an instrumental album exploring the feeling of subconscious states, in some ways the antithesis to six lethargies (a work intended to create unrest and unease), this one is intended to create a sense of physiologically fertile calm, the calm where ideas come from, where emotions are felt but pass by like pedestrians. it is the quiet of night when our ancestors saw spirits over the water, but felt a strange comfort rather than fear. the strange sensation of being aware that you are sleepwalking, but not wanting to wake up. It is at times a moonlit field, at others a quiet warmly lit bedroom, a blue evening from up high, a nightbus home through the rain. It was made more collaboratively than my previous classical records, while being predominantly composed alone, it all came to life when shared with other musicians I admire, creating pieces i was dying to hear played by daniel herskedal, and creating skeletons to be fleshed out by people like hinako omori, and players i love to write for like reinoud ford and Dorry Mcauley. sonically it is intended to marry worlds like electronic, classical and minimalism, glued together with a humanness and vulnerability of performance, recorded up close with flaws left in”.