Burnt Shades

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2016-04-30

Label: whitelabrecs

50 x vinyl-effect CDrs with card vinyl-style sleeves, rubber stamped titling, a polaroid print of the cover artwork housed inside a plastic case to keep it looking mint. Ink, font style and sleeve colours will vary for each release, chosen by the artist.

‘Burnt Shades’ is the debut album from Andrew Lang, which follows a free EP released via his Bandcamp page. Andrew’s first long-player is a moody and creaky but magical album that retains a live feel. This raw, honest effect was achieved by simply playing and recording piano improvisations in his music room, which is situated near a busy road and park. Andrew began to embrace the sounds of the outdoors as the world went on by whilst he sat recording, with birds, creaks and traffic noises accidentally making their way onto the album.

The piano itself was purchased by his parents several years ago, having formerly been used in a church crèche. For that reason, it has seen better days; physically worn in appearance and the keys themselves sometimes create odd sounds due to kids with sticky fingers and biscuit crumbs. Andrew wouldn't have it any other way, cherishing the sound of his old piano with its creaking pedals and the noticeably audible resonances of hammers at work.

Andrew had been writing an album for some time, only to scrap it as he grew frustrated at the dead ends he’d encounter. Then at the turn of 2015 on New Year’s Day, Andrew started work on Burnt Shades with a fresh determination; he wanted to build on his previous work by approaching the recording process a little differently. Andrew gave himself the challenge of playing the piano using just two fingers at any one time to rid himself of the constraints of complex playing – this allowed him to focus more on building the tracks carefully, with more freedom.

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