As soon as Casey van Wensem sent me a series of photos he took I was immediately struck by the concept that he'd created, for his new album 'A Place Outside of Time'. Casey, the Canadian musician behind The Bird’s Companion, shares with us a track-by-track walkthrough of his new album. The record takes its cues from a chapter in One Hundred Years of Solitude when an entire town succumbed to amnesia. This sets the tone for a nostalgic lens in which Casey has composed a vivid soundtrack on memory, family, and the passing down of tradition.

Below Casey takes us deeper into this world, reflecting on the stories and techniques behind each piece. He shares how memories of his grandparents, and his wife’s, shaped the album’s tone. Accompanying his words are a series of beautiful photographs of quiet rural landscapes, misty coastal moments, and images of his children exploring wide open spaces. These visuals compliment the album artwork and throughout the walkthrough, there's an embedded Bandcamp player so you can listen...

An Imaginary Reality: The title is a quote from One Hundred Years of Solitude - the first of many - and is based on the idea of living in a liminal state between truth and fiction; dreaming and waking. The idea for this piece is to bring the listener into this sort of partially remembered world where they’ll remain for the rest of the album. To achieve this I took a somewhat unconventional approach to using traditional instruments, for example, by opening up the piano and plucking the strings rather than using the hammers.

With Untiring Hands: Sometimes I’ll sit down to record something specific and then throw everything away and improvise at the piano instead. This snippet comes from one these moments. The piece represents a moment of hope in the midst of despair.

A Place Outside of Time: This was one of the first pieces I ever wrote on piano. I’ve tried to record it several times before but it never found a proper home until now. It’s based around a 6/8 - 4/4 polyrhythm (one of the best musical devices of all time) and somehow for me this created a sense of whimsy and mystery that felt at home on this album. This is also the only track on the album with banjo - not something I use a lot for Ambient and Modern Classical music but sometimes it just fits!

The Quicksand of Forgetfulness: This piece started with some slow, wandering chords on the piano. I wanted to fill it out with sounds that felt like they were emanating from the piano itself. The sounds become increasingly tangled until they reach a moment of clarity near the end of the track - perhaps a reprieve from the confusion of the quicksand.

The Memory Machine: In 100 Years of Solitude, the patriarch and inventor Jose Arcadio Buendia creates a mechanical device called a “memory machine,” which is described in the novel as “a spinning dictionary that a person placed on the axis and could operate by means of a lever, so that in very few hours there would pass before his eyes the notions most necessary for life.” This track opens with the sound of the memory machine spinning, with bits of memory coming in and out of view. Musically, I was inspired in this piece by Olafur Arnalds’ use of robotic pianos, but since I have only one piano and no robots to speak of, I played the parts myself, but tried to record them in a random way, similar to how a machine might work.

The Pianola Dreams of Its Former Glory: The pianola referenced throughout 100 Years of Solitude is a type of player piano. It is first seen as an object of fascination but eventually becomes overlooked and forgotten as new innovations arrive. I imagine this piece as a lament by the pianola itself - a call to remember old objects that have lost their purpose and old memories that have been displaced by the constant need for new distractions.

When Fearful Waters Trembled: This track is decidedly dark and minor compared to the rest of the album, with layers of guitar feedback and drone sounds. There’s some despair here, until the track opens up right before the end with a moment of peace and hopefulness.

I Will Remember My Song in the Night: This is actually a reworking of a track I released on my first album back in 2015 called The Number of the Stars. I took the melody from that piece and arranged it so I could play it as a solo piano piece. When I recorded this version I added in a bunch of new guitar parts, especially baritone guitar, to create more depth and atmosphere.

Unseen Footprints: This piece came from an effort to play as little as possible. What I did play was played extremely slowly and softly. The guitar was run through several layers of very long delays, so playing too hard would quickly lead to chaos. The idea of this track is based around the idea that memories are not just personal - that they transcend people and generations.

'A Place Outside of Time' is available in a limited run of 100 gatefold vinyl-effect CDrs, as well as a digital option in a range of high quality format options. You can take a listen to the album in full or buy a copy HERE!