Recently I had the honour of releasing Valencia based artist Rafa Ramos Sania's debut album under his Calm Pieces guise. He'd been releasing a series of short singles for some time and wanted to gather these into an extended album experience. One glimpse of the demo and I was mesmerised and very grateful to have the opportunity to share his work with the world.

For Rafa's blog post, he reflected back upon his notes from producing the album, which is called 'Singles' and has shared a track-by-track account of the stories behind each of these cinematic pieces. If this raises your curiosity, there's an embedded Bandcamp player where you can listen to the album.

SINGLES ALBUM WALKTHROUGH

Viridian
1st of March, 2024

This piece came from a couple of bars of Ryuichi Sakamoto's Andata. I played with these and they led me to the piano of Viridian. I gave it the title because of the relationship I saw between the piece and the cold depth of this colour.

Aloe
29th of July, 2022

Aloe is one of the pieces of the album that comes from a loop elaborated with Edu Comelles for our first album Botánica de balcón (Archives, 2019). I developed from the guitar loop a completely different composition from the one we had made, adding a new piano riff as the main element. The title Aloe was the initial title of the piece composed with Edu, which we finally changed to Chlorophytum Comosum.

Five Harmonics
21st of June, 2024

It is a musical and theoretical play with the number 5. The piece emerged from the first five natural harmonics, and I played with those five sounds, creating chords, melodies, etc. At the end of the theme there is also a rhythmic game with the 5. You can see some written notes on this piece at the end of the blog post.

Foggy Glass
2nd of December, 2022

This piece also comes from a loop elaborated with Edu, which was used in the track Chlorophytum Comosum. I think it is the most electronic piece of the album. I gave it the title because during the recording it was raining outside and my studio window was fogged up.

Hanamura
24th of November, 2023

This piece came from a sound of Reaktor 6, by Native Instruments. From this sound I added the rest of the sounds and instruments. The title is a tribute to a wonderful secondary character, Hanamura, from Tadao Tsuge's manga, My Life on a Boat.

Ohio Blue
2nd of February, 2024

This piece is inspired by Jim Jarmusch's film, Paterson (2016). I used a minor blues structure and tried to bring it into a calmer, more ambient space.

Hovering
10th of March, 2023

In this piece I used a couple of loops made with Edu for the mauve theme, from the camp album (Whitelabrecs 2022). I added two very rhythmic metallophones and some electronics. The resulting feeling I think was very floating.

Lull
21st of April, 2023

Here I also used a loop originally used in malva, from the camp album. For Lull I recorded an acoustic guitar to give it a bit of an organic and lonely feel.

Hanging Around
20th of September, 2024

This piece was originally part of an album titled Okreak that I wanted to release as Rafa Ramos Sania. All the pieces on the album were composed on the same chord cadence but developed in different ways. Finally I decided not to publish it and use the pieces little by little in different projects. This is one of those pieces.

Emptiness
19th of May, 2023

It is the only piece on the album that comes from the guitar. The riff is the starting point of the piece. The title evokes the emptiness of the desert and somehow the music that Ry Cooder made for one of my favorite films, Paris Texas (Win Wenders, 1984).

'Singles' is available in a limited edition run of 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!