Behind The Scenes: Louis Gardner

On Saturday I released the final Whitelabrecs album of another busy year - London based artist Louis Gardner's 'Emotionally Suited to be a Solo Pianist'. It's an album that was recorded in the run up to Christmas last year, as Louis' girlfriend returned to the USA. He felt alone and booked 3 hours of studio time to work on some solo piano pieces. These became an album which he adapted over the course of the onset of the festive period and he joked with himself, that it was a sort of Christmas album.

When thinking about how best to explore the story behind this record, an interview felt like the natural choice. Ryan Watts (Akira Film Script) took the reins once again, approaching the conversation with the same sensitivity and curiosity that runs through the music itself. Across their exchange, they unpack the album’s origins in long-form piano improvisation, the role of restraint and immediacy, and how sentiment, memory, and seasonal context shaped the final work.

Ryan chats with Louis about process, influence and intention - from Arthur Russell and Morton Feldman to the emotional weight of instruments, home-recording rituals, and the idea of a Christmas album that leans into solemnity rather than celebration.

If you're intrigued and would like to take a listen to Emotionally Suited to be a Solo Pianist, there's a Bandcamp link at the bottom of the page!

First off, welcome to the Whitelabrecs family and community. What you've created here is an incredible body of work in our opinion. Please take a moment to introduce yourself, and as many of us have discussed within the community, what is your musical background/history, and what brought you to ambient stylings as a form of expression?

LG: I have played piano since I was a young child. I’m not exactly ‘classically’ trained as I had more of a casual relationship with the piano; I never did grades, played when I wanted and did not treat it as a discipline wherein I would force myself to sit and play (which is how I feel music is presented through school growing up). From age 12 I began improvising, and as I grew up it became my primary outlet for catharsis, meditation and self expression. Throughout years of improvisation I developed a fondness for simplicity. My love of ambient music began here too. This meditative practise evolved alongside a folk song writing practise as I taught myself guitar from age 15.

For this album, you've mentioned influences like Arthur Russell, Elliot Smith, and Morton Feldman, but we also hear a bit of José Gonzáles, the more sentimental side of Pinback, or the more folk-like works of Stephen Brodsky - all this to say, it sounds very deeply inspired. You also mention the core of the album coming from a long, 3-hour piano improv session - how did you get from long-form improv piano to what we hear today? Were some of the piano passages recreated on guitar, dulcimer, etc. as the ideas were dissected from the source material, then fleshed out?

LG: I’m a fan of José Gonzáles, I am unaware of Pinback and Brodsky but will definitely listen to them.

I mic’d up the piano and played in that first session not yet with the intention of creating an album. I just wanted to capture my emotional state at that time. After listening back I realised I could expand this sonic moment into a full album. I returned to the studio several more times in the following weeks with the guitar, and my process involved putting myself back into that initial space and letting songs develop through improvisation there. At home I would listen to what I’d recorded instrumentally and flesh out the vocals. It was all a process of capturing that immediate mood, so improvisation and immediacy was paramount.

Musical restraint seems to be a theme on the album - there's nary a drum, or beat/bang on an acoustic for emphasis, and the piano is as delicately placed as a Bill Evans session for Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". On the flip side of this, there's so much depth and layering of the warm, fragile, falsetto vocals that take the forefront of the record. At what point in your process, given the minimal musical bedding, do the vocals begin to emerge, form, or take shape?

LG: The vocals always come at the end. And in terms of lyrics I usually sing the first thing that comes to my head, or write things down very quickly as I’m listening. The meaning of the words usually makes sense to me after the whole song’s finished.

With such an intimate set, small fluctuations and differences stand out and grab the listener's attention - one great example is the bow-induced notes on the first 2/3 of "This is who I am" - outside of your inherited, generational guitar with tired strings, and the piano, what other instruments and techniques did you apply to this album? And what technology or equipment was used to capture these long-winter studio sessions (and their intriguing, indelible mood)?

LG: The bowing on ‘This is who I am’ uses the same old guitar. I wanted to be very sparse with my instrumentation on this album. Initially I was just going to have piano, then as I was recording I added more. But every instrument I used had to have a sentimental value to me. The dulcimer was a Christmas gift by my girlfriends mother, and the accordion which appears at the end reflects the instrument which I’d hear my father play (badly) growing up.

All instruments were recorded with two AKG C451 pencil mics which capture the very dry, direct sound. I recorded ‘in studio’ at my university, though I would just use their piano and microphones and go directly into Ableton in my laptop with a usb driver and headphones. Proper studio recording scares me; when everything’s contained to a couple XLR cables and a laptop I find it a lot easier to work.

One of the things we've always loved is Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts Christmas album, and its absolute spillover of mood over overly cheery Christmas offerings. You call this a Christmas album too, and we see a needle to be threaded in this department, although you've avoided covers, renditions, or interpolations of existing Christmas songs. For yourself as an artist, what about this setlist made you feel it best attached to that season over, say late-Autumn, a quiet spring morning sunrise blanketed in dew, or a late, warm Summer's eve?

LG: After the initial recording, the idea of creating a ‘Christmas Album’ gave me impetus to record a lot more. Almost tongue-in-cheek, I was interested in a Christmas album which does away with the typical jovial sound and instead is quite sad. But also, and perhaps more importantly, I recorded it at that moment when Christmas was beginning, and I always found there to be a solemnity in that moment so I wanted to set the album there. It works to listen to it in autumn as well. It doesn’t sound as good listening in summer.

For us, one of the single most impactful statements musically, probably in quite a few years, is how the album ends (we don't want to spoil it for those who haven't listened through yet, however...). What was your mindset for taking such a fluid and nearly seamless sonic setlist to that absolutely attention grabbing final few seconds?

LG: In an improvisatory practise you spend a lot of time thinking about endings. When I was younger I would often end with an arpeggio which faded to the top of the piano, or on the tonic chord which slowly decays. Eventually these endings got a bit predictable to me, and I realised that actually you can stop playing the moment you want to. When you’ve said everything that can be said, you stop.

So, what's on the horizon for yourself and your future musical projects? Any upcoming releases aside from this one that you're able to inform us on? As well, any existing releases in the wild we should be on the lookout for?

LG: I’ve another project coming out in 2026 which focuses more on my folk song writing, with larger instrumentation and more of a pop approach. I’m going to be self releasing much more often as well.

For existing releases, a great record by another South London based artist came out lately which I think you will like - ‘Goodness’ by ‘feeo’:

'Emotionally Suited to be a Solo Pianist' is available in a limited repress of 100 spruce coloured vinyl-effect CDrs in record wallets, as well as a digital option available in a range of high quality format options. You can take a listen to the album in full HERE!