Grounding Sounds: Adrian Lane
It's been a good while since we've done a Grounding Sounds blog post and so I'm delighted to share one again here. Being a keen record collector myself, this is one of my favourite types of blog posts to share. I'm very partial to Modern Classical music too and so I knew it was going to be fascinating to see what Adrian Lane would choose.
For those of you who have no idea what Grounding Sounds blogs are, they're essentially a desert island discs style format, where artists share some of the most significant records in their collection which helped shape their own sound. The artist has a bit of freedom to shape the format how they prefer; some will share photos, some will share a few words and others will make a mixtape too. Here, Adrian has done all three! I find with the artists who have shared their Grounding Sounds, that you can get a strong sense of how they developed their own sound and I think that's the case here with Adrian. The music we listen to as artists is so formative - and I see a few personal favourites of mine are in the list!
Click play below to hear Adrian's mix, which includes a few bonus pieces. Then at the bottom of the page you can also check out Adrian's own new album 'Where Once We Danced'.
INTRO
"This is a list of albums that mean a lot to me, some of them early influences on my music but I didn’t want to focus on just my early influences so I thought I’d do half of early influences and half favourites from the last 10 years or so. There are lots of other things I listen to now and in the past that I love but that haven’t really influenced what I do, so I have just concentrated on things I feel have had an impact." ▪️Adrian Lane
EARLY INFLUENCES
David Sylvian
Secrets of the Beehive
Virgin Records, 1987
I first got into David Sylvian’s music when he was part of Japan, who I was really into as a teenager in the early 80s, but it is his solo work that has really stuck with me over the years. Secrets of the Beehive was released in 1987 but still sounds fresh today; it avoided a lot of the production cliches of the time with beautiful acoustic instrumentation mixed with organic sounding synths. This album has some wonderful string arrangements by Ryuichi Sakamoto, another of my favourite artists.
Nick Drake
Five Leaves Left
Island Records, 1969
I didn’t discover the music of Nick Drake until quite late after hearing a cover version of Pink Moon, by the lo-fi indie band Sebadoh. This made me curious about the original and I ended up getting all of Nick Drakes albums. I like all of his albums (only 3 official releases before his untimely death in 1974) but his 1969 debut has some wonderful string arrangements. I later found that Nick Drake had been an influence of David Sylvian and Danny Thompson who plays double bass on this album is also the bassist on Secrets of the Beehive.
Leonard Cohen
Songs of Love and Hate
Columbia Records, 1971
I discovered the music of Leonard Cohen in the late 80s, through the song ‘Suzanne’ released in 1967. I like all of Leonard Cohen’s music from the 60s and early 70s but I think my favourite is this album. Like a lot of Cohen’s music it is a very dark album but at the same time has a lot of dark humour. My favourite track is ‘Avalanche’ which has an excellent string arrangement; you can probably start to see a pattern in these choices, always been a big fan of strings. Leonard Cohen’s final album, Thanks for the Dance, which was completed by his son after his passing, seems to nod back to the early records.
Roger Eno
Between Tides
Opal Records, 1988
I bought this album on vinyl when it came out in 1988, and I was particularly attracted by the cover by artist Russell Mills (whose work has also been used on David Sylvian’s albums). I think the artwork for an album is really important, and although I won’t buy an album just because of the artwork, bad artwork will put me off buying something. Not quite as famous as his brother Brian, Roger Eno tends to produce music with in a more neo-classical feel. This is a beautiful pastoral album that still stands up well today and was probably one of the first piano-based albums I bought. Although piano is at the core of his sound, a lot of the pieces are augmented by a range of other instruments which is something I enjoy in my own music.
Erik Satie
Gnossiennes
1890
This is not really an album as such as it was written before the idea of albums even existed. I really love the melancholy feel of these pieces and they are tracks I have been listening to regularly for the last 40 years of so. I have quite a few different recordings of Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes and don’t really have a definitive favourite, but Goldmund and Rafael Anton Irissari’s version of Gnossienne #1 really shows how timeless the piece is. It is remarkable that something that was written in 1890 can still sound like a completely up to date modern classical record.
Philip Glass
Kronos Quartet perform Philip Glass
Nonesuch, 1995
A friend introduced me to the genre of minimalism in the early 90s and it is still something I listen to regularly today. I love string quartet pieces as you can hear each instrument, and I love the way each interacts. This album includes string quartets 2, 3, 4 and 5 and number 3: Mishima which was adapted from his score to the film of the same name is my favourite (possibly because I really like the film too). Minimalism is a bit of a misnomer, and I know Philip Glass doesn’t like the term, as there is quite a lot going on with complex rhythmic variations and there is still a definite sense of melody and harmony. I have seen the Kronos Quartet perform quite a few times and in one concert I went to in the early 90s, they also performed Summa by Arvo Part which I loved and has become one of my favourite string quartet pieces.
Arvo Pärt
Tabula Rasa
ECM, 1984
After discovering Arvo Part’s music through the Kronos Quartet I sought out more of his work. There are a lot of brilliant pieces but the album that has had the biggest influence on me is this album released on ECM in 1984. Despite being over 40 years old (and the individual pieces written earlier) it still sounds fresh and has a timeless quality that I would like to aspire too. In Part’s work he explores his technique called Tintinabulli which I have experimented with in a few of my pieces. This album is mainly strings based but I would also recommend his choral work.
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Cinemage
Sony Classical, 1999
Ryuichi Sakamoto has released so much great music with such variety that it is hard to pick one album, but I have always been a fan of his music for film and this album from 1999 contains some of my favourite themes. I particularly like the music he did for The Last Emperor, and this album also contains an orchestral version of Forbidden Colours with David Sylvian on vocals, very different to the original synth-based soundtrack release.
MODERN INFLUENCES
Fennesz
Venice
Touch, 2004
This was the first Fennesz album I bought, because David Sylvian sang on the track Transit. Fennesz manages to make music that could fit into the ambient genre at the same time as being quite noisy. I have since bought quite a few more of his albums, and especially like the ones he did with Ryuichi Sakamoto. This album was released on Touch, and I really like the photography and design of Jon Wozencroft, whose images have an understated elegance and an immediately recognizable aesthetic.
Max Richter
The Blue Notebooks
130701, 2004
This album has all the core elements that I like; beautiful melancholy piano, haunting strings and atmospheric synths coupled with a strong sense of melody and harmony. Max Richter’s music is quite accessible but is actually quite experimental at the same time; most artists will produce music in 4/4 time with the occasional piece in 3/4 but he will often use odd time signatures. The track Flowers of Herself from the album Exiles is a great example of this where if you try to work out the time signature it gets really confusing, but also manages to be melodic and atmospheric. In my own music I sometimes play around with odd time signatures which goes back to when I used to play in an angular post-punk band; the music now is very different but some of those ideas I still like to explore.
Library Tapes
Feelings For Something Lost
Resonant, 2006
Released in 2006 this became a firm favourite of mine for its use of minimal piano with field recordings often in a very lo-fi, gritty way. The piano playing is very simple but utterly captivating and evokes an image of someone at home unselfconsciously playing an old upright with extraneous noises going on in the background. This record made me realise that you didn’t have to be a classically trained pianist to make music using the piano and appealed to a certain DIY aesthetic that I think I take to most of my music. I don’t have expensive equipment, and really my studio is just a room where I set up, but I feel I have been able to produce music that stands up against albums that have had a far greater budget.
Tracklist
01 Erik Satie - Gnossienne #1 (performed by Rafael Anton Irisarri + Goldmund)
02 Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass - String Quartet #3 (Mishima - Closing)
03 Nick Drake - River Man
04 Roger Eno - The Frost
05 Library Tapes - Feelings for Something Lost in Two Parts (part 1)
06 Arvo Pärt - Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
07 Deaf Center - White Lake
08 Jacaszek - November Early
09 Ólafur Arnalds – Raddir
10 David Sylvian - Waterfront
11 Ryuichi Sakamoto – The Last Emperor (Live)
12 Leonard Cohen - Avalanche
13 Hildur Guðnadóttir - Erupting Light
14 Fennesz - Rivers of Sand
15 Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight
16 Jóhann Jóhannsson - The Cause of Labour is the Hope of the World
'Where Once We Danced' is available in a limited repress 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!
