Daniel Thorne shares brand new track ‘Fear Of Floating’ on Erased Tapes
Daniel Thorne
Fear Of Floating
Erased Tapes
Released 12th February
Taken from upcoming debut album Lines Of Sight
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Fear Of Floating is the second single from Australian-born, Liverpool-based composer, saxophonist and founder of Immix Ensemble, Daniel Thorne. The track is a grand, transposing soundscape that places Daniel’s saxophone front-and-centre, allowing the abstract beauty of his meandering and contorting melody to breathe, amongst the chaotic backdrop of spiralling undulating effects. Fear Of Floating perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere of the record; equal parts magnificent, unnerving, mind-bending and deeply satisfying.
“Although the album wasn’t written to follow a specific narrative, I felt it should have the feeling of a journey, leaving a place of chaos and noise and arriving somewhere both serene and unfamiliar. As the final track on the album, I wanted Fear of Floating to be to be the opposite of the album’s beginning (From Inside, Looking Out) by being much sparser, eschewing large dense textures and instead focusing on a single melodic ‘voice’ that gets bashed about by its surroundings, before finally washing up somewhere peaceful and alone.” — Daniel Thorne
Lines Of Sight info:
“Dizzying compositions that thrive on chaos and control.” Self-titled
“Analogue and digital, improvisatory and programmed, tactile and gaseous, this ripples between worlds.” DJ Mag
“Fear of Floating is a lush, ever–evolving track centered around a number of Thorne’s sparse saxophone melodies.“ Tiny Mixtapes
Deeply moving, full of otherworldly beauty and rapture, the album is alive, throbbing like a circulatory system, colourful and glowing. It literally dazzles – effectively capturing what the birth (or death) of a planet might sound like.
In Daniel’s own words, “thematically, this music was inspired by birds-eye aerial images and the idea of perspective – how something incredibly complex like a river or the surface of the ocean is reduced to a simple line or shape when viewed from the heavens. The line between natural and man-made becomes increasingly blurred.”
Every strand is fresh, vital and purposeful. The description ‘seamless’ might suggest a smooth, bland fusion, but here elements overlap in intermittent, undulating layers of mesh. Avant-garde, noise, electronics, ecclesiastical, classical and a touch of jazz come together, each occupying their own space while acquiescing with the whole.
“Several compositions are derived from ratios and processes, and are highly calculated, while others evolved in a much more organic way. I wanted to create music that blurred lines between acoustic and electronic, organic and synthetic, composition and improvisation.
I’ve long been a fan of studio-based composition,but have always found the infinite possibilities on offer daunting and, often, a stumbling block. To get around this I set myself a challenge of limiting myself to the physical instruments in my possession – a few different saxophones and a bass synth, with no more than four tracks to record them,” he adds.
Lines of Sight follows Thorne’s work as artistic director of the acclaimed, collaboration-focussed group Immix Ensemble. Together with experimental electronic artist Vessel, he co-wrote Transition released on Erased Tapes in 2016, described by BBC Radio 6’s Mary Anne Hobbs as “a remarkable new piece of music”. More recently, he worked with acclaimed modular synth wizard Luke Abbott, to create a four-part suite, which was premiered live in June 2017. Immix Ensemble have also performed special live commissions with Kelly Lee Owens, Dialect, Jane Weaver and Bill Ryder-Jones, among others.
Prior to leaving Australia, Daniel was fortunate to work with some of the country’s leading new music ensembles as both a composer and performer, receiving commissions from the TURA New Music Festival and the Australia Council, as well as being appointed as Composer in Residence at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In the UK he was the recipient of the prestigious Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition, and also undertook a residency at Metal Liverpool, which provided him with the time and space to create Immix.
As the first track under Thorne’s own name, Iroise was recorded for the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary release 1+1=X, alongside works by Nils Frahm, Penguin Cafe, A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Rival Consoles. He also recently remixed Manu Delago, known as the live percussionist for Björk and Ólafur Arnalds.
After a first solo performance at Sea Change Festival 2018, the new year will see Daniel tour across Europe in support of Daniel Brandt, promoting the forthcoming release of Lines of Sight.
Tracklisting:
- From Inside, Looking Out
- From The Other Side Of The World
- From The Heavens
- Pyriscence
- Threnody For A Burning Building
- Fear Of Floating
Daniel Thorne European Dates:
13/02 Rotondes — Luxembourg, LU (with Daniel Brandt)
14/02 Melkweg — Amsterdam, NL (with Daniel Brandt)
15/02 Doornroosje — Nijmegen, NL (with Daniel Brandt)
16/02 Botanique — Brussels, BE – (with Daniel Brandt)
26/02 Corsica Studios — London, UK (with Daniel Brandt)
10/04 24 Kitchen Street —- Liverpool, UK (with Terry Riley & Gyan Riley)
www.danielthorne.net / www.erasedtapes.com