New Music: Four Suffolk Sea Scenes

Sharing more background and insights about my latest release

‘Four Suffolk Sea Scenes’ represent both a significant, real-life place and experience, alongside a substantial new development in artistic and creative output for me.

Drawing inspiration from the landscape at Shingle Street on the East of England’s Suffolk coast on an early-morning in late-February - in which a particularly unseasonal period of high pressure created a unique set of atmospheric and unusually calm, temperate conditions - the foundations for a series of short piano pieces were laid.

Working with a range of field recordings captured at a number of locations in this most alluring, at times spooky, and other-worldly coastal landscape, I crafted four varied pieces which seek to draw reference to the unique range of different experiences I encountered on this specific day, 28th February 2019; marking it with this release, five years to the day later.

Loosely impressionist in musical style and influence, the four scenes (movements) weave gently in, out of, and around the sympathetic accompanying field-recordings, which help serve to illuminate both the mind and imagination, whilst embedding a strong sense of place in this new musical work.

In early 2019, I was delighted and fortunate to spend a week in residence at Butley Priory - the site of a twelfth-century Augustinian Priory in which the magnificent fourteenth-century gatehouse remains largely intact - at the invitation of its delightfully lovely and supportive custodian and fellow-artist & composer Frances Shelley. Having spent numerous family holidays in East Anglia, I have always had an affinity and connection with the region, in addition to being very much aware of the way the landscape, notorious “big skies”, and calm, slow-pace of life in Suffolk, in particular, has had a great influence on many composers, musicians and artists across many decades and centuries.

I spent wonderful long days playing the piano in the Great Hall, exploring new ideas, sounds, and revelling in the calm, open, flexible space. I was able to intersperse this period of musical exploration with wandering around the extensive gardens, marvelling at the quincuncial Clump tree-plantations; alongside spending time exploring the ancient woodlands, low-lying creeks, waterways and beaches which make up the wider, distinctive Suffolk Coast & Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

This coincided with a period of an extended period of extremely nice weather and consequently high temperatures for late-February, with most days reaching a high of around twenty-five degrees.

As someone who was brought up in a part of England that is as far from the sea as one can get, I have always loved the allure and gleeful-wonder of a seaside sunrise. I took the opportunity to visit Shingle Street, a nearby beach, which I had long-been aware of, but had never managed to visit. I drove the 10 minutes-or-so down the winding, hedgerow-lined dead-end lane, with all of the pre-dawn sounds you would expect to hear - and more - preparing themselves to welcome the new day.

My words cannot adequately do justice in describing the scene I was about to witness. Of course, I took the photos you see here, but they can never do these moments proper justice. I was so very aware I was experiencing something so magical, so special, so unique, that I would regret it forever if I experienced it through an iPhone screen.

The unique atmospheric conditions created a stunning panorama, which, when combined with the other-worldly landscape of Shingle Street, makes it hard to convey just how special and beautiful it was.

I have never seen the sea so still, with barely a lap at the shore. Every sound: the gaps between the shingle filled by the gently-gurgling, placid sea; hordes of gulls, terns - possibly a gannet - grazing on Orford Ness, their squawks echoing shrilly across the glass-still inlet; and the faint tolling of the bell buoy, a mile out to sea, carried across on the gentle breeze.

This was more than just a sight to behold; there was a sense of something spiritual at play - a special moment in time, as if made just for me, which I could have easily missed simply to avoid the 6am-alarm.

The four scenes in this piece are each represented by a one-word title: ‘Morn’, ‘Glass’, ‘Tide’ and ‘Quell’ respectively, with the field recordings allowing the smooth and free-flowing interchange between these interconnected moments, rather than stopping to transition between movements in a more traditional setting.

As such, the work is presented as one long-form piece, rather than four separate, broken-up scenes, with the intention that the music be heard in order from beginning to end (in its entirety). In the same way I felt a need to withdraw from experiencing these events through the medium of technology, I hope listeners will embrace the modern-day challenge provided by listening to an unbroken fifteen+ minute work, as the combination of found-sounds and gentle piano accompaniment creates a sense of place and space.

The piano was recorded on a Steinway Class D grand piano in Emmanuel Church, Loughborough, with overall post-production work by the fantastic Simon Scott (SPS Mastering), of Slowdive fame.

‘A cul-de-sac, a dead-end track,
A sandbanked strand to sink a fleet.
A bay, a car, a strip, a trap.
A wrecking ground, that’s Shingle Street.’

- Blake Morrison: The Ballad of Shingle Street