Alan Brown releases solo album 'Composure'

In August 2014, Alan Brown recorded a number of improvised piano pieces at the Concert Chamber of the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand. 

The concept was that Alan's improvisations would be informed by the acoustics and resonances of the hall.  A selection of these pieces became the album Silent Observer. 

Composure is a follow-up to that album, with other pieces chosen from the same recording session. 

The selection and track order of material here is designed to create more of a listening ‘journey’, but as before, the music accommodates multiple levels of engagement. As with Silent Observer, extra sounds, samples and textures were added to the piano tracks subsequent to the recording. The exception to this is the first track Form of the Dream, where Alan used a generative music app Scape (designed by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers), to create a synthesised drone and Alan improvised a piano part to this. Vocal samples were added later.

The environmental sounds on Anybody There? were recorded in the WW2 tunnels on Auckland’s North Head, and as the Concert Chamber is next to Auckland’s main Queen Street, careful listening will reveal the occasional traffic rumble that became part of the recording on a couple of the quieter pieces.

Composure is now available on Spotify, iTunes and Bandcamp.

To hear more of Alan Brown, head to the Songbroker Search Engine.