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Taken from Impartial Reporter (Apr 12, 2021)
Hannah Peel releases new album of electronic music
MUSICIAN and composer Hannah Peel has released 'Ecovocative', the lead single of her latest album - just the latest notable music offering from the Emmy-nominated musician who earned acclaim with her work for a Game of Thrones episode, alongside an impressive output of creative albums and collaborations.
by Victoria Johnston
Hannah Peel |
Although she lives in Co. Down, the acclaimed composer and musician has strong family links back to Fermanagh, with her mum hailing from Fermanagh.
Hannah's latest single premiered on Mary Anne Hobbs' BBC Radio Six Music show, with the new single taken from her new album, 'Fir Wave', which is out now, released from Hannah's own label imprint, My Own Pleasure.
With lustrous textures and simmering beats, 'Ecovocative' is "a celebration of the detail in the cosmic, as we try to make sense of it and adapt to the increasing chaos of the world we live in", said Hannah.
She continued: "I'm finding it harder to express all those huge feelings in words and lyrics like I used to.
"Instrumental music can conjure so much more [than what I can express in language alone], and with this new track, I wanted to evoke those patterns in nature, celebrate the detail, the changes in light, and play with primal shimmering energy, using obscure bells and the bubbling beats of electronic music."
Her Fir Wave arrives with a fascinating history. As Hannah explained: "The specialist library label KPM gave me permission to reinterpret the original music of the celebrated 1972 KPM 1000 series: 'Electrosonic', the music of Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop."
Her process of re-sampling and generating her own new digital instruments, allowing for fresh inspiration drawn from the pioneering, experimental electronics from the early 1970s, is at the core of the album.
Drawing on the Japanese Enso design movement, the artwork is made by ceramics designer James Pegg, making fresh connections between the artwork, music and original creation of the work.
Sound mixer/engineer T.J. Allen, who has previously worked with the likes of Bat For Lashes, Portishead, and Anna Calvi, collaborated with Hannah on the beat-driven tracks, 'Emergence In Nature', and 'Ecovocative'.
Known more recently for curating and presenting music on BBC Radio 3's Night Tracks, the Northern Irish Emmy-nominated composer and producer's work is ambitious and forward-looking, adapting and re-inventing new genres and hybrid musical forms.
Recent albums include the solo electronic and pop work of 'Awake But Always Dreaming', which became an ode to her grandmother's mind as she lived with dementia; 'Chalk Hill Blue', an album recorded with the poet, Will Burns; and 'Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia', scored for synthesisers and a 30-piece colliery brass band.
In 2019, Hannah composed and recorded the soundtrack for 'Game of Thrones: The Last Watch', which earned her an Emmy nomination for 'Outstanding Music Composition For A Documentary Series Or Special (Original Dramatic Score)'.
She also scored a documentary film about the ground-breaking photographer and model, Lee Miller, which aired on BBC 2 last May, and has just been nominated for a UK Music Producers Guild Award for 'Soundtrack of the Year' for her work on Channel 5's The Deceived, one of Electronic Sound and The Quietus's Soundtracks of 2020.
Her studio work also includes collaborations with Erland Cooper and Simon Tong as the band The Magnetic North; Paul Weller, John Foxx and The Maths, Beyond The Wizards Sleeve (Erol Alkan, Richard Norris) plus the new Henry Darger-inspired project Outsider, featuring Philippe Cohen Solal, of Gotan Project, and Mike Lindsay, of Tunng and Lump, with Laura Marling
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