James Heather - Stories From Far Away On Piano '2017

Tracks list

Contemporary pianist James Heather presents his debut album - Stories From Far
Away On Piano, on vinyl for the first time on May 4th 2018 via Ahead Of Our Time
- Ninja Tune founders Coldcut’s first label. This follows the successful
release of the album digitally in August 2017, reaching No.2 in the classical
charts on iTunes and over 20 million plays on Spotify. Since the release,
Heather has been playing live shows ranging from the Greenpeace stage at
Glastonbury to the National Concert Hall in Dublin. He was also handpicked by
Laura Marling to support at her Brit Awards/War Child gig, whilst other supports
have included Jóhann Jóhannsson and Lubomyr Melnyk (Erased Tapes). Heather
is currently composing a score for Iskra Strings (Radiohead, The xx & Ólafur
Arnalds) for his headline show at St Pancras Old Church in London on 9th May
2018.

On the surface ‘Stories From Far Away On Piano”s solo minimal piano
pieces have a simple, innate beauty, but there’s also a stark intensity
simmering within, as the emotional landscape shifts from harrowing, sad,
optimistic, to fascinating. Heather has spent many years honing composition
before stepping out and making his fresh take on solo piano public. He takes
influence from electronic music in structure, ambience and melody, whilst also
utilising a classical and jazz grounding. The album’s concept meanwhile
centres on Heather’s interpretations of real world stories he read in the
news, while composing.

Isis jihadists hijacking the Facebook account of an executed female activist in
Syria, the British Empire’s imprisonment of Boers in South African
concentration camps and the undiscovered remains of a disappeared Malaysia
Airlines jet in the Indian Ocean, were sources of inspiration translated into
abstract musical forms. Other catalysts include the terror suspect who had a
change of heart at the last minute on taking part in the Paris attacks, and the
Los Angeles man freed after 16 years in prison, having been wrongly identified
by having the same teardrop tattoo as the offender.

The black and white album art by Suki features layers of Indian ink bled into
newspaper print, repeatedly scanned and treated to interpret the recirculation
of information. It also plots the nine latitude and longitude locations where
each story came from, forming an abstract world - reinterpreting place into
something less literal and more expressive.

The only piece breaking from the world news-based theme is
‘Pathos’, where Peckham in London is given as the location and the
area where the album was recorded. The piece, as Heather explains, encapsulates
an aim of the album. Pathos is an appeal to emotion, a way of bringing the
listener in, to evoke an empathetic response,” he says, adding “this
is my interpretation of stories I discovered. The stories themselves are not the
focus, but the piano assimilation is, as the album is about viewpoint, opinion
and perspective.”

Perspective is something Heather has in abundance; he nearly died in a traumatic
road traffic accident in 2008, leaving him in a coma in intensive care and then
off work for an textended time. One permanent injury was his finger, which
became skewed in the crash. He was unsure if he’d ever be able to play to
the same standard again. “When I eventually started to recover I began
taking my musical sketches more seriously. I found solitude channeling my
feelings into compositions.”

James Heather is one of the new school set of ‘post classical’
artists flourishing in the wake of the long, steady but recently accelerated
success of figureheads like Max Richter and Nils Frahm, and the wider
public’s overdue but now burgeoning relationship with this varied genre.

Tracklist:
 01. James Heather - Ruqia (01:14)
 02. James Heather - Empire Sounds (03:41)
 03. James Heather - MHope (04:57)
 04. James Heather - Biomes (02:42)
 05. James Heather - Last Minute Change Of Heart (04:02)
 06. James Heather - Pathos (03:49)
 07. James Heather - Teardrop Tattoo (03:54)
 08. James Heather - Kraken (03:56)
 09. James Heather - Blueprint (04:32)

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