The Breath of Galaxies, by SkyCreature

The Breath of Galaxies

by SkyCreature

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Cassette + Digital Album
Blue tint cassette with full color 2panel J-card artwork by Chris Alford.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
CD in 2 panel color jacket with color printed disk. Artwork by Chris Alford.

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Full Digital Discography

12

releases

Get all 12 Chris Alford - Mystic Form Records releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of GAG, Chris Alford & Tyler Tadlock, Solo Analog Guitar, Duval, Eidson, Alford, Larocca, Refractions, memory palaces, Guitar Duos, Things Like the Truth, and 4 more. , and , .

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1.	Prelude to the Multiverse 04:13	buy track
2.	Pleiades (coping with sorrow) 07:42	buy track
3.	Take Root Among the Stars 08:47	buy track
4.	Adrift in the Chasm 04:29	buy track
5.	Lunar Chorale 07:44	buy track
6.	Returning on the Wind 06:36	buy track
7.	Sagittarius A* 04:38	buy track
8.	Tamu Massif 04:53	buy track
9.	In the Clouds of Venus 07:41	buy track

about

This project came into fruition in the summer of 2020, as the world we once knew seemed to crack. Time shifted and began moving in new ways. The Coronavirus, the unresolved racial issues brought forth after the murder of George Floyd, and the distress of social isolation were the rocky soil that SkyCreature would emerge from. I wanted to reflect the turbulence of the present moment while also creating a new reality. Solo performance in this form was new terrain. I wanted a way to create space and vastness when confined to my home during this period of quarantine. This music was created in a capsule, a vessel removed from both audience and collaboration. SkyCreature became a form of therapy. Improvisation acting as healing, as awareness of privilege, as a means to fly through space and time. It was a way to look beyond, transcend, to breath, to hope and to dream, to wish for peace.

Solo albums are rarely my favorite, especially solo guitar. The core of my musical aesthetic has always been collaboration and interaction. But in the solitude of quarantine, I turned to technology as a collaborator. On this album, I improvised with multiple loops and processors in real time with no overdubs. Sonic treatments carved space into the music. I utilized the pedal’s randomizer function as a means to induce unpredictable sonic events and then responded in a nimble yet steady musical reactive gesture. The pedal configuration was often changed as a mindfulness practice to remain in the present and keep the interaction more spontaneous. Oftentimes, I’d get lost in pedal pushing and lose the feeling. Then, I would clean the slate and try again with more emotional focus.

Feeling was the thing I was after - not technique, or genre. The raw emotion was what I wanted to capture. I wanted the music to be based on hope and healing even if the expression feels dark and morose. The themes I was pondering were: idea of horizon, otherness, beyond us and them mentalities, times as it relates to creation in the natural world, relativity of fast and slow, resilience of nature, life beyond earth, confronting change and the unknown with peace, origin myths and stories, ripple effects, cultivation of space, and grace. The vignettes that make up The Breath of Galaxies are representative of when this new form of collaboration was working the best and most importantly of the moments when honest feelings and themes were captured in this vessel.

credits

released December 1, 2020

Mastered by Andrew Weathers
Mixed, produced, and artwork by Chris Alford
Mystic Form Records

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Chris Alford - Mystic Form Records New Orleans, Louisiana

Mystic Form Records is an artist run label with focus on improvisation. Featuring Alford and his colleagues. New Orleans based, Mississippi born guitarist/composer /improvisor Chris Alford keeps feet in the muddy roots with eyes looking beyond the horizon ... more

chrisalfordmusic.com

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