Here are my original A Minute’s Peace compositions from Day #43 to Day #56. A compilation of these pieces is available to stream or download here.
Pretty Ditty A pretty ditty. Could have words. Feel free to write some.
Come On Eilean I wrote this for my GCSE or A-Level Music composition, I can’t remember which, but we’re talking at least 25 years ago. I think it was called Eilean Dubh after the Scottish isle, but I couldn’t resist naming it Come On Eilean.
Out Again Lake District, farmhouse, summer 1996. Outside, the rain's coming down in sheets, turning the hills and sheep into nothing more than TV static. Inside, in a room stuffed with poorly re-upholstered chairs and the smell of last night’s open fire, a young lad sits at his Yamaha PSR-410 and writes a soppy love song. Then forgets about it for 30 years. This is it.
A Rather Lovely Afternoon Other instrument alert! The final section of this piece includes a kalimba, with its lovely, dreamy sound.
All Sweetness And Light This is a very emotional one, and has a hymn-like quality to it, I think. It also hints at Pachelbel's Canon in its main chord sequence.
Village Green For this piece, I wanted to write something that evoked a medieval country scene. I believe it’s in Eb Dorian mode. So there you go.
Out With The Old A touch of political inspiration, this was written as Keir Starmer was being forced out of office, making way for the coronation of Andy Burnham. Note the lack of resolution at the end, because it’s just a carousel these days, isn’t it?
The Art Of Living The title for this came from a book I saw in a bar. I thought it would make a good title for a grand, life-affirming, positive piece.
Heatwaves We’re very much into summer (note the shorts), and temperature records were being broken in the UK and beyond. This inspired me to write an impressionistic, floaty piece of music to capture the sticky, stultifying sense of stasis our sweltering sun induces.
Micronesia This started life as a piece of dance music I wrote in the early 2000s. I was attempting to rip off the brilliant Papua New Guinea by Future Sound Of London. Their piece is way better, but I quite like this anyway.
Lounge Lizard A little bit bluesy, with a nice groove. I should do more of this kind of thing. Remind me.
More Than Dogs This is based on something I wrote in the 90s, but then it goes somewhere else half-way through. It’s very sweet.
Just A Dream I wanted to write something dreamlike, but not in a floaty, peaceful way. Instead, I wanted to capture something of the strange, jarring, uncanny nature of our dreams and the stuff going on in our head as we fall in and out of them. This is one of the weirdest things I’ve written.
Lost & Found As with Day 28, this was written to end the second collection of tracks, and hopefully has that same end-of-album feel to it.