Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of ‘Somnolent’ by piano minimalist Memorybell, taken from his debut album Obsolete. Memorybell is the ambient project of Grant Hazard Outerbridge, who in February 2014 awoke in a hospital with no memory of how he had arrived. He was diagnosed with transient global amnesia, a condition that causes the brain to temporarily stop making new memories. When he returned to the piano, Outerbridge found his previous compositions sounded garish. He pared them down to their essence and, along with new, more spacious material, constructed a set of variegated and subtle songs that explore the interplay between dissonance and silence. Recorded live in a single sitting using just a creaky grand piano and two microphones, Obsolete is as concerned with exploring the spaces between notes as the notes themselves, giving each song room to breathe and encouraging the ear to wander. The percussive qualities of the piano are almost dissolved by the air surrounding each note, leaving an aching space for the tones to resonate.
‘Somnolent’ is available now to stream and download. Obsolete will see release on the 2nd of June.