Artists
who's who and who's doing what?Sandy Kilpatrick
- country:Portugal
- label:not signed
- artist submitted by:
By Sandy Kilpatrick:
In July 2009 I had the great fortune of taking up an artistic residency in the amazing Monastery of Tibaes, in the north of Portugal. It has a 600 year history and I might well be the first Scotsman allowed in to write. I'm not sure they'll get me back out My new album, Redemption Road, was largely dreamt up there, and the video for I Like How it Feels, the first single to be released from the album, was filmed in the monastery grounds (in the woods beside a very special lake). I still can't believe it. I feel truly blessed to be able to spend regular time at such a peacful and inspiring place. In fact I should take this opportunity to thank the great team there, but especially the director Maria Joao for her openess and ongoing kindness. It's nice when such good people enter your life journey, a journey that is often as strange and sad as it is wonderful.
My musical journey really started for me, I suppose, in 2000 with a single launch in Cine-City in Manchester, when we shared the stage with the beautiful Guy Garvey and Elbow. Released by Ugly Man Records, the label I shared with Elbow and I am Kloot at that time, the single, Sleepwalking, was nominated as one of the best singles of the year by both www.manchestermusic.co.uk and flux magazine.
Lyrically it addressed urban life in Manchester, and I think it spoke to a lot of people about the insecurities and disappoinments of weekend recreational drug use, and the dislocation, somehow related, that we often feel working in a big metropolis. Not that the excavation of misery was anything new to Manchester, but there was something in the acoustic simplicity and harmony of the song that connected.
The starting point for Redemption Road was somewhat different. It was at a Gospel Mass in the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in January 2007. I found the experience so compelling and utterly intoxicating, that I can vividly remember walking back through Central Park with the clear vision that my next album would tap into those amazing celebratory powers of Gospel. So in some sense Redemption Road is a return to the acoustic simplicity of Sleepwalking, but lyrically it moves into different territory, exploring the wonders of the universe more than the heartbreaks. It is reverentially bucolic, and joyfully so. The music here is also being driven by a more joyful sound - brass instruments and cinematic strings, harp and low-lit harmonies. It will be released by Ugly Man Records very, very soon. Meanwhile, please enjoy the first single, I Like How it Feels.
One of my soul companions along the way has been the 13th century Persian mystic Rumi, so I'd like to use some of his magic to end this little introduction:
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
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