Berkdrums
Breathtakingly beautiful... This album just represents life and its emotions for me. I don’t think I’m someone who sees life as an easy road, and I feel it’s difficult to always see things as a glass that’s half full... Life is a constant learning process, and with experiences behind me, being high sensitive, and experiencing a traumatic birth, I always cherish the fact that emotions roll out of me instantly. It gives me a deep feeling of being alive.. These stunning, amazing tracks just lead me through these emotions and memories... it’s as if I’m seeing the movie of life and its heartaches, victories, love, loss and self-growth... live, learn and leave... This is such a jewel of an album, and what a collaboration Toby and Andrew! This is not only painting with sounds but also from the heart...created out of passion and with emotion. Congrats guys! Many, many more replays for me to come....
Ian Yates
Really lovely work Toby and Andrew! Listening through the first time was a journey through the unknown, beautiful spaces, drifting memories echoing in time, the past present and future co-existing, the dust settling on the Elysian fields! X
Scott
As I wait for the CD to ship, I've hooked up my cell's headphone jack to my mixer & speakers and filled the room with beauty! Expressive and calming, this sound art is just the right combination of contemplative quietness and intriguing details. Part 2 of "For Stone" is really interesting to me, while the final ten minutes of "With Iron" have a satisfying ambient/Pink Floyd feel that really gets my mind wandering... A wonderful journey that I wish everyone could enjoy. Thanks for the amazing music, gentlemen!
Favorite track: With Iron (South) parts 1-3.
Motion is an innovative new album by sound artists Toby Marks and Andrew Heath. Although the pair have collaborated on individual tracks and shows before, this is the first album they have worked on together.
Toby and Andrew started making extensive field recordings on trips to the four corners of Britain during 2018. They went deep into Llechwedd Slate Caverns in Wales, explored Suttle Stone Quarries in Bournemouth, hopped on the Swanage Ferry to Poole Harbour, took to the air with the Yorkshire Gliding Club, floated down the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and rode the Bure Valley Railway in Norfolk.
By the end they had a staggering hundred hours of audio in total, which they processed and transformed, blending piano, guitars and electronics, to produce a deeply meditative, endlessly unfolding collection.
Sometimes evoking images of machinery, sometimes of nature, these pieces flow and twist, at all times maintaining a humanity and sense of personal experience at their core. At times intense, sometimes barely even present in the mix, the music enthralls and entices, drawing the listener into a world both seemingly familiar and weirdly unknown – a quite alien, and yet still organic, space, a space which is of this world and yet ultimately of Marks and Heath’s own invention.
credits
released May 10, 2019
Toby Marks - Field recordings, Sound design, Guitar, Guitar synthesizer
Andrew Heath - Field recordings, Sound design, Piano, Electric Piano
All music written and performed by Toby Marks and Andrew Heath
For Stone (west)
with thanks to Llechwedd Slate Caverns, Adam Lemalle, Jeff Smith and The Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth
With Iron (south)
with thanks to Suttle Stone Quarries, Bournemouth - Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Company, Nikki Farmer
In Air On Water (north)
with thanks to Yorkshire Gliding Club, Leeds and Liverpool Canal and Roger Burghall
By Fire (east)
with thanks to Bure Valley Railway, Howard Turner, Dee Hanner and Peter Toll
A beautiful ep. Much more emotional this time around quite different to previous banco (the first track, floatless, does have echos of some early tape only tracks).
A full album at this tempo would be amazing. Aldo Morgy
Recorded before a live audience, these compositions leverage the strengths of two ambient masters into a hypnotic 18-track set. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 25, 2024
This is an achingly, beautiful album, Andrew! It's seamless in its steady flow, and the moments of space you create (the notes you don't play) are just as important as the notes you do play. A study in patience and melancholy. I'm mesmerised upon each and every listen. At times, it's reminiscent of Eno's 'Music for Airports', with an occasional nod to Harold Budd, but the sonic world you've created is wholly unto itself. Music to lose yourself in and to. Sound catharsis. Incredibly inspiring! TheHowardHughesSuite