Will Bolton - Quiet Sunlight

A Closer Listen

The acorns and leaves are piling up, and the yellow, orange and red hues have faded to a muted brown.  Filtered sunlight is shining through the foliage that remains.  Flocks are flying overhead; on the ground, the squirrels are burying their winter meals.  This is the perfect time to release Quiet Sunlight, a package that looks, smells and sounds like the season.  Due to the field recordings “from a wood in East London, a beach on the East coast of England and a forest in South Korea,” when the music is played indoors, it sounds like the outdoors.

We love the description “random gifts from the autumn forest.”  Each package is unique.  When one walks through a forest, one never knows what one will find, a feeling replicated by Will Bolton‘s music. There are birds, of course, tweeting their introduction to the title track and present throughout, as if commenting on the composer as he works.  Wind whistles through the trees while Bolton plays grand piano, conjuring the images of David Litchfield’s The Bear and the Piano.  The music sounds like a soft stroll, a pleasant reverie, the sojourner in no hurry to get home.  The ambient washes loop and twirl like leaves falling to the ground.

“Zelcova” (referring to the elm family) includes lovely vinyl crackle and hiss, akin to the rustle of footsweeps in fallen leaves.  The Mellotron sounds like wind chimes, conjuring images of an Asian temple. The very timbre is holy.  At the end, the music drops out, revealing the hum of the world. And in “The Falling Tide,” Mother Nature meets Moog Grandmother, as water sounds proliferate and the sounds seem to echo and reverberate all around.  Perhaps more than any other season, autumn is three-dimensional in sound, the uncoupling above joined to the canopy below.  This beautiful set celebrates the senses of the season, and the quiet, simple moments of revelation. (Richard Allen)