BORDERS OF WINTER: WHY I MADE IT

You no doubt know by now that I have a new album out today.

I know most of you aren’t here for that, but it’s the closest thing I have these days to a hobby. Since I first started dabbling in music creation at the start of the pandemic, I became hooked. I love it – the way you can create an emotional response from nothing.

I can’t sing, I can’t play an instrument, I can’t read music. But I do like to think I have a good ear. I know what I like, and what I like to listen to. Music, like comedy, is subjective, and nothing appeals to everyone.  

That’s all this is really; making music that I like, and then sharing it in the hope that at least some others will too.

It was a really hard one to put together. I’m still kind of feeling my way with it, and there’ll always be an element of imposter syndrome in me when it comes to music.

It feels like my previous album, Eschatology, happened almost by accident. That turned out surprisingly well, but upon coming to write more I couldn’t fathom how I’d even done it. Partly, because I wanted to push myself, learn new things, and make a more accomplished album. But also, because I wanted it to feel personal, and authentic. And also a bit because Eschatology was a fluke, probably.

Thank you so much to those of you who have already bought it. Yes, I made it for me, but I love music so much that my head spins to think that anybody else might actually enjoy the sounds that I’ve made.

For me, it’s like sharing feelings in an almost telepathic way. Words can only convey so much. And this music, for certain, is imbued with more emotion than any other I’ve made.

You can listen or buy it here: https://mrbiffo.bandcamp.com/album/borders-of-winter 

Here’s a track-by-track breakdown.

BORDERS OF WINTER

Parts of this date back a while, but I completed it over the last few months.

I named it after something Sanja said to me. A while ago, I bought her a colour analysis for Christmas – basically, you go along, and they decide which clothing colours work on you best. This gets broken down into tones of Autumn, Spring, Summer, Winter. And Sanja, I think, said something to me about someone being on “the border of spring”.

The phrase stuck in my head, and while my dad was dying I started to think of life as being broken down into seasons. This year I’ve become a grandfather and also lost my dad, my career has gone through some serious upheavals… it felt like I was moving into a completely different phase of my life.

If my dad was in his winter years, I was definitely moving into autumn.

There were a lot of moments of hope while he was in hospital. We’d go in one day and he seemed to be getting better, and the next he had gone downhill again.

This track was an attempt to capture that emotional rollercoaster, the feeling of somebody – and their family – being neither here nor there, unable to move forwards, and frozen in place by events.

BORDERS OF SUMMER

I saw this small linking piece as a flashback to happier, more innocent, times – but in a way that reflects upon them with all the knowledge of where all life is ultimately heading. That’s why it’s quite sad sounding, but sort of hopeful at the same time. Endings and renewal wrapped up in just a minute or two of music.

OHYA

The title doesn’t mean anything. It was just what I called the file when I saved it – a random keyboard bash, that produced a word that seemed like it should have meaning. It just stuck.

I actually wrote this ages ago – the video is up on YouTube on our second channel – when life started to get back to something that resembled normal, as we adapted to the pandemic.

Musically, this was mostly me trying to experiment a bit with virtual guitar sounds. This isn’t a ‘concept album’ per se, but for me Ohya – at least in terms of where my head was at – fits least into the feeling I was trying to go for. Originally, I wasn’t going to have it on the album, because I’d already released it as a standalone piece.

However, when I was trying to sort out the tracklisting – and going through all the music I’d made over the last year (there was a lot) – it just really slotted into the overall vibe.

The sound samples here are taken from a Buddhist meditation about how we can sometimes hang onto pain, because it’s comfortable and familiar.

LAST CHANCE

This was one of the last pieces I wrote for the album. It was clear it needed an injection of energy somewhere in the middle, so I tried to write an up-tempo rock song – which I’d never really done before. Something which started out a bit Nirvana-esque, before erupting into a euphoric latter half that wouldn't feel out of place amid the rest of the songs.

I don’t play guitar, so I had to fall back on a guitar synth, but I do think it almost manages to evoke some of the same feelings as a real guitar solo. It might be my favourite thing on the album, which really surprises me, given I usually prefer stuff that’s more atmospheric.

Obviously, all the tracks  use virtual instruments, but since the previous album I’ve started to favour drums that are more obviously virtual, and electronic. I figured I might as well lean into it, but I’d love to hear this with real drums and guitar.

The samples here are taken from a series of interviews with black workers, during the 1960s, and the struggles they faced when looking for work. Nothing to do with my own work struggles! I just liked how they sounded. I was in an angry mood when I started it, and the quotes seemed like they fit. 

GINSBERG

This was the first track I wrote for the album. The previous stuff I’d written was very traditional, as I sort of taught myself about the ‘rules’ of music. But… rules are there to be broke. I’m a restless sort, and like to keep moving forwards.

I felt I’d played around enough with the intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight-chorus-outro structure, and have always been more interested in music that’s challenging, that takes a few listens to bed in, and that goes somewhere.

One of my favourite albums is Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, which has no truck with any sort of musical convention. It’s an all-time classic, but to fresh ears it could just seem like random sounds, or emptiness. 

I’m not for a second comparing this to one of the greatest albums of all time, but I wanted to try to capture that same sense of space. And then I found a keyboard sound that reminded me of the harmonica on Spirit of Eden, and built the song around that. If I remember, the bulk of the song – the first half anyway - is basically just one or two chords. Again, that was me experimenting, trying to do what I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to do.

The sound samples are Allen Ginsberg talking to a group of young people.

ALL WE CAN DO NOW IS WAIT

I wrote this the weekend before my dad died. He’d deteriorated badly, and we knew things were coming to an end. It felt like we were just waiting for the inevitable phone call. Like we were sort of sleepwalking through the days, killing time until it happened. Just trying to get on with life, keeping busy.

Hence the title, the clock sounds, the breathy, gasped, vocals, and the track ending with a phone call.

At the point I finished this, that call hadn’t actually happened yet, but I knew it was coming. I think I finished this on the Sunday evening, saw him for the last time the next day, and got the call at 6.26am from the hospital on the Tuesday, five minutes after he stopped breathing.

ASCENDING

When I wrote this, I was trying to create a feeling of emptiness that we all felt in those early weeks and months, back in 2020… followed by that rush when we got together with family, friends, loved ones, after the restrictions were lifted. Loneliness followed by a coming together that’s almost overwhelming.

Though it wasn’t written with my dad in mind – pre-dating when he went into hospital – it’s strange how the feelings I get from it are oddly similar.

The ending was me trying to evoke a certain fragility. Over the past couple of years, we’ve all experienced how fragile life, and the world, actually is. How it can all change in a heartbeat, and how we’re mostly powerless in the face of that.

But also, life is full of beauty, and hope, and moments that make being alive worth all the loss and pain. That's what this represents for me.

I really hope some of you like it.