Marta Sologni had been working with Tom Relleen on a collaborative project before Tom’s untimely death in 2020. The project, now called “Music for Open Spaces” is about recording music inspired by places that inspired Marta and Tom to make music. From the Joshua Tree desert to the Cornish coastline to their London home, each of the 11 tracks on the album was inspired by somewhere different. Not all spaces are physical ones as the album also explores metaphysical spaces too. The tracks are largely improvised live on record, captured in the spaces where Marta and Tom recorded their synths and bass. After Tom’s passing in 2020, Marta continued to work on the album, and in her words “carrying both of us in my heart”.
The lead single is ‘Internal Logic II’ and it is a celestial interwoven meshed of synths, bass and sounds. It’s not quite new age, and it’s not quite a modular synth but it is most definitely experimental. The music feels like you could glide effortlessly through it. As I listen, I can feel the openness of the spaces they were created in too. The physical album will come with a collage painted by the Hands in the Dark (the label publishing the album) founder, Morgan Cuinet. It will also come with Tom’s “internal map” which Marta found long after he passed, which he had scratched out pathways to navigate the album through. It sounds like a map of playlisting to me and is an interesting concept to add to the music.
Enjoy ‘Internal Logic II’ below, the single is out now. You can also pre-order the album from the Bandcamp sample below too.
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