专辑简介

Sound In Silence proudly welcomes My Autumn Empire to its roster with his new album entitled Last Year’s Leaves – Tape Reflections Vol:1. My Autumn Empire is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Thomas Holton who has been creating and releasing music for nearly 20 years, whether as part of ambient pastoralists Epic45 or under various other shadowy pseudonyms. As well as this, Benjamin is an integral part of the July Skies live band and has collaborated with artists such as Stephen Jones of Babybird, Hood and Bibio. This is his first album on Sound In Silence, although he has already appeared in two older releases of the label, contributing an Epic45 track in These Waves… compilation, the first ever Sound In Silence release back in 2006, and collaborating with Absent Without Leave on the latter’s latest full-length album Faded Photographs in 2010. Last Year's Leaves – Tape Reflections Vol:1 is a set of largely instrumental lo-fi pieces that were recorded during Autumn of last year, when Benjamin unpacked and set up his old 4-track tape recorder, the one on which Epic45’s Reckless Engineers and Against The Pull Of Autumn were recorded, and made some music inspired by Autumn, his favourite season. This release, in conjunction with his latest album Dreams Of Death And Other Favourites, which was released some weeks ago on his own Wayside & Woodland Recordings, marks a departure from the rich multi-layered classic pop sound of his previous works and instead presents a quite minimal lo-fi sound. The eight tracks of the album are full of delicate melodies akin to his work with Epic45, loops of dreamily echoed guitar twinkles and washes of warm modular synths, with faded ambient passages and minimal beats kicking around in the background. The mastering of Last Year's Leaves – Tape Reflections Vol:1 has been done by George Mastrokostas (aka Absent Without Leave), highlighting the album’s charming lo-fi sounds, balanced by the tape hiss of an old 4-track recorder.