FPG Sounds: Adrian Lane, ‘Into the Brook the Leaves Fall’

The second commission as part of ‘FPG Sounds’, an online project to support the development of new sound works by artists from or based in Southend-on-Sea. For this commission, artist Adrian Lane has composed and created a series of musical instrumentations inspired by locations, sounds and textures across Southend-on-Sea, including areas such as Priory Park, Prittle Brook, East Beach and Gunners Park. Using field recordings from each location, as well as the use of strings, flutes and ambient synth music (each performed by Lane), the work attempts to evoke the emotion and essence of each environment, explored with affection by the artist over lockdown with his family.

“I put my sound recorder very close to the water of the brook that flows through Priory Park, and noticed all the fallen leaves floating on the surface. I then built the music up around it, starting with a melancholy flute melody that then builds into a more positive sounding string quartet-based piece, augmented by some subtle synth parts”.

Adrian Lane creates instrumental neo-classical, ambient music and abstract textural mixed media paintings. A painter by profession, Adrian often works on music and paintings simultaneously, his painting process is reflected in his musical compositions – layering, cutting, and moving parts around, until the finished result is achieved. Employing a combination of age-old instruments (alto and baritone bowed psalteries, acoustic guitar, violin, banjo, zither, glockenspiel, piano) but constructed in a way that could only be achieved with modern technology, Lane often takes influences from early music, folk, world and contemporary classical, ambient and electronica.

Find out more here: https://www.fpg.org.uk/exhibitions/adrian-lane