‘Nine Barrow Down’ EP [EPH08].

CDR Released on Ephre Imprint, April 2011.

1. Nine Barrow Down

2. Nine Barrow Down (Actual)

Notes: As explained on the sleeve and on the Ephre page this EP is thematically based on a recondite sui generis experience I had when I was 16 or 17, alone in the Dorset countryside at night. The music, which was recorded largely over one weekend, becomes more and more sinister throughout the EP, which is punctuated with several uneasy breaks of recurring ambience which only give way in turn to passages of darker main theme reprises.

Running time: 21 minutes.

From a great review @ Savaran Music written by Mark Walters:

“The otherwordly sounds encountered in the Nine Barrow Down EP derive from a very personal but unfathomable experience in Samways’ youth close to Nine Barrow Down near Purbeck in Dorset. The back cover of the CD gives a bit more detail explaining that an undefined shape was seen crossing an open field during evening supper with just the sound of a radio broadcast to break the spell of a fleeting moment of strangeness. I was immediately struck by the parallels here with the early 20th century composer John Ireland’s supernatural experience on Harrow Hill in the Sussex Downs where he reports witnessing ghostly children dancing during a picnic lunch – this event was later incorporated into the piece called Legend for Piano and Orchestra (1933).”