“An exciting, modern blend of contemporary jazz vibes and ambient atmospheres; recreating the feel of a live jazz trio, but created entirely electronically” 

‘Memory Lake’ is the fourth album by UK Midlands band Shards Of Reason. Following on from 2010’s ‘Satellites’ (which was inspired by various moons in the solar system), ‘Memory Lake’ is a collection of tonal paintings of the band’s favourite places…and a couple of imagined ones.

Shards have retained the same line up as featured on ‘Satellites’, namely founder and songwriter Phil Lawton and his partner Beth Freeman.

Firmly consigned to ancient history now are the expansive guitar solos from the days of Brian McCarthy and Shards MkI days, replaced with more focus on the interplay between all the instruments in any given piece.

“As wonderful as Brian’s solos were on the first two albums,” explains Lawton, “there was no place for them in the new material I had in mind for the ‘Satellites’ album. Brian had decided not to continue with the band, anyway, not even to the conclusion of ‘Isolation’, but the idea of recording an album with virtually no guitar at all would have filled him with horror!”

So…after the concept albums ‘Swept Away’ and ‘Isolation’ (dealing with eco-disaster and dystopian themes respectively) and the astronomy-inspired ‘Satellites’, what lies behind ‘Memory Lake’?

“As usual, I got the idea for what became ‘Memory Lake’ during the recording process for the previous album to it” says Lawton. “I wanted to write about places I knew, places that meant something to me and places that meant something special to me and Beth.” While a couple of the places name-checked by the tracks are obvious (“Snowdon” and “Tokyo, Blurred”), the others are more oblique in their reference…even downright enigmatic.

Lawton again: “Some are street names, such as Needless Alley and Paradise Circus, both in Birmingham city centre. Others are references back to places we’ve been and how they made me feel at very specific times. They say that the two main things which fire off the most vivid memories are aromas and music…so this is a kind of reverse engineering.”

“What I didn’t want to do,” he continues, “was to limit the listener to my version of anything. ‘Photos From The Bridge’, for instance, was inspired by a dusk walk across the estuary bridge in Barmouth…but the listener is free to apply the music to his or her own bridge from memory…or just take it at face value as a piece of music.”

Lawton also takes great pains to point out that two of the cuts, namely the opener ‘This Town’ and the closing title-track, were inspired by the artwork of two friends of the band.

“’This Town’ exists purely because of the remarkable collection of photographs of the same name by our friend and photographer Dom Agius. You can see examples of this on the inside front cover and reverse of the new CD. As soon as I saw them, I knew they were worthy of a track.”

And ‘Memory Lake’?

“The title track and the title both came from Derek Busch’s stunning photo which we used for the front cover,” replies Lawton. “I fell in love with that picture the second I saw it and asked more or less immediately (a good year before the album was released) if we could use it. Thankfully, Derek was fine with it.”

‘Memory Lake’ is another instrumental album by the band, with Beth Freeman supplying the vocals when a choral requirement occurs. Both overtly jazzy and ambient, it also incorporates ethereal stylings with elements of drum and bass, whilst elsewhere fusing these with the bombast of the likes of Craig Armstrong, producing a singular, signature sound.

“It’s the fourth album and the one I’m most proud of,” says Lawton.

‘Memory Lake’ is available now as either a limited edition CD Digipak with full colour artwork (available from http://shards-of-reason.bandcamp.com) or as a download from Bandcamp, Amazon, iTunes and all other digital outlets.


Memory Lake

Strange how sometimes circumstance dictates events in ways we would never dream of.
 
Back at the start of 2011, my friend and photographer Dom Agius put up onto Facebook one of his amazing night-time shots of London. I buzzed him and told him to go and listen to “Io” from our previous album ‘Satellites’ whilst gazing at his photo, as the glacial-speed jazziness of that track fitted the picture.
 
Dom told me that it was part of a photographic album of his called ‘This Town’, so I went to investigate. It’s a wonderful collection of images – some oddball, some poignant, some haunting – and I said to Dom “I could write a track for those photos, you know”, an idea that, happily, he was into and agreed that we could use the photos for any subsequent video.
 
Many months passed, during which I’d started the ‘Memory Lake’ album (still then without a title…but that’s another story) and all the while having fleeting thought of “I must get ‘This Town’ sorted.”
 
Then, out of the blue, I had the tune in my head whilst walking home from the village shop, rushed home and committed it to disc. The result of that is what you hear in this track. I hope you think, as many do, that the music fits the photos (the video is up on Youtube, expertly assembled by Beth from Dom’s photographs).
 
It’s easily one of my favourites and would not have existed at all but for Dom’s talent, kindness, generosity and influence, for which, along with his valuable friendship, I will be eternally grateful.
 
So Dom, if you’re looking, this one’s for you, mate. It wouldn’t have existed without you.
 
Although the subject matter was/is London in this instance, this track applies to anywhere...my town, your town, any town.
 
Video for the track can be found at www.youtube.com/Shardsy1 
More photos @ www.domagius.com 

This Town (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

This is the second release from the new album 'Memory Lake' which is released on 21st April 2012.
 
We’re massive fans of the North Wales coast. There’s something other-worldly about the place in an unforced, non-pretentious way. Nestling just between Barmouth and Harlech is Shell Island, famous for…well, famous for the obvious, really. Not really an island, although it does get cut off from the mainland at high-tide.
 
We first went there early one October, when the tourists had gone; it was just us and the tide and the gulls and the distant blue-misted giants of Snowdonia. It’s a devastatingly peaceful place, where the beach stretches on and on forever and time seems to stand still. One of those spots where you can simply be and feel you’re part of the planet. Quite extraordinary.
 
The track is just how it made me feel to stand there, with the warmth of a faltering, autumnal sun on my face, the breeze from the sea and the boom of the tide…and it’s how I feel every time I play it.
 
I hope it takes you there, too, if only for the six and a half minutes that the track lasts for. Just typing this makes me want to go there and to never come back.

Shell Island (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

The whole “Memory Lake” album is based on places we know, love or would like to see. “Photos” was inspired by the famous rail/pedestrian bridge across the Mawddach estuary in Barmouth, North Wales.
 
Possibly one of the most photogenic structures I’ve ever seen, but the views from it along either direction are breathtaking. Look eastwards and you’re given the estuary and the mountains, including Cader Idris. Look west and you’re treated to the receding hills and open sea, along with some spectacular sunsets.
 
We were walking back across one evening as dusk fell and Beth caught some fantastic shots of the sunset (one of which you’ll find in our ‘Shell Island’ video) and of the lights of boats and buildings on/in Barmouth’s harbour, twinkling in the fading heat-haze from that day’s sun. Just magical - and deserving of a track.
 
Hope you like it.

Photos From The Bridge (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

If you ever get the chance, treat yourself to the train trip up to the peak of Snowdon.
 
We started the walk up a few years ago and abandoned the idea after not very long, but not before getting to the level of the first waterfall which pours out of a fissure in the mountain.
 
The ride up on the tiny, two-carriage train is charming in the extreme and allows a genuine appreciation of the topography. One of the guides pointed out a flat plateau on the way up where, a millennium into the past, local princes, noblemen and landowners would gather to talk. Lakes are revealed as more height is gained and you can see, once at the Snowdon’s peak, all four countries in the UK (although the day does need to be exceedingly clear to do so).
 
The atmosphere of the place is almost palpable and the history of the area feels like someone looking over your shoulder. It’s inexplicable – you have to go and see for yourself.
 
The track is all it needs to be – serene and tranquil with a hint of something beyond the physical.
 
Hope it soothes your nerves as much as it does ours.

Snowdon (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

One from the wish-list, this, as opposed to one from the “been there” list. 

I’ve always wanted to see Japan, especially Tokyo. I have a huge need to experience the madness of the place, the lights, gadgetry, the people, the almost totally alien culture.
 
I must admit that images from ‘Blade Runner’ were firmly in my head when I was putting this together, although I did have a large collection of snaps of the real night-time Tokyo as an inspiration.
 
This is what’s in my head when I dream of a high-speed journey through Tokyo on a train at night, with the velocity of the train blurring everything into an insane rush of lights and indiscernible structures. I imagine it’d be better than drugs…and I hope it’s a journey I can make happen at some point.
 
Beth supplied the “Aah” vocal choir in the middle of the track, by the way…that loveliness is all her.
 
Enjoy.

Tokyo, Blurred (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

I realise that several other bands have put out songs with the same title (Massive Attack being the most notable), but I have no idea what inspired them.
 
My own Paradise Circus is a small ring road in the centre of Birmingham with the central library, a hotel and some retail establishments in the centre. Not exactly inspiring stuff, I agree, but it was part of my walk home from various nightclubs in Broad St when I was a youth.
 
Being the loner I was back then, I’d oft find myself alone at two or three in the morning, strolling the desolate urban roadway that was (and still is) Paradise Circus, with the strains of the band I’d just been to see still ringing (literally) in my ears.
 
I told myself back then to one day write a track about the overwhelming loneliness of those solitary times, juggling the sneaking suspicions that this was how it would always be and that nobody would really miss me if I disappeared forever in that circus with no warmth, clowns, acrobats or spotlights.

Paradise Circus (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

The title of this might make you think we were indulging in some mysticism or Eastern profundity, but no – far from it, really. Perish the thought.
 
The seaside town of Barmouth in Wales has a couple of hippy shops on the High Street – you know what these kind of places sell…kaftans woven by Buddhist yaks, temple bowls, joss sticks, statues of the Buddha and all the while smelling of patchouli and incense so strongly that noses in neighbouring towns are running.
 
You get the picture. 

Anyway, Barmouth has three of these shops, all owned by the same people. Opposite each other are two outlets, both called “The Fat Buddha”. Further up the street is the third shop – “The Skinny Buddha”, which happens to be at the head of a T-junction in the road. At the other end of the junction (the bottom of the ‘T’, if you will) is a view of the sea and, when the time of day and year permits, a view of the glorious sunsets that Snowdonia enjoys.
 
We were there one October, when the sun was slipping away from the afternoon towards the horizon and giving out that nameless Autumn light…pink and orange and butter yellow…you know that light. It bathes everything it touches with fingers of kindness, flattering everything it illuminates.
 
And in the scant few minutes where our star was perfectly suspended at the opposite end of the T-junction, it lit up the frontage of “The Skinny Buddha” in that pink-orange-yellow burst of light…and I thought “Hmm…that’d make a nice track.”
 
And here it is…enjoy.

Skinny Buddha & The Dying Sunset (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

Yet another track I’ve wanted to write for years. 

There’s a little street, about a hundred yards long and bang in the middle of Birmingham called, as you’ve probably surmised by now, gentle reader, Needless Alley.
 
Such a strange name, such an anonymous little street and I’ve always wondered why it was so-called. Built in 1731, was it simply a mistake, given its name in a fit of pique by the then town fathers? Very odd, but in a charming, orphan-like way.
 
I’d had a tune for this track up my sleeve for quite a while (even before most of ‘Satellites’ was written) and I was chatting to my mom about this album and what it was based on, mentioning Paradise Circus (see above) and Needless Alley. “That’s strange you should be writing about Needless Alley,” she said. “Your gran knew someone who ran the café which used to be there…and the owners there made my one and only birthday cake when I was growing up.”
 
She’d never told me this before and her story, offhand but touching, made me want to change the music for the track, which is exactly what I’ve done. This is an entirely new piece, far more laid back than the one I was going to use, stripped back to a ‘nod and a wink’ piano/double bass interplay around a theme.
 
It’s dedicated to the now long-gone little girl my mom used to be, all excited in Needless Alley and carrying the only birthday cake she’d ever have.
 
Hope you like the track.

Needless Alley (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

No, not some soundtrack for a bizarre new form of animal cruelty, but a celebration of one of our favourite places – Dovedale in Derbyshire’s Peak District.
 
The stones in question are stepping stones across the River Dove, just before it starts to get really serious about being a river.
 
A fantastic place – peaceful, unspoilt, painfully picturesque, where mobile ‘phones don’t work and the only sounds are the sheep, the birds and the river itself. If, by chance, you remember the old version of our website, I was photographed in an “Oops, missus, where’s me kestrel?” pose with the very stones I speak of here just behind me.
 
In winter especially, it’s a magical spot – crows cawing like jet-black clichés, bare trees silhouetted against steel-blue skies above the snow-covered peaks either side of the river, hints of ice at the riverbank…and the Dove, swollen by winter rains and thaws, sweeping over the stones and roaring off to the south.
 
This is Beth’s favourite on the album – “Definitely a winter track,” quoth she and I agree. I recorded this in December and I think it shows.

Stones In The Dove (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

I wrote in the blurb above for “This Town” that the track was based on Dom Agius’ wonderful photos of London – and here is another track inspired by the photographic work of yet another genius we know.
 
Many, many months ago, I happened to see a photo by our friend and photographer Derek Busch of a serene lake scene…trees in fog with a sunrise behind them and instantly fell in love with it. “Please let me use that for an album,” I asked, to which Derek graciously agreed.
 
When we were getting close to the end of the recording sessions, I asked Derek for the high-res version of the picture, which he duly sent. At this point, we had no album title, although we’d run through and rejected quite a few. One afternoon, I sat gazing at Derek’s lake photo, drinking in the majesty of it all and suddenly got the title in my head – “Memory Lake”.
 
Several self-congratulatory minutes later, I decided that the least I could do was to write Derek (and the album) a title track as an act of thanks. One Saturday afternoon shortly thereafter, Beth leapt into the shower and I sat down at one of the studio keyboards to try to get a few notes together for what I thought would be a simple, two-minute ambient-piano track.
 
Fast forward two weeks and there I was with the framework of a track lasting over eight minutes and far and away one of the stand-out cuts on the album, all written and played with Derek’s wonderful photograph in mind. Beth keeps telling me “That track IS the picture.”
 
I hope so – and this one, Derek, is for you. Just like “This Town”, without your input, there’d be no such track and a differently titled album. I hope we’ve done you proud.

Memory Lake (From the album 'Memory Lake' 2012)

NEW ALBUM 'PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN LINE' OUT 23/04/21

Available to buy on Bandcamp
All tracks available to stream on YouTube
Coming soon to iTunes/Spotify!