Music by Ben Barden
A Change of Scenery > Sleeve notes
To date, all of my albums have followed some kind of concept or progression as the tracks unfold. (As an aside: I once toyed with the idea of writing an album with the title, "The music evolves as the story unfolds", but it would make that album too difficult to distinguish from the rest!)
A Change of Scenery breaks the pattern somewhat. Although I just can't resist having a certain degree of continuity from one track to the next, there is far less of a build-up on this album. It does sound disjointed in places, but this is the result of my desire to break free of the restrictive approach I've followed to date - or composing by numbers, as I sometimes call it.
This album represents a new phase for me. It comes at an opportune time, having recently moved back to the UK after two and a half years in Australia. While the tracks on A Change of Scenery were not intended to form a complete album, they are also the ones that didn't fit any of my other albums, or never became a complete album. I've mentioned this before, but to give you an idea, here's a quick summary of the history behind these tracks:
- Longing, Nebular Dreaming, The Wilderness Part 2, and Lifeline II are new versions of tracks that have appeared on previous albums. But don't be fooled: in my view, these tracks are far superior to the originals. I've included them here to bring new life to old music without devoting an entire album to remixed tracks (as I did with Hidden in the Beyond).
- The Sounds of Time, Deviance, Forgotten Past, Moonsurfing, The Spiral Staircase and Sunwatching were originally written for Forgotten Past, which was going to be my fifth album.
- Blanket of Snow, Silent Shore and Starlining were originally written for Landscapes, which was going to be my sixth album.
- Stepping Stones, Invisible in the Shadows, Pipes of the Hills, Listen for the mountains, Model Railway and Fallen Leaves come from a few different projects, but were mostly dropped from albums as they never quite fit the overall theme.
Despite not worrying too much about the coherence of the album as a whole, I've relegated six of the tracks to "bonus track" status. This is because some of the bonus tracks are just a bit too "out there" to appear in any other way. Model Railway is quite catchy, and Lifeline II is a definite improvement over the original, but the others never quite worked out. They are included here for the curious listener. Who knows - you might quite like them.
A Change of Scenery is a unique blend of old and new material, with a wide range of styles and plenty of enjoyment for the listener. Hope you like it.
November 2009