Music can help us to achieve certain emotional states. By playing around tones, rhythms, harmonies and melodies, a composer can guide us through a musical, interior journey, that reflects on memories, places, people, animals and everything that surrounds us. With her soothing trumpet, jazz harmonies and lo-fi style, Anita Eccleston takes us through such adventure with her newest album Gala Gardens: an instrumental jazz album that aims to counter the often-chaotic reality we live in. She builds different soundscapes that resemble cities, gardens and the night, in which we find a moment, just a little moment, for us to relax a little; just to take a breath of fresh air.
¡LISTEN NOW!
Anita Eccleston is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger. She was born surrounded with music falling in love with the trumpet and jazz vocals. Encouraged by her family, she studied at McGill University and released her first solo work Jazz EP in 2011.She later released the albums So It Goes (2014), More Trumpet (2016) and the single “Long Nights” in 2021. Throughout all that time, she has toured and played on radio stations throughout all of the world including countries such as Canada, Mexico and the United States. Gala Gardens is her upcoming album to be released on November 4. It was entirely produced and recorded by Anita Eccleston, who also played the trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, Midi, electric ukelele and drum machine. The album was mastered by Chris Gestrin.
I became overwhelmed by world events, the War in Ukraine is devastating, and the pandemic has taken such a toll, I needed to find a way to feel in control of something. Using creation as my vehicle, I poured myself into this in March of 2022 as a sort of side project challenge. It became so much more to me. The name and titles were drawn from my connection to my garden and the natural world. My garden has been a safe haven for me, a place for serene reflection, which this album takes to heart. Golden Hour and Gala Gardens as a whole album is soothing like a balm. Simplistic yet complex, the way the melodies and refrains intertwine under the free-flowing musical improvisation of my trumpet creates a totally unique sonic experience. I sang backing vocals on the album to create lush warm pads and electrified my ukulele to add further spacey textures and extra improvisation. Calling it lo-fi beats/hip hop isn’t quite right since it has such a heavy jazz influence. The beats themselves are understated and the focus is on the melodic counterpoint and the tension and release. I can have it on in the background or sit and trance out to it, it has become my new favourite album and I think it might be yours too. -Anita Eccleston
Gala Gardens paints a picture of nature in a particular way. It is a departure of Anita Eccleston’s usual style, as she experiments with electronic elements to create a lo-fi backdrop over which she improvises with her trumpet. She uses harmonies, textures and melodies, as brush strokes to create images that remit to personal memories, thoughts and places. Images that are complex in their emotional depth. Since the first track of the album “Emergence”, Anita Eccleston introduces us to a magical world full of wonder and joy. Each note, each beat and harmony take us deeper into its soundscapes, until we can identify how the sound of nature surround us with a playful look. The bees of “Busy Bees”, the crickets of “Night Sky”, the breeze of “Petrichor”, the water of “Swimming”, Gala Gardens gives us the unique opportunity to enjoy for a moment while listen to nature through her artistic vision, and we’re able to find music and nature and the other way around.
Perhaps an example may be found in the music video for the lead single of the album “Golden Hour”. The video focuses on the adventures of a little bearded dragon wondering through a garden and what he finds there. Much of the inspiration for the album, Anita Eccleston comments, came from the time she spends together with Rey, her bearded dragon for whom the video is dedicated to. Written by Eccleston and Patrick Collins it paints the general mood of the album: a wonder of seeing everything as larger than life, of seeing everything and listening to music as it was the first time.
Gala Gardens is a wholesome album, that you should not miss out. Anita Eccleston makes us forget the horrors of the modern world by inviting us into her garden full of music and magic. Both the album and the video will be released on November 4, so make sure to not miss them out!
¡LISTEN NOW!
Don’t forget to support this project and to follow on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, SoundCloud, YouTube, and Spotify. You can also check out her official website. If you enjoy his music and are able to provide monetary support, you might consider downloading it on Bandcamp. For virtual concerts you can go to songkick “Live from their sofa to yours”.
It also helps to stream and share this music; you can obviously find it in the following Playlists: Less Than 1,000 Followers, Fresh Singles, Female Rising Stars, 12 New Songs This Week, Chill – Folk – Acoustic, and Contemporary Jazz.
P.S. If you enjoy discovering new artists and fresh new music you can subscribe to this blog Less Than 1,000 Followers and follow the Playlist with all the artists that we have presented here!!!
This coverage was created via MusoSoup #Sustainablecurator
wow, very thoughtful piece, well done. She reminds me of another artist I know that does similar work, but with a Saxophone over lo-fi beats named Kevin Pat
I’ll have to check her out, glad you enjoy it!!!