The Breakdown
November may be the month when there’s a deluge of new releases ahead of the Xmas drought but here’s a recording that deserves to be heard amongst all the noise. London producer/composer and label boss Adam Scrimshire’s new album ‘Music for Autumn Lovers’ (out now via Albert’s Favourites) may seekm unassuming but it makes for a warmly enthralling listen. His ‘Paroxysm’ album from last year (reviewed in BSM HERE) saw the Scrimshire charge his cinematic soul-jazz and dance-facing electronica with strong political messaging. It was a release that didn’t hold back. ‘Music For Autumn Lovers’ is a contrast, a work with restorative, reflective tunes inspired by the drift from summer into a new season.
The album has had a long and gentle gestation with its origins way back in 2021, soon after Scrimshire’s acclaimed ‘Nothing Feels Like Everything Else’ began to make waves. At the time, maybe as some kind of therapeutic re-balancing, he set himself the goal of writing a new piece of music each day during a bespoke one hour session. These short compositions were then shared on Instagram and YouTube before being filed away but not forgotten. A year later, in Autumn ’22, he returned to the sketches and expanded the ideas, the result being the exquisite ‘Music for Autumn Lovers’ EP. Clearly though Scrimshire had still not covered everything about his love of the misty, mellow season because now we have selections of that EP expanded with four new tunes into a full album offering.
Hawthorn is one of those recent pieces and it opens the rejuvenated collection with a gorgeous piece of pastoral impressionism. The reedy notes and harmonium tones of the Mellotron sigh through a spell-binding introduction before the Rhodes chimes in to stir the sound carefully. There’s a Vashti Bunyan homeliness cosying up here, comfort for the inevitable resignation that the nights are drawing in, and that mood soaks through the whole of ‘Music For Autumn Lovers’. It makes for an album that effortlessly balances the sombre and the soothing.
Achieving such continuity while merging older material with the new is a mark of Scrimshire’s exceptionally well-tuned producer’s ear. The pieces from the original EP remain largely untouched but the intuitive track sequencing ensures their more rhythmic underpinning complements rather than distracts from the overall vibe. Hornbeam rustles to a calm, slow bossa shuffle, the acoustic guitar patterns and dappled percussion drawing you in before Scrimshire’s piano solo adds some subtle drama. His piano also adds a flourish to the hypnotic Ash, dovetailing with a lone synth melody as a stoic guitar pattern does the sympathetic ground work. Even pieces like the jazzy, trip hop padded Sweet Chestnut, which smoulders with Barry Adamson soundtrack mystery, and Sycamore’s hazy nu-soul drift don’t break the Autumnal spell. If anything they allow Scrimshire’s view-finder to capture the season, with its leaves, fading light and creeping chill, beyond the rural setting and onto any town’s shadowy streets.
Wrapped around these previous tunes the fresh compositions bring something more abstract and illusive into the soundscape. Hazel sways gracefully, crisp acoustic guitar and a padding bass blending with a ripple of playful, Tunng-like electronica. Closing track Blackthorn sees Scrimshire bringing a new-age/ Ciani melodicism to end on a note of optimism. Subtle, exquisite and with inner momentum, the piece builds from strumming guitars to a crescendo of restrained celestial uplift akin to Maxine Funke’s recent long form work.
Perhaps the pivotal track, though, which pulls all the strands of ‘Music for Autumn Lovers’ closer is the expansive Willow. Revolving around a mesmeric, repeated phrase, the detail in the arrangement is stunning. The drum crashes, the synth string swoon, the chiming piano lure you in calmly until a frantic drum and bass urgency erupts. Getting from here back to a sombre, pared down coda, where Scrimshire coaxes groaning creaks from a fading piano, is an intense, emotion tugging experience, close to those peaks that Jack Cooper’s Modern Nature reach.
On the sleeve notes Scrimshire talks about the albums that he turns to at this time of year for comfort and understanding, like ‘Out Of Season’ by Rustin Man and Beth Gibbons and Emiliana Torrini’s ‘Fisherman’s Woman’. His modest hope is that ‘Music for Autumn Lovers’ might make a similar impression on some of those who tune in. He shouldn’t worry, this is an album that is set to be cherished way beyond this year’s hunkering down.
Get Your copy of ‘Music for Autumn Lovers‘ by Scrimshire from your local record store or direct from Albert’s Favourites HERE
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