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Cloud Refuge

Iain Morland writes: My stand-alone ambient compositions are often quite short, so they tend to launch rapidly into to a melody and rhythm. In contrast, I wanted to take my time with Heliography, and give the listener a chance to settle down and relax. The synth sound that opens the album is harmonically pure and comforting, with a very gradual fade-in – slower than in the preview mp3, in fact. Also, the tempo is 60 beats per minute, which is a resting human pulse.

I chose the cello from East West Silver Orchestra as a lead instrument because it has a warm tone that complements the synth. With the reverb and sing-song melody it sounds to me like the cello tune is flying through clouds, hence the track's title. The piano is mixed to appear to the listener somewhere in-between the synth in the foreground and the cello in the distance. This gives the track a sense of space.

The Chinese flute comes from ChineeWinds by Kong Audio; although it doesn't play much here, this sets up its later appearance on The Years. Its breathy, woody sound is a nicely contrasting texture to both cello and piano.

Listeners probably won't be consciously aware of it, but the chord sequence played on the synth that opens this track provides the harmonic structure for most of the melodies featured on the album.

History of the Sky

The harp picks up some of the notes used in Cloud Refuge's cello melody, but also adds ornamentations and rhythm changes. As the track progresses the notes of the arpeggio start to be shared between the harp in the foreground and a pizzicato string section that sounds further away.

The transition to this track is signalled by a change in the reverb - the simulated space in which the music takes place. Cloud Refuge used a vast imaginary space generated by Waves Renaissance Reverb, whereas History of the Sky has a tighter reverb image. This suits the arpeggio as well as the guitar part, because it accents staccato notes.

The percussion is a combination of loops and sounds from Kong Audio together with my own recordings of seed pods and bell shakers. The pods and bells are Peruvian but were bought in Woodstock, USA. I also used a small metal chime that featured on my album Craft Design and Technology.

Dream Theory

Lots of dense, intricate synth sounds here, created both during recording and also post-processing with phasers and stereo widening in Adobe Audition. I used a processor called Ohmboyz on this track. Ohmboyz is an amazingly bizarre delay effect made by Ohm Force.

When I finished recording Dream Theory I felt that it needed more complexity, so I used one Ohmboyz delay to pan the entire original mix to the left, and another delay to play the whole mix at the same volume with a 1-bar delay on the right. I used also a touch of feedback on the delay, which moves gently between left and right, to add subtler swirling sounds.

The Years

This is the emotional centre of the album. The piano melody is actually derived from the harmonic intervals played at the very start of the album; that's why it feels pleasantly familiar. I normally use Steinberg's The Grand for my piano performances (including Cloud Refuge), but its sound was too upfront for this piece. Instead I used a sampled Steinway piano from the East West Silver Orchestra, the tone of which was more suitably transparent.

I usually play piano quite busily so this was an exercise in simplification - keeping the melody clear and slowly adding to the accompaniment. As the piece progresses the root notes used in the accompaniment change, introducing subtle tension which is then resolved into a major key during the sparkly-sounding 'chorus' section.

Whereas the other track titles suggest visual images, this one simply suggests the passing of time. I didn't want to tie the listener's emotions to a particular image.

Vapour and Moss

This track bridges between the two halves of the album. It returns to the chords of the opening, but at half speed.

The rain and thunder were recorded outside my window in Cardiff - a city which gets plenty of bad weather!

But I didn't want to use the rain and thunder 'as is', because that's a cliché in ambient music. I therefore processed it using a technique called convolution: this is where you multiply one sound with another. I used some strange convolution source material designed by Spirit Canyon Audio. This creates the harmonics that you hear over the thunder.

The track title is a nod to David Bowie's awesome Moss Garden on Heroes.

Sunweaver

In contrast the preceding track, where everything's happening in the middle frequencies, this track spreads into the lows and highs, with a relatively sparse mid-section. This gives it a breezy, sunshiney feel next to the subdued character of Vapour and Moss.

I spent a long time adjusting the big bass note to give it a sense of energy but without being too intrusive. The Moog-esque lead, which appears in the next track too, was designed from scratch in Logic's ES2 synthesiser. There is also a very complicated chord played on Logic's organ simulator, the EVB3. I didn't expect to find myself using an organ on this album, but only the EVB3 let me create just the right harmonics.

The enormous drums - which in the working version were labeled 'sky drums' - needed to be imposing but not too bright or scary. To get this effect I used multiple reverbs and processed the drums with Waves Renaissance Bass, which enhances low frequencies.

Leaves of Coral

I wanted here to suggest water, but not by using wave sounds, which would have been lazy. Instead I started with some human breath noises from Spectrasonics Atmosphere synthesiser. These were filtered, then fed through a flanger and phaser to create swirling sounds. The flanging and phasing effects were courtesy of the Kjaerhus Classic Series, a fine set of free audio processors.

I decided to add some rhythmic and percussive elements to this track, to vary the texture of the album in contrast to the pieces that precede and follow it. As with Sunweaver's 'sky drums', it needed to be gentle. I combined a deep bass sound, created with ES2, with some recordings of orchestral percussion provided by the East West Silver Orchestra. There are actually gongs and cymbals here, but they don't sound as you'd expect.

Leaves of Coral is the only track on the album written mostly in a mode rather than a key.

Windflight

We go here from the sea back up into the sky, now with a more affirmative tone than the slightly wistful Sunweaver. It modulates part of the melody from Leaves of Coral into a major key.

The appearance of the solo electric piano, Logic's EVP88, is one of my favourite moments on the album - I like the contrast between the airy, spacious pad sounds that precede it, and the close, toasty electric piano. The high guitar melody that joins the piano opens the space up again. It's layered with a gentle synth sound that gives it a long tail and some stereo movement.

Both the dynamics and the frequencies are very varied in this track, so it required careful mixing. I tamed the mix with Waves Linear Phase Multiband, which allowed precise adjustment of the volume of certain frequencies without affecting others.

Glass Shores

Just as the end of The Years synthesised the tunes from the first half of the album, so too does this short piece bring together the various melodies of the second half. The reappearance of Sunweaver's big organ chord cues the listener to this. The sky drums also return, but at a faster tempo than Sunweaver, because now we're moving towards a final resolution.

An effect called FabFilter Volcano let me tweak the tone and stereo location of the guitar and electric piano, so that they cohere as if they were a single instrument.

The close of the album is marked by a vast but very soft gong, with the complete mix fed via Waves IR-L through one of the longest reverbs I could find.

And that's the end. I nearly fell asleep several times while mixing Heliography, which is a good sign because it's meant to be relaxing! I ate a lot of Cadbury Eclairs to keep my energy up.