the sky’s harbour

ABOUT

The opening track Moon Over Monkton Meadow takes its title from the first landing strip and airfield in Scotland in 1913, at Monkton Meadows, Ayrshire (where Glasgow Prestwick Airport is now situated and close to where I grew up). Monkton Meadows was an ideal location for a runway, due to the Atlantic fog's strange tendency to leave an 'opening in the sky' over the area. This phenomenon is the basis of my piece's inspiration. Moon Over Monkton Meadow fuses folk-like piano melodies with gradually-unfolding layers of strings and ambient textures, leading towards a climactic reveal, celebrating the union of earth and sky. 

Westland Wings is an account of the Westland Wallace aircraft and the first-ever flight over Everest in April 1933. This track is the most dramatic of the four and is led by sampled instruments of Nepal and Tibet - the Sitar and the Erhu.  

Hadrian Surfs The Stars is a meditation depicting the Waco Hadrian Glider crossing in 1943 from Montreal to Labrador via Greenland, Iceland and eventually to Prestwick, remaining airborne for 28 hours. Central to this track is a clarinet loop, slowly turning, while sampled strings gradually unfold to create a timeless motion, suggestive of space travel and infinity.  

The Footless Halls Of Air is a setting of the famous aviation poem, High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr. The recording features my vocals against a backdrop of strings and recalls the Chinese/Tibetan Erhu from Westland Wings in homage to the poet's birthplace of Shanghai.

Hight Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth 
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; 
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth 
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things 
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung 
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, 
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung 
My eager craft through footless halls of air … 

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue 
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace 
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew – 
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod 
The high untrespassed sanctity of space, 
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922 – 1941)