Peter Gregson - Touch (2015)

TOUCH follows on from my previous album, Lights in the Sky. It comprises eight tracks for analogue synthesiser, cello, piano, and string orchestra. Where Lights in the Sky was saturated, sonically intense, almost spoilt brat-ish sound, Touch has a more refined palette of sounds. Composers are often asked what their music is about, especially with instrumental music such as this. To me, it sort of defeats the purpose and joy of listening to music.
How do we interpret the emotion and meaning of music when we arent hand held through listening, or guided by a lyric? Just because music is slow, doesnt mean that it is sad; just because it is fast, doesnt make it happy. The same goes for tonality: major music isnt intrinsically happy, minor music isnt exclusively sad. Yes, these can be devices for eliciting an emotional response, but they are not in and of themselves complete. For me, this is the magic of music. Where it isnt objectively about something, it becomes amorphous, changing shape and purpose to fit the ear and mind of the listener. It has many lives and many meanings, none of them right and none of them wrong.

Tracklist:

1. Found
2. Time
3. Cycle
4. Chorale
5. Held
6. Touch
7. Turn
8. Lost