mark barrott: sketches from an island 2

Mark Barrott music acts as a bridge between his own spirituality and creative expression. "Humanity is facing a big challenge at the moment. We're at a fork in the path." he muses, "More so than ever people are now pushing the boundaries, taking more drugs and seeking sensory overload, driven in part by the hedonism traditionally associated with dance music. For me, it's time to focus more on making healing music, on trying to find the balance between all this wonderful technology and the freedom it gives us with the natural world. I am telling stories of everyday life in Ibiza. Sound-tracking my life here through local field recordings, dusty synths, some African percussion and a bit of slide guitar. This music is a lot more like folk music, taking mood, atmosphere and composition and threading stories around that framework." While the original spirit from the first Sketches album remains, tracks like the instrumental emotional pop of "Driving to Cap Negret" and the heavy weather atmosphere of "Distant Storms at Sea" highlight a compositional leap forward. The polyrhythmic joy of "Cirrus & Cumulus" and overall feeling portrayed by Barrott's idiosyncratic aural oddities, highlight a composer comfortable in his own skin and very content with his surroundings and day to day life. "It was also influenced by playing at La Torre last summer," Barrott explains of his residency at Ibiza's latest sunset mecca. "I loved seeing how people react to the wonderful spectacle of the sunset and how you can create a movie soundtrack where the sunset is the film. I've realized this journey is the journey within. If one second of any of the Sketches records help people achieve that on their own, then I'm eternally grateful." 180gm vinyl/includes download.