Marzipan by Bradfield Dumpleton

From the original liner notes:

"Somewhere in the lefthand corner of the 16th century, under the Grand Hoopla of Abzurdistan's benevolent rule, a Low Renaissance flourished amongst the peasantfolk of Spondoolistan's nomadic villages. The Renaissance endured for almost a week and produced some of the country's most celebrated folk dances & music. For this collection, respected Spondoolologist Bradfield Dumpleton has traversed Spondoolistan to document the musical remnants of this rich aeon - music born of simple folk: their grief & revelation, celebration & mourning, their smouldering passions & deep belief that Love is a Many Tentacled Thing."

Witticisms aside, I consider this to be my most musically accomplished recording. These were mostly compositions recorded during a year in which I was "clinically depressed" & grieving profoundly. Through this music, living in isolation, I examined the devastation & intricate beauty of grief, its delicate revelations & dark humour. I'm not a formally trained musician, I rely entirely on sound & feel, so these compositions were really brain exercises for me, puzzles to solve, codes to crack, in response to my emotional chemistry.

In researching the biochemistry of my depression, I learned that making music activates the brain in more key areas than any other creative activity, and that I could use it to exercise my frontal lobe, a part of our brain that generally shuts down in states of depression.

By making music with instruments that were completely foreign to me (mandola, mandolin), I had to push my frontal lobe to concentrate, explore, problem solve, anticipate patterns, access previous knowledge & body memory. The instruments reminded me of lutes, Moorish moods, baroque and other musics that were deliberately challenging to explore, and equally fitting to my emotional expression at the time.

I knew that every time I sat down to play, I was going to discover something - and that I was navigating my own uniquely creative process through the depression.

A library of musical sketchbooks, mapping my various evolutions from 2005 to next week. Dedicated to exploring sound for its own sake. Many diverse delights here for the patient & attentive listener.

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