Achromatism by Chuter

Achromatism was written and recorded over several days in December 2024. I was unwell in bed and it was dark and raining outside. These tracks are a mixture of year-end retrospect and winter fatigue – a collation of memories with the colour drained from them, the energy subdued, the edges smeared. Featured throughout Achromatism is the sound of rain lashing against the windows while I recorded, plus phone clips from various events over the 12 months prior: my first trip to Tokyo in April, playing with son on the day after he started school in September, amongst others.

This is the first release I've ever made with piano at the centre, and it felt like an apt moment for it. Despite most of my music being guitar-based, I've been playing keyboard for much longer (since I was about six), so in that sense the roots run deeper. The composition of Achromatism was more intuition-led than cerebrally so, which was perfect for my groggy head, but also felt conducive to engaging in these fuzzier, almost dream-like excursions into retrospect. As Félicia Atkinson told me when I'd interviewed her just a couple of weeks prior to recording Achromatism, "the piano is definitely an animal".

I'm also grateful to Adrian (Mosaicist) for the remixes, which gift the record the relief of stepping outside – literally in terms of the field recordings, and figuratively in their present-tense brightness, as if they're breaking out of the interiority of nostalgic hindsight and finally re-engaging with the sunlit world again.