Release Notes
Label: Soft Echoes
Release: Quiet Pieces
Date: May 30th, 2025
Mastered By: Denis Blackham
Lacquer Cut By: Loop-O
Artwork By: Marja de Sanctis
Artist Photo By: Claudia Gschwend
For almost two decades, I have been tirelessly seeking honesty in music. I aim to find the sounds with which the artist speaks. Soundscapes that make you feel. Atmospheres that not only fill your room (and headphones) but truly transport you into another time and place. I will never forget the first time I heard Abul Mogard’s music. I was mesmerised. His intricate attention to sound design, rich textures, and manipulation of the created environment instantly transformed me into an avid fan. His music didn’t just augment my mood; it seemed to seep into my being, altering the code behind the perception of my mind. I didn’t just listen to his music, I invited it to be a part of my condition. In an effort to delve deeper and spend more time with such music, and more importantly, the composers themselves, I created Headphone Community, where I feature an artist for an in-depth exploration. In the last three months, I’ve highlighted the sounds of James Murray, Ben Chatwin, and Erik K Skodvin. Today, I am honoured to announce that Abul Mogard will be the featured artist for the entire month of June! I invite you to join us on this journey, with the knowledge that your financial contribution will go directly to the artist!
“In a studded procession” is a piece from his new album, titled Quiet Pieces, scheduled to be released tomorrow, May 30th, on his newly launched personal imprint, Soft Echoes. I am sure I will keep a close eye on this label. This is a gorgeous collection of five contemplative and long-playing pieces, inviting you to peel apart the layers where organic sounds meet his skillful, hypnotic, and almost magical processing. Sourced from a collection of his uncle’s beloved 78RPM classical records, the restored, wrapped, and folded sounds create a new surrounding where memory and dreams collide. This is an exquisite and haunting meditation on the sonic fabric, granular dynamics, and elastic time, clearly propelling Abul Mogard further among the purveyors of all-enveloping sonics, solidifying my proclamation that he is the master of this art.
This piece is an old composition, originally made in 2013, just after my first cassette album came out. A first version appeared quietly that year on a free compilation called ‘Sequence7’, but I was never completely happy with it. I always felt a strong attachment to this piece, so a couple of years later, during a residency at the EMS studio in Stockholm, I found myself returning to it. There, I reworked it using their Serge modular system, layering sounds and reshaping its structure, but the file remained dormant on a hard drive, waiting. Now and then, across the passing decade, I would open it. Make small adjustments. Listen. Close it again. Only recently, with the kind of distance that only time makes possible, I found a way through. I added delicate traces of string sounds, sampled from an old 78 RPM record, part of a collection that once belonged to my late uncle. There was something in the grain of those worn recordings, combined with a fresh approach to its shape, that allowed the piece to arrive at a form that feels, finally, complete.
Once again, the album is out tomorrow, via Soft Echoes, available as a digital download, and, most importantly, 12″ limited edition BioVinyl cut by Loop-O. The record appears to be already sold out on Bandcamp, but there are links to more copies from your local shops, so hurry up and grab yours. I also want to acknowledge the beautiful album cover by Marja de Sanctis that seems to draw you into the spiral of shadows towards the infinite, all-encompassing, and everlasting light. I can’t wait to spend an entire month bathing in this sound! Highly recommended!
