Music
Test Pieces
Charlotte the Brave and Larissa the Bold
Flatpicker / Sam Bacon’s Blues
Resolution
Cascade
A Deep Sea Diver’s Blues
Stumpy and The Bear (Will You Not Come Back)
(©℗ A. I. Jackson 2024-2025)
Written at the same time and the companion piece to Songs For Separation, Test Pieces features six pieces of music inspired by people and places while isolating during lockdown.
Test Pieces takes its cue from the artistry and ethics of climbing. ‘A Test Piece is the title given to a climbing line that shows you where you are up to in your journey as a climber,’ explains Aaron. ‘Like a musical line, a climbing line is an expression of the imagination and ability of the climber who first puts up the route. The lines in Test Pieces reflect my musical imagination and where I was in my life when they were written and recorded. Like a climbing line, each piece features a crux - this is usually the most difficult move, emotional moment, or technical challenge that connects the line. The album was recorded using climbing ethics: onsite, in one pass, with no rehearsal of moves ahead of time.’ (Aaron Jackson, November 2024)
Each piece was recorded in situ giving a cinematic, immersive context to the album’s arc, with Eric Murray, Johnny Dawes and Francis Dunnery providing thoughts on the links between creativity, performance and personality.
To find out more about the writing, production and release of Test Pieces, go to Origin(al) Stories. To buy the album, click on the album cover.
Songs For Separation
Someone Else
Capture The Flags
Numb
Be True
Your Lighthouse
Signs and Symbols
Home For Me
(©℗ A. I. Jackson 2024-2025)
Written during the COVID pandemic, Aaron Jackson’s first release as ConChie since 2020’s critically-acclaimed debut Northumbria, Songs for Separation explores traditional song forms as a way to give structure and form to the pain and challenges of familial separation. Identifying the power of the future’s possibilities as a locus of hope in hard times, Song For Separation is a powerful, passionate and authentic collection of new originals.
Finally recorded in late-2023 and released for review on 31st March 2024, Songs For Separation’s emotional immediacy, melodic gifts and apparent simplicity unfold over seven tracks to present an album of depth, complexity and consideration.
To find out more about the writing, production and release of Songs For Separation, go to Origin(al) Stories. To buy the album, click on the album cover.
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Critical reaction to Songs For Separation.
‘Recorded on analogue 4-track but sounding anything but lo-fi, this is an album, as footie pundits might say, of two halves. [Side One’s] six tracks [are] emotionally direct [and] richly melodic … while Side Two’s [30-minute] Home For Me is equal parts meditational fever dream and end-of-night comedown. But really, all killer, no filler.’
(Exposed Magazine, June 2024)
Northumbria
Endings
No Sailor Leaves The Sea
Peter’s Field
In Sunshine’s Shadow
The Sense of an Ending (Love Song to … )
I Know What You Are
Beginnings
This Green and Pleasant Land
(©℗ A. I. Jackson 2020 - 2025)
Recorded on a 1970's TEAC 1/4-inch reel-to-reel four-track with a single microphone, an acoustic guitar and a 'found sound' approach, Northumbria's eight tracks are powerful and immersive explorations of the ways people, places, past histories and previous identities come together to form present realities and future stories.
Alongside diary excerpts mapping the composition of the music and the recording of the album posted in the Origin(al) Stories online process journal, Northumbria was released on 1st May 2020.
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Critical reaction to Northumbria.
‘Intensely rewarding … captivating guitar playing … musically evocative … great harmonies … [Northumbria is] truly authentic, it both connects and communicates with a brutal honesty.’
(Folk Roots Radio UK)
‘Earthy … hypnotic … vivid … brave … a stellar piece of work.’
(Alt-Pulse)
‘A great listen […] Beautiful tunes … The lyrics are stunning … a clear ring to the playing … [Northumbria] takes you on a journey from the dark to the light … it’s a rather good album.’
(Folking)