Eraldo Bernocchi, Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie - Winter Garden

Winter Garden is the first “simultaneous” collaboration between renowned Italian musician and producer Eraldo Bernocchi, ambient pianist and musical icon Harold Budd and producer/guitarist Robin Guthrie, founder of Cocteau Twins and Violet Indiana.

We say “simultaneous”, for Eraldo Bernocchi had previously produced, arranged and played on “Fragments From The Inside” (released by SubRosa) with Harold Budd, while the collaboration between Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie started in the 80s (Lovely Thunder, The Moon and The Melodies, The White Arcades) and became a quasi-partnership since 2005 (see for example the soundtrack for the film Mysterious Skin by Araki, the dyptich “Before The Night Falls/After The Day Breaks” and more recently “Bordeaux”, all released on Darla Records).

Recorded in Tuscany in 2010, produced in Tuscany and in the south of France in 2011, Winter Garden aligns itself with the aforementioned recent releases by Budd and Guthrie, awash with Budd’s minimal piano and Guthrie’s guitar drones, only to differentiate itself through a more marked used of electronics and being punctuated by a soft, minimal bass pulse. Winter Garden is an incredibly refined, stratified, and precisely chiseled recording – a snapshot of a collaboration which after two live audio-visual dates in Italy 2010 (Centrale Elettrica Taccani and Palazzo Lomellino in Genoa) will be taken on the road in 2012.

1. Don't Go Where I Can't Find You

2. Losing My Breath

3. Winter Garden

4. Entangled

5. Harmony And The Play Of Light

6. Heavy Heart Some More

7. White Ceramic

8. Stay With Me

9. South Of Heaven

10. Dream On

This is out now. It sounds wonderful. Quite a lot of keyboard textures too.

Damn, Budd's almost too prolific nowadays, even considering he already called it quits once. But it's all good. Really enjoyed the Nighthawks set that was put out this year, so this can't be bad either.

Listening to this quite a bit this past few days. Great album - particularly if you like the kind of music Budd and Guthrie were doing in the 80's.