Simon Scott has announced his next album, Soundings, scheduled to release with Touch on February 22. The label has pressed a limited edition run of CD and cassettes, with the tape containing an additional 60-minute version of the album remastered by Scott. 

Utilizing field recordings captured all over the world, Scott creates tapestries of lush and hypnotic ambient music, fusing modular synthesizer treatments, live strings, and laptop electronics for subtly complex structures. The recordings for Soundings were edited and composed in hotel rooms as Scott was on tour as the drummer for Slowdive. Credits include strings by Charlie Campagna and Zachary Paul, artwork and photography from Jon Wozencroft, and mastering by Denis Blackham. 

Scott adds: “I took a home recording I made of Storm Barney in Cambridge, listening to it on repeat when I was flying from continent to continent. I wanted this to be the starting point of the process of musically documenting how much traveling I was doing. Working in hotel rooms and on flights, listening to and editing the recordings I’d made from all of these distant cities formed the basis of the album. It’s the soundtrack to four years of my life in flux with constant change, jet lag, excitement, and the seeming perpetual motion of traveling.”

The eight-track release will be Scott’s debut studio album for Touch, though he previously released the live album Floodlines in 2016 and re-issued Below Sea Level in 2017. 

An extract from Soundings can be streamed at Touch. The CD/digital can be ordered here, with the expanded cassette version here. 

Tracklisting

01. Hodos

02. Sakura

03. Santori

04. Mae

05. Grace

06. Nigh

07. Baaval

08 Apricity

Soundings lands February 22 via Touch.