Ben McElroy x A Spot on the Hill - "Pardon the Garden"

An overseas collaboration between Ben McElroy (UK) and A Spot on the Hill (U.S) is a blood-slowing exploratory track that brings in gorgeous piano, strings, clarinet and field recordings to create an cloistered audio-world that sounds of time and place. According to the press release the creation of this record, “started in December 2021 with a message from A Spot on the Hill’s Dan Cook to Ben McElroy proposing a collaboration. By the start of 2022, the two were trading recordings of drones, strings and piano. Ben would take a simple piano part from Dan and improvise multiple layers of cello, violin, viola and clarinet parts to accompany it, as well as adding mysterious drones and found sounds. Dan would sift through the accreted layers of sound, chiseling away at some so as to reveal the beauty of others. Then, back to Ben, who masterfully sculpted the evolving pieces into cohesive artistic statements.” Lovely work.