A BAND who were “starting to find our feet” when the Covid-19 pandemic struck have released their debut single.
Twilight Sleep – a type of conscious sedation – is released today (Thursday) by Idiogram.
The band, who have members dotted across East Lothian and into Midlothian, were starting to make progress when the global pandemic changed the world in 2020.
Now, they have come back together, with their first track complemented by a music video directed by Jess Aslan.
Lesley Crawford, who plays keyboard in the “innovative post-prog quartet”, described Twilight Sleep as “really special to us”.
She said: “It’s the first song we completed together and, as such, it revealed to us where our combined ideas and influences were going to take us sonically.
“It was really a springboard from which we all believed we could create something together.”
Lesley, who lives in Dunbar having previously resided in Ormiston, has known guitarist Ali Kilpatrick, of Macmerry, for about 20 years as they both studied music at university.
She also works alongside bassist Ali Gillies, of Eskbank, at Drake Music Scotland and said they had “a lot of music common ground”.
Rounding off the band is drummer Keith Kirkwood, of Musselburgh, who Lesley had known through music circles.
Lesley said: “I think that's the thing that really excites me about being a part of this group: our approach to composition and performance.
“It's a fully collaborative process where we are open to all possibilities and push ourselves, each other and our instruments.
“This results in music that wouldn't exist without any one of us: it truly feels greater than the sum of its parts.
“It’s extremely liberating to be making music that embraces ideas without agenda, for the sheer joy of it.”
The single will be followed by debut album Reunion of Broken Parts later this year.
The album has been produced by Graeme Young and Chamber Studio and is described as “creatively ambitious and threaded with field recordings, samples and soundscapes”.
Lesley told the Courier that she had played in punk and rock bands for a number of years but felt it was time for a change.
Keith added: “When we wrote this track, we were still figuring out our process and some of the patterns really seemed complicated.
“I remember having to tape a chart up on the wall and step through each section.”
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