past present (tone poems across time) (Vinyl LP)

National treasure and jazz innovator Mark De Clive-Lowe has just announced his latest solo album past present (tone poems across time), and it's set to be a stunner. Releasing next month through regular collaborator Greg Boraman's Impressive Collective label in tandem with BBE Music, the album features "ambient jazz, emotional cinematic soundscapes that weave analog synths with field recordings from Japanese sacred sites and nature locations", as De Clive-Lowe pays tribute to the journeys taken in decades past by his own father. - Flying Out

past present (tone poems across time) is Mark de Clive-Lowe's exquisite new solo album and his debut for Greg Boraman's Impressive Collective label in partnership with BBE Music. Previously the pair released the Pharoah Sanders tribute album Freedom, and the equally lauded Hotel San Claudio in collaboration with Shigeto & Melanie Charles.

A deeply personal sonic exploration by Mark, past present is a reflection on family, heritage, and healing which was created in tandem with retracing his late father’s journey across Japan 70 years ago. The project is a collection of ambient jazz, emotional cinematic soundscapes that weave analog synths with field recordings from Japanese sacred sites and nature locations.

past present partially came into existence thanks to the perseverance of producer, percussionist and Mark’s friend Carlos Niño, who after experiencing Mark's multi-layered motifs in the studio and in live contexts over many years explains, "I kept hearing him make an album like this, I kept telling him that he needed to, and that it would be his best album yet. Subtle, poetic, solo, texturally rhythmic, expressive, full of rippling layers, and arrangements representing such profound thoughts, feelings, relationships, and memories".

Mark also took on board Carlos' recommendation of recording the bulk of past present at Ken Barrientos’ analog synth studio, The Breath in Pomona, California - where he utilized no less than 22 different keyboards to create the ethereal and engaging soundscapes across all 11 tracks, also intertwining his own field recordings made during a long, explorative stay in Japan.

Being such an individual and personal concept, it was only correct that Mark wrote the extensive album liner notes, to fully illustrate the decades-long backstory to this stunning collection. Mark completes the album's presentation using archive images from his family's private photo collection - an entire process he likens to time travel and signs off to the listener by stating that he hopes "it takes you on your own journey of imagination and reflection, leading to unexpected places, just as it has for me”. 

Tracklist:

1. embrace
2. present past
3. reflection
4. revelation
5. heart 
6. acceptance
7. forgiveness
8. compassion
9. past present
10. peace
11. gratitude