Smudges 3: Isola by Tim Story

We are honored to present to you Tim Story’s Smudges 3: Isola. 

Isola is Story’s response to the current circumstances of the global coronavirus pandemic, presented with the intent of bringing some respite, comfort and community.  It is Tim's wish, and our pleasure, to offer it as a gift, free-of-charge to any and all who might enjoy it.

Story comments:

Isola is my humble addition to the contributions of many artists and musicians around the world - an effort to bring some small measure of hope and relief in the only way we know how. The Italian word for 'island', Isola struck me as a perfect title. Our planet is indeed a small island, our countries, cities, and now each of us individually, facing a difficult reality.

Isola is a kind of suite, built from the same technique of 'smudging' that's been occupying me lately, made by submitting existing music to a process that essentially takes snapshots of passing audio, and freezes those moments into stately progressions of harmony and timbre. This time out, it was a pleasure to sustain a sense of uplift, an embrace of mystery without the 'darker places'  of the more challenging harmonies I'm often drawn to.  The sources I used are also more restrained, limiting myself to ensembles of wind instruments and percussion, timbres which I particularly love in this context.

When making Isola, I found inspiration in this limitation, working alone in my studio with only the resources at hand, and a sense of possibility and discovery extending far beyond the four walls of my room. Isola is not a requiem, or my manifesto on the state of the world, it's simply a short journey to bigger spaces. It's an attempt to find - for myself in its creation, and hopefully for you in your own interior spaces and circumstances - an alternate, thoughtful environment in which to reside for awhile.