‘Harmonics of the Night’ is the third in what he conceived of as a trilogy of recordings from guitarist Andy Summers. Following on from ‘Metal Dog’ and ‘Triboluminescence’, ‘Harmonics of the Night’ began its life as a guitar improvisation for a museum installation of Andy’s own photos. He did not like the music they had chosen in the gallery so sat down and recorded some guitar improvisations. Summers says that he built this set out from there. These songs and the photos that inspired them have become a staple of his solo guitar shows. Stand out tracks: ‘A Certain Strangeness’, ’Harmonics of the Night’ and ‘City of Crocodiles’.
The album will be released by Cargo Records on October 15th (to accompany a new exhibition of his photos at the Leica Gallery, Mayfair starting on October 21st) Andy explains more about the album – The music for Harmonics of the Night came from a real-life situation, which was the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of my photography at the Pavilion Populaire in Montpellier.
I was able to visit the museum in advance of the opening and decided this time( instead of the usual unsuitable music being played by the whatever gallery! ) that I must make a music installation to accompany the photography on the wall, a piece that could be looped and thus provide a continual musical counterpoint to the visual. I made a twenty-minute single guitar improvisation. A Certain Strangeness .
This piece put a certain approach in my in my head and pointed me in the direction of eleven more tracks. These pieces which vary from minimalist approaches to African influenced dance pieces and are what I consider the sonic parallels to the photography.