North Found is my new music album released 1st January 2024 for worldwide streaming.

The national lockdowns during the global pandemic of 2020 provided isolation and time for many of us to return to hobbies and interests. Exploring the potential of digital recording, multitracking, and using digital effects renewed my interest in returning to the trombone and piano which had not played for many years. Finding original scores that span decades going back as far as sketches written in 1976 while was at secondary school.

The album recorded between 2020 and 2023 is divided into two halves; solo piano pieces (Nocturnes) and chambre music ensembles comprised of trombone, keyboard, and vocal parts. The album embraces a wide variety of neo classical styles including references to Elgar, Bartok, Schoenberg, and Chopin mixed together in sonic soup.

My music that could only be found in a place like Yorkshire where the landscape can be bleak and unforgiving. The post industrial cities lack opportunity and poverty is ingrained in the mindset of the general populus. I write, perform, and record music at home with readily available instrumentation out of necessity.

Music is traditional in character having the hallmark of occupying the late 20^th Century. The clashing tonalities and haunting harmonies; joy and despair offered in equal measure. Like a piece of steel forged from coal that remained in the earth millions of years before the technology was available to ignite the industrial age. North Found has been sculptured from childish fragments shaped by the wisdom and experience of old hands.

I am not a virtuoso performer, having studied trombone and piano at school and later self taught myself fretboard skills. My homemade studio is nothing more than a spare room and a computer, despite the economic limitations high quality digital recording can be made.

I studied electronic music production at Keele University 1980 used this to exploit my limited performance skills with the instruments available. With digital recording and digital effects it I created rich dense atmospheric orchestral textures that would sit comfortably in any film thriller.

Vic Berry – 2023

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Additional album track notes

Breaking free from convention, enjoying experience and dabbling with chaos

A found duet’s magic is like a slight chill in the north air at the onset of winter.

A Nocturne created from a discovery left behind in a derelict house.

Unease, expectation and days slowing down