Glass Island (Reworked) Richard Luke

• Richard Luke:
• 1Last to Let Go (Daigo Hanada Rework)03:38
• 2Silent Story (Richard Luke Rework)02:49
• 3Décembre (Anna Pluto Rework)02:20
• 4Drift (Aisling Brouwer Rework)03:10
• 5Everything a Reason (Jakob Lindhagen Rework)03:28
• 6Breathe (Halftribe Rework)04:53
• Total Runtime20:18

Info for Glass Island (Reworked)

Glasgow-based composer and producer Richard Luke’s album Glass Island explores the tensions of living on an island in the wake of referendums on leaving the EU and Scottish independence. The songs, explains Luke, have “confidence and strength, but also a fragility and drama that makes them almost wistful and nostalgic.”

The album was written and recorded collaboratively with violinist Amira Bedrush-McDonald. The duo has created a collection of lushly arranged instrumentals, inspired by the epic sound of bands like Sigur Ros, Arcade Fire and Jon Hopkins. Luke’s stately piano and Bedrush-McDonald’s swooping strings drive the record, with the added weight of subtle synths, washes of warm electronics and the pitter-patter of programmed beats. The songs are at once tense and disquieting, but with an ever glowing optimism.

Luke and Bedrush-McDonald (along with Matheson) have created an album that is full of beauty, sweeping romanticism, experimental electronics and ambience. It’s never bombastic, but does have its own epic moments, it’s relaxed without being too laid back. In short, it is just a really impressive work that revels in composition with everything sounding in its rightful place. It is an album that will reward listeners with multiple listens.

Richard Luke, piano
Amira Bedrush-McDonald, violin

Richard Luke
The Glasgow-based, multi-instrumentalist Richard Luke writes ‘sentimental strung vignettes that speak to those baroque places of the heart that spark memory & future inspirations alike’ (Impose Magazine). Luke released the 23-minute LP, Voz on 23 February 2018 via 1631 Recordings. Co-written and performed with violinist Amira Bedrush-McDonald it received praise from Exclaim!, The 405, and Self-titled Magazine with the former calling it ‘the kind of rainy day, picturesque album that every new classical collection should include’.

Tracked mainly in a church in Glasgow’s West End, Luke’s sophomore release, Glass Island is a beautifully-realised record which builds on the minimal piano and violin by adding ambient synths, glitches and beats. Due out on 12 April 2019 through Canadian label Moderna, Glass Island explores the tensions of living on an island in the wake of referendums on leaving the EU and Scottish independence. The songs, explains Luke, have “confidence and strength, but also a fragility and drama”

This album contains no booklet.